Go to hell!

00:00:00 Has anyone ever told you to go to hell? I mean, it’s not a very pleasant thing to happen, but if someone did happen to tell you to go to hell, you probably shouldn’t be too shocked or indeed too upset by it. Because in the Bible, the word that we usually translate as hell is actually a particular place. It’s got nothing at all to do with some crazy dude wearing red spandex with a horns and a tail. It’s actually a valley to the south and west of the city of Jerusalem, a place called Gehenna, which comes from the Hebrew word GA Hinnom. The valley of Hinnom, the Valley of Wailing. Much later in its history, it was used as a garbage dump. But the first reference that we have to that use as a garbage dump isn’t until the 13th century A.D. so at the time of Jesus, it may or probably wasn’t a garbage dump may have been, but probably wasn’t because there’s no references to it till more than a thousand years later. But at the time of Jesus, this place already had a very dark history.

00:01:21 This valley was used by the ancient kings of Israel to sacrifice children to other gods as burnt offerings, so they would force these poor children to go through fire as a way of trying to placate the worship of these foreign other gods. The fires became a symbol for all that was wrong with Israel, for all that was wrong with the political system, the fires began to be the sign of of what God would eventually do to bring about justice, to change that situation and that experience of injustice that so many people had experienced. Now, that valley just outside of Jerusalem has been transformed into a beautiful park. So someone tells you to go to hell, you can say, well, at this time of the year, hell looks pretty good. And in fact, it’s a lovely place for a picnic. But Jesus uses this image of Gehenna as this place where we don’t want to go. He’s setting up these stark contrasts today, in fact, in the gospel of Mark. There are only three times that Jesus uses this word Gehenna, and all of them occur in our gospel today.

00:02:44 Jesus wants us to realise that there are there are these things. There are these situations and circumstances where we have to face the fact that we need to make a choice, the choice to accept, the choice to embrace, the choice to be changed and transformed, not by all of those experiences of being first or being the most important, of being the most significant, of saying you are one of us or you’re not. Jesus recognises that even those who are not one of his inner circle, who are not one of his chosen followers, if they’re doing things that proclaim love, that proclaim justice, that proclaim freedom, that they’re working for the kingdom. They’re working to come alongside the throne and the Kingdom of God. Jesus is inviting us to find that freedom, to find that life and to experience that power that only God is able to offer to us. Let’s indeed be people of the Kingdom, people that embrace the way of love and the continue to walk in this way that finds life and recognise that whenever we do things that lead us away from that path of life, the path of goodness, it is better to tear that part away, to pluck it out, to burn it, to destroy it.

00:04:10 Because if it doesn’t lead us into the way of the gospel, if it doesn’t lead us into a greater experience of love and freedom, it’s not from God, and it will only lead us into a place of destruction, a place of horror, a place that is not of the way of God. Let’s choose today to walk in the way of freedom. Let’s choose today to walk in the way of love and embrace the call to live simply for the power and the glory of God, calling us into freedom and into life.