What a fun question! But what an odd question in the season of Advent...as we await the cuddly baby Jesus' birth, the swaddling, the cooing, the adoring, the sweet baby smell. It's enough to give this 28 year old gal Baby Fever. Who on earth would spoil the mood by reminding us that this wittle baby Jesus will one day vanquish hell?! Oh, that's right, me. :)
The shadow of the cross is cast over the manger, as much as we'd like to pretend we don't see it. But this means good news for us! My Confirmation students picked up on this Good News and echoed in their sermon notes--As on 8th grade girl put it, "Even if something is a living hell on earth, that doesn't stop God from going there. He goes there more than the good places on earth. Nothing stops God in Jesus from loving you!" Amen.
Here's the sermon for your perusal:
"Nothing Stops Jesus"
A sermon on Romans 8:35-39
My friends have a dog, and this dog loves to run. Brandy had a habit of running away. She didn’t mean to run away. She would just start running. And she would run and run and never realize how far she’d gone until she was far from home. A few times the family ended up driving around town calling the dog’s name until they would find her at a nearby park or playing with someone else’s kids in a front yard.
My friends decided that they could not risk losing Brandy for good, so they got a fence. It was an electric fence. Have you seen these before? The way the work is that you bury a wire in the ground at the border of your yard. Then your dog wears a collar that has a special sensor in it. And when the dog crosses over the boundary, a small shock reminds him to stay inside the electric fence.
It took Brandy a while to get used to the electric fence. For a few days you could watch from a window as she tested out the boundaries. At first she would run until the shock stopped her in her tracks. Then, after she caught on to what was going on, you could see her moving more slowly, trying to figure out just how far she could go.
We all have boundaries in our lives. Boundaries like Brandy’s electric fence are usually there to keep us safe. Inside the fence we are protected, if we go outside of this fence, we are open to more danger.
Can you think of boundaries that keep you safe? How about your curfew, if you are a young person who has one. It might seem like something like a curfew is just a hassle. Your parents made it up to ruin your life and keep you from having fun.
But why do you suppose your parents chose a time for you to be home at the end of the day? Your curfew exists so that you don’t get into a dangerous situation late at night. It puts a boundary around the time that is safe for a young person to be out and about.
Other boundaries that keep us safe are the age limit for driving a car or drinking alcohol. The idea behind these boundaries is that a person is able to make more clear decisions as we get older. The lock on your front door is a boundary to keep out anyone who might do your family harm. The guard rails along a bridge keep your car safely driving on the pavement instead of flying off the edge into the water below.
Human beings, all of us, need boundaries. Inside the boundaries, life can thrive and grow. Outside of the boundaries, we are at greater risk.
But, allow me to make things confusing. Follow me here, as I make this move. We’ve agreed that boundaries can be good and are typically meant for our safety and protection. BUT, boundaries can be bad too.
Are you with me? Boundaries can be good for us. But sometimes boundaries can be bad.
Here’s what I mean. Sometimes we put up walls, or even invisible fences, in our lives that keep us from loving and serving our neighbors. God has created us, forgiven our sins, and sets us free to bring God’s love to others. And we tend to create boundaries that keep us from doing this.
For example, I once visited a town called Logan in West Virginia. This was a while ago, so I don’t know if things are exactly the same there. I hope they’ve changed for the better. But when I visited, there was a train track running right through the middle of Logan. Logan used to be a busy and happy town. Coal mining was the business, and there was lots of coal to be mined. Family’s were doing well, food was on the tables, and even though coal mining was a dangerous and difficult job, things were pretty good. After a while, though, the coal started to become more difficult to get to. There was less of it available to be mined. Less coal meant less jobs. Men were out of work, and families had little money for food, clothing, bills. Times became tough. And they were still tough when I visited just ten years ago.
Remember those train tracks I mentioned? Life is especially tough on the west side of the tracks. Every house in town needs some repair, but the ones on the wrong side of the tracks were falling down. If you saw them, you would swear they were abandoned. You would think there’s no way anyone could be living in them. Then you’d see a group of kids rush out a front door, or a light turn on. It is hard to believe it, but these run-down shacks are people’s homes. Right here in our country.
Anyway, the tracks in Logan form a boundary. If you live on the good side of the tracks, you do not go to the other side. This is what I learned on my trip to this town. The train tracks form a physical line, but along that same line runs a boundary that is made out of fear, and pride, and ignorance...but mostly fear.
The people on both sides of those train tracks need God’s love. And God does love the people on both sides of the boundary. The people on one side have things, like food, water, shelter, a listening ear, that the people on the other side need. The people on that side have other things, a different perspective, skills for work, a story to tell, that the others need just as much. A boundary keeps them from sharing with each other. This boundary keeps them from showing God’s love.
The people on the right side might say that the wrong side is hell on earth. There are drugs, violence, disease, poverty, kids running in the streets with no parents, dirtiness, dinginess, and decay.
I would say it is hell on earth too. It seems like the last place a person would find God.
Then again, a cross seems like the last place to find God. A cross, the exact location of violence, torture, evil. A cross that gives off the scent of death and attracts flies that circle around it. The cross is hell on earth. And Jesus goes there.
Jesus ignores every boundary. Jesus ignores the bad boundaries that keep us from loving others. He goes to the wrong side of the tracks every time, touching the unclean, healing those in need, eating dinner in the run-down shacks of Logan, West Virginia and the world. He doesn’t worry about washing his hands. He doesn’t hold his nose or keep his distance. Nothing can stop Jesus from loving others. And these harmful boundaries shouldn’t stop us from loving others either.
Jesus ignores the bad boundaries, and Jesus also ignores the good boundaries too. Jesus crosses the boundaries that keep us safe, and he goes to truly dangerous places to save us. Dangerous, deadly place...like the cross. Jesus died on the cross, and as we say in the Apostle’s Creed he descended into hell, or he descended to the dead. God died and went to hell. This breaks every boundary, every single harmful and helpful boundary.
The cross proves to us that there is no place that is outside of God’s reach, there is no place that God is not present, there is no place that God will not go to show love to the world, to show love to you.
So, when you look at the world around you, when you look at your own life, and think “there is no way that God can be in the middle of this mess,” picture the cross in that place, and remember that Jesus is most certainly there. Nothing stops Jesus from loving you. Amen.
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