Heaven and hell. These two concepts have been represented in a myriad of ways and there are many opinions on both—who gets in, if either of them really exist at all, what they’re like, what the Bible says about them, and the list goes on. I have no way of knowing the answer to any of these questions, but I’ve always been hesitant to accept the idea that there’s a place where God sends ‘bad’ people to be tortured for eternity. As a Lutheran, I believe that we are saved through grace—we don’t have to do anything to be saved; it is a free gift of God. Through this logic, there’s nothing separating me from anyone else on earth in God’s eyes. It doesn’t matter what we believe—we are all swept up in this crazy gift of grace.
I can’t see God turning people away, no matter what they’ve done. The whole point of Jesus dying on the cross was that through his sacrifice, our sins are washed away. As much as we would like to think that murderers and thieves and rapists will be damned for all eternity, the reality is that they are forgiven too. That’s so hard for me to wrap my mind around. ‘Really, God? You’re forgiving them?’ But then I am reminded that I too am forgiven, I too am saved by grace, and that God is the only one that has the authority to judge.
It would be so easy if there was some sort of hell so that we could reassure ourselves that all those people who have done horrible things will be condemned for all eternity. But then where do you draw the line? We’ve all made mistakes, messed up, caused harm to others. How do you decide which ‘sins’ are worthy of damnation and which ones aren’t so bad? Or do you simply condemn all sins? No. I can’t believe in a hell like that because I can’t believe in a God that would sit in judgment like that.
I suppose if I believe in any version of hell, it would be the notion of hell as separation from God. But I don’t think God sorts all of humanity into two groups where one group gets to go to heaven and hang out with God for eternity while the other group has to go sit in the corner. If anything, I think people are the ones who choose the separation—in other words ‘hell’ is self-inflicted. Because I believe in a God who loves to the point of heartbreak. There is nothing we can do that would make God turn her back on us and when we turn our backs on God, she is still there, waiting outside our window, because it’s hell for her too. God is like a grandmother who will show up every year on our birthday with a gift and a card; even when we refuse to speak to her, even when we refuse to see her, she will never stop telling us that she loves us. Because we are her family—dysfuntional and broken, yes, but never unloved.