I’m sitting in my office right now with a warm cup of coffee and I’m cold! This morning when I got in the car my car’s thermometer read 6 degrees (that’s Fahrenheit for those who may question). Now, I’m in my office, the heater is running, but my hands are freezing! I know it may come as a bit of a surprise to many of you, but this Florida Boy doesn’t really care for the cold!
I know, I know, I should quit my whining! But seriously, if I had to describe my idea of hell – it would be freezing not hot! That’s quite a different visual for most people. We’ve been conditioned to think of hell as a place eternally on fire. Like the sunburn that won’t stop. Not me man! Hell’s cold! The picture above may be cool (in fact it’s one of my favorites of me – mainly because you can’t see my face) but as serene as it is – I hated being out there!
I took another picture that day too, it’s of the light post outside my backdoor. When I saw it I thought of Narnia and the books that C.S. Lewis wrote. In the first book, or movie, Narnia has been cast into a never-ending winter. It’s a time when everything is dead and the only thing that can revive the land is the arrival of Aslan and those four brats from Great Britain. I love the book and the story of Narnia and Aslan.
I don’t think it’s coincidence that Lewis used winter to represent despair and death. In a lot of ways, winter for the Narnians was Hell! Hell had crept up into the lives of all those who lived there and was reeking havoc – it was ruling supreme. Sounds very similar to the world we live in today.?! So many Christians are worried about Hell as a final destination, and that’s valid but I think it’s not complete.
Just like in Narnia, many people live their lives in the absolute grips of hell on earth. The Bible speaks of hell being a “for real” place both in the present and in the future.
The Kingdom of God, that Jesus lived preached and announced, was a direct confrontation to the Hell of today. His victory over death and the grave was a direct confrontation of the hell that is yet to come. Those who followed Jesus lived in the same manner. For Followers of Jesus, past and present, today is about confronting the hell that has invaded God’s creation. But Followers also think of tomorrow and trusting that the hell that is beyond has been defeated.
In Narnia, it took the arrival of Aslan for winter to be defeated. It would come again but it wouldn’t last. Our Winter will be over – it will get warmer and life will spring anew. As followers of Jesus we have the hope that the winter will ultimately be conquered – the hell that so many live can be overcome. We have this hope because in Jesus we’ve seen the victory and even heard a lion roar!