purgatory.
now, most of us at immersion have grown up in the protestant tradition of the christian faith.
therefore perhaps many of our knee jerk reactions were [are] to dismiss purgatory outright. not even consider it a viable option. of all the topics covered while we have been in hell this one is, perhaps, the most foreign. then again next week's topic [see sidebar] might be pretty new to people too.
back to the topic at hand: purgatory.
father hayes in his article "the purgatorial view" makes an excellent point that most christians [be they prot, cath or ortho] believe in some kind of interim period between when a person dies but before they reach their final, eternal destiny. what happened to the people who died before jesus came?
even the new testament writers seemed to communicate the idea that after we shuffle off this mortal coil we enter into a state of not-quite-thereness. paul calls it 'sleep' and mentions that those who are 'sleeping in the lord' will be the first to rise to meet christ in the sky and then the living faithful will join them afterwards.
sidenote: there are many people out there who think that this whole notion of flying corpses sounds more like clive barker than god. however, in the proper context, this idea of people meeting jesus in the sky makes perfect sense. in the ancient world when a king or diplomat for a king was approaching a city the people of that city would send out an envoy to meet them. it was a sign of honour and showed that they recognized the dignity of this person. so, when jesus-the King of kings-comes to earth would it not make sense in that culture that the people would come out to meet him? and he is not going to be riding on earth but coming from heaven so the natural conclusion is that we will meet him in the sky. now, minds today may scoff at this as ridiculous but let us be careful of being time-ists or too chronocentric and thinking that our point in time is superior to another point in time. they are communicating in ways that make sense and we reveal only our own ignorance and lack of understanding when we mock them. it is not paul or other people of that period that come off looking foolish, it is us.
once again, back to the topic at hand: purgatory.
so, many believe in an interim state between this time and the day of judgement. in fact, there is strong scriptural support for that position.
what about purgatory? well, that is different than the interim.
the idea of purgatory comes from wondering if god can still work on and with people during that interim state. thus, if you die short of attaining perfection in grace [which i think is a fate that we are all going to share in!] god keeps working on you in the interim until the day of judgement.
c.s. lewis explains it that if you show up at the gates of heaven and you are still covered in the filth of this world, wouldn't you want god to clean you up before you went into heaven...even if it hurt a little?
so, purgatory can be understood [somewhat tongue and cheek] as god turning the hose on you to wash all the guck of this world off before you enter his beautiful and pristine home.
make sense?
as father hayes puts it, his support of purgatory comes from a place of love for the many lost people in this world and for the massive amount of people who will die with unfinished business and for all of us who will die before fully realizing our christian identities.
he writes:
now, most of us at immersion have grown up in the protestant tradition of the christian faith.
therefore perhaps many of our knee jerk reactions were [are] to dismiss purgatory outright. not even consider it a viable option. of all the topics covered while we have been in hell this one is, perhaps, the most foreign. then again next week's topic [see sidebar] might be pretty new to people too.
back to the topic at hand: purgatory.
father hayes in his article "the purgatorial view" makes an excellent point that most christians [be they prot, cath or ortho] believe in some kind of interim period between when a person dies but before they reach their final, eternal destiny. what happened to the people who died before jesus came?
even the new testament writers seemed to communicate the idea that after we shuffle off this mortal coil we enter into a state of not-quite-thereness. paul calls it 'sleep' and mentions that those who are 'sleeping in the lord' will be the first to rise to meet christ in the sky and then the living faithful will join them afterwards.
sidenote: there are many people out there who think that this whole notion of flying corpses sounds more like clive barker than god. however, in the proper context, this idea of people meeting jesus in the sky makes perfect sense. in the ancient world when a king or diplomat for a king was approaching a city the people of that city would send out an envoy to meet them. it was a sign of honour and showed that they recognized the dignity of this person. so, when jesus-the King of kings-comes to earth would it not make sense in that culture that the people would come out to meet him? and he is not going to be riding on earth but coming from heaven so the natural conclusion is that we will meet him in the sky. now, minds today may scoff at this as ridiculous but let us be careful of being time-ists or too chronocentric and thinking that our point in time is superior to another point in time. they are communicating in ways that make sense and we reveal only our own ignorance and lack of understanding when we mock them. it is not paul or other people of that period that come off looking foolish, it is us.
once again, back to the topic at hand: purgatory.
so, many believe in an interim state between this time and the day of judgement. in fact, there is strong scriptural support for that position.
what about purgatory? well, that is different than the interim.
the idea of purgatory comes from wondering if god can still work on and with people during that interim state. thus, if you die short of attaining perfection in grace [which i think is a fate that we are all going to share in!] god keeps working on you in the interim until the day of judgement.
c.s. lewis explains it that if you show up at the gates of heaven and you are still covered in the filth of this world, wouldn't you want god to clean you up before you went into heaven...even if it hurt a little?
so, purgatory can be understood [somewhat tongue and cheek] as god turning the hose on you to wash all the guck of this world off before you enter his beautiful and pristine home.
make sense?
as father hayes puts it, his support of purgatory comes from a place of love for the many lost people in this world and for the massive amount of people who will die with unfinished business and for all of us who will die before fully realizing our christian identities.
he writes:
"As long as there was only heaven and hell, it was not suprising that hell would be heavily populated. But when the possibility of purification after death entered the scene, with it came the tendency to depopulate hell by placing many people in a sort of outer court of heaven until they were more fully prepared for entrance into the presence of God."
however, to caution against people using purgatory as an excuse for loose morality and thinking they can get away with anything in this life by simply making up for it in the next one, father hayes quotes augustine:
"[Augustine] argues that it is better to be cleansed in this life than the next, for the cleansing process in the next life will be far more severe than anything experienced in this life."
it is a tempting idea that there are more chances than just this life. clark pinnock writes that father hayes is the kind of priest protestants could learn from. his heart is good and his desire is for the lost and to see god as always capable of working with people. it is a wonderful idea and many at immersion last night were able to nod along to some of the different facets that purgatory teaches. even death cannot stop god's work in us.
the problem?
there is no scriptural support for the idea of purgatory. although a few places are quoted [notably: matthew 12:31-32 because it talks of the 'age to come'; and 1 corinthians 3:11-15 because paul talks about being purified in fire] but these are flimsy at best and open to many other interpretations.
also, what can god's 'hose' clean off that the death of christ could not? does god not see christ when he looks at us? are we not supposed to claim our eternal home in heaven as granted to us by christ and his death on the cross? many of us struggle with what that means but the simple fact seems to be that christ accomplished something so deep and profound on golgotha that there are no additions to be required. sadly, purgatory smacks of the ideology that paul dedicated so much of his life fighting against. we cannot add to jesus' sacrifice, we cannot do anything to bring about our own salvation. and to attempt that is to walk away from the grace of god and enter, once again, into the world of law and death.
it is tempting to think that there are chances for us [or, as we discovered last night, one of the driving principles behind our concern is for loved ones who do not know the lord] beyond this world. while there is no proof of purgatory and not even any good arguments for its existence it does teach us one very valuable thing: god works through us and with us to bring about our redemption.
god is always at work in us. that is clear. god is a god of grace and mercy. one of the threats about these kind of topics is that we can get bogged down in semantics which help no one [see the discussion between doug pagitt and todd friel on the video wall and you will see a philosophical discussion that did nothing to help our community understand the nature of hell better. it just made us all sad because neither man came off sounding good or willing to listen. however, it does sound like pagitt was blindsided] and communicate nothing of the grace that our lord put at the heart of his message.
true, jesus does talk about hell as a terrible place to avoid with every fiber of our being. but he showed people how beautiful the kingdom was with his healings and teachings on mercy and grace and even his parables were not designed to confuse but to invite people into the story of the kingdom. no, jesus was never about condemning the world but was all about saving the world. if we can remember that then we are better prepared to see hell for what it really is: a terrible place that is not part of the plan of god.
so...what is hell? we're still not sure. but the video at the end of this story shows us a pretty clear view of what hell on this earth looks like. but, more importantly, it also shows us the love of god on this planet as well.
see you next week.
however, to caution against people using purgatory as an excuse for loose morality and thinking they can get away with anything in this life by simply making up for it in the next one, father hayes quotes augustine:
"[Augustine] argues that it is better to be cleansed in this life than the next, for the cleansing process in the next life will be far more severe than anything experienced in this life."
it is a tempting idea that there are more chances than just this life. clark pinnock writes that father hayes is the kind of priest protestants could learn from. his heart is good and his desire is for the lost and to see god as always capable of working with people. it is a wonderful idea and many at immersion last night were able to nod along to some of the different facets that purgatory teaches. even death cannot stop god's work in us.
the problem?
there is no scriptural support for the idea of purgatory. although a few places are quoted [notably: matthew 12:31-32 because it talks of the 'age to come'; and 1 corinthians 3:11-15 because paul talks about being purified in fire] but these are flimsy at best and open to many other interpretations.
also, what can god's 'hose' clean off that the death of christ could not? does god not see christ when he looks at us? are we not supposed to claim our eternal home in heaven as granted to us by christ and his death on the cross? many of us struggle with what that means but the simple fact seems to be that christ accomplished something so deep and profound on golgotha that there are no additions to be required. sadly, purgatory smacks of the ideology that paul dedicated so much of his life fighting against. we cannot add to jesus' sacrifice, we cannot do anything to bring about our own salvation. and to attempt that is to walk away from the grace of god and enter, once again, into the world of law and death.
it is tempting to think that there are chances for us [or, as we discovered last night, one of the driving principles behind our concern is for loved ones who do not know the lord] beyond this world. while there is no proof of purgatory and not even any good arguments for its existence it does teach us one very valuable thing: god works through us and with us to bring about our redemption.
god is always at work in us. that is clear. god is a god of grace and mercy. one of the threats about these kind of topics is that we can get bogged down in semantics which help no one [see the discussion between doug pagitt and todd friel on the video wall and you will see a philosophical discussion that did nothing to help our community understand the nature of hell better. it just made us all sad because neither man came off sounding good or willing to listen. however, it does sound like pagitt was blindsided] and communicate nothing of the grace that our lord put at the heart of his message.
true, jesus does talk about hell as a terrible place to avoid with every fiber of our being. but he showed people how beautiful the kingdom was with his healings and teachings on mercy and grace and even his parables were not designed to confuse but to invite people into the story of the kingdom. no, jesus was never about condemning the world but was all about saving the world. if we can remember that then we are better prepared to see hell for what it really is: a terrible place that is not part of the plan of god.
so...what is hell? we're still not sure. but the video at the end of this story shows us a pretty clear view of what hell on this earth looks like. but, more importantly, it also shows us the love of god on this planet as well.
see you next week.
1 comment:
I'm sorry that I missed the other half-hour. That video clip was heart-wrenching and profound.
I must say, the metaphor of being hosed down by God is a good one. I think most people's problem with Purgatory is that it's consistently given the 'grey' status. It's for not quite sinners and not quite forgivens.
Now, I am very aware that I was the one sharing my fear about how black and white the damnation/salvation judgement seemed. Mostly because I am a moderate person, who enjoys the idea of a middle path to walk. I think people - perhaps us meek and moderate Canadians more than others - are comforted by the idea of that middle ground, that Purgatory, where they are given a chance to make up for what they've done.
But that now seems silly to me. If you die, the book is closed. I believe the only thing you have left to do once you pass through this life is choose to follow God, or to turn away from him. I think that judgement is all we have to face.
And if it's God, chuckling with a hose in His hand, I think I'll be able to grin and bear the cold water shower.
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