I write this mediation on hell on Easter Sunday. This would not normally be the time to think about hell. Easter Sunday is the most joyous day of the year. Today we celebrate Jesus Christ gaining victory over sin, death and hell. Because of the great sacrifice and resurrection by God Himself, we sinful human beings, deserving only of death, have now had the Gates of Heaven flung open to us. There is nothing we can do to merit this. It is a free gift given to us by a Loving God. All we need to do is admit our sinfulness and accept the Love of Jesus Christ and allow that Love to grow within us. We gave death to God, and He gives us Eternal Life. And it is Eternal Life filled with such complete happiness and joy that our mortal human minds cannot begin to comprehend it.
God dying for man? It is absurd to our human minds. In all of man's religions, human beings must constantly strive to please their god, and be happy for any crumbs that may fall their way. No pagan gods ever did anything to save those who worshipped them. On the contrary, the Christian God knows how incapable we are of ever doing anything on our own that would be remotely pleasing to Him. So He came to earth as one of us, lived in our miserable sinful world as one of the lowliest of the low, and then allowed us to crucify Him as a common criminal in payment for our sins. In human terms, God's Way makes no sense at all. But as we are told in Isaiah 55:8, God's ways are not our ways. God's Way is Love - ultimate, totally giving, unselfish love of which no human being of and by himself is capable.
