December 17th, 2013 Commentary to Henri Nouwen's Daily Meditation || Nicole Collins

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Tuesday December 17, 2013
A Second Death

Hell is a second death.  This is what the Book of Revelation says (Revelation 21:8).  Just as there is an eternal life, there is an eternal death.  Eternal life is a second life; eternal death is a second death.  Our first death can be a passage not only to eternal life but also to eternal death.

Looking at hell as a second death takes away the images of eternal suffering and torture that are so prevalent in medieval art and literature.  It defines hell more as the refusal to choose life than as a punishment for wrongdoing.  In fact, the sins that the Book of Revelation mentions as leading to eternal death are choices for death:  murdering, worshipping obscenities, sexual immorality, lying, and so on (see Revelation 21:8).  When we sow death we will reap death.  But when we sow life we will reap life.  It is we who do the sowing!

My Commentary:

Today’s Nouwen meditation is a dark one but one that can’t be spiritually swept under the rug as they say.  Hell is theologically ignored to be a metaphor to our ethical building…  I say however it is a definite reality and not one as our imagination has painted with flames and a pitchfork…  Hell is a reality of a Graceless wilderness.  This past Sunday the sermon I wrote in reflecting about our transactional worldly approach to God and Jesus radical transformational treatise to us to realize GRACE.  Realizing GRACE active in your life as a source is a transformational journey willingly lead and done by Faith.  Faith itself is a manifestation of GRACE. 

So if indeed we maybe slowly ebbing towards an apocalyptic revolution of some sort here upon the earth….  Could we say we are sowing death as Nouwen says by our intellectual idolatry and idolatry of the self?  I would say so, as shared in this past Sunday’s sermon around my friend’s experience.  From what I’ve heard about as well as experienced; Satan has a firm grasp spiritually around some of those in church leadership…  He was blatantly discriminated against on top of having bad things happen that day.  To be told after a light handshake… “Why are you with this Lutheran group?  Please explain your reasoning… Aren’t you aware we are in partnership with so and so.  You will not fit in here.” 

Christians persecuting other Christians whether it be discrimination as was in my friend’s experience or otherwise IS sowing death.  Helping Satan to discourage and condemn the Gospel of Christ Jesus from being sown in the hearts and minds of those eager to serve the Lord with their spiritual gifts is evil, period! 

Advent is a time of reflecting inwardly to realize and act upon that New Life planted within you by Christ Jesus.  We are on the advent of a new horizon—new Hope.  Celebrating the coming of Christ and awaiting His return is that Hope that empowers us to see, hear, feel GRACE embrace us to our discipleship calling!

Allowing yourself to live into Hopeful expectation tramples Satan underfoot…  As St. Paul says to his wayward Corinthians:

1 Corinthians 15:45-58

“⁴⁵Thus it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. ⁴⁶But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the physical, and then the spiritual. ⁴⁷The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. ⁴⁸As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. ⁴⁹Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven. ⁵⁰What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

⁵¹Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, ⁵²in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. ⁵³For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. ⁵⁴When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” ⁵⁵“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” ⁵⁶The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. ⁵⁷But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (AMEN!!!)

⁵⁸Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”

May God Bless Your Tuesdays!

Nicole Collins