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Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact,you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully around your hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation.
*C. S. Lewis. The Four Loves.
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Have you ever been at a point Love could not touch you, warm you, soften you, correct you, bend you - even hurt you? Likely not. If you had been there, for even one moment, and returned, you would likely never want to go back.
Have you ever met someone who could not tolerate Love? Maybe a while. Maybe tried to. Maybe said he or she wanted to. But simply, apparently, could not? I do not mean, "Would not?" - not practically. I mean had been so hurt, betrayed, beaten, lied to, shunned, scorned, or ..., he or she could not welcome, even timidly, Love.
One of the more tragic characters in Scripture is Judas Iscariot. Was he mean? Was he intentionally a scoundrel? Likely "No" to both questions.
Is it possible Judas never really opened his heart to the Love of Christ - to the Love of anyone -, for he could not - rather, his agenda was buying in to Jesus offering political liberation? Is it possible Judas mistook the Divine Love for his agenda - what he thought he, and others like him, could get out of Jesus? "Yes" to these questions.
But I have no idea what all led Judas to develop a character of thievery and betrayal, and I do not know fully why he was like that and you and I may not be. There is an equal mystery to both good and evil.
Life experience closes the heart of many; life experience opens the heart of many. Peter, though he denied Jesus, loved Jesus so much that his denying Christ led him to repent. He came to know, through the tragedy of denial and the grace of forgiveness, a deeper Love with Christ.
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Contrast Judas. He regretted betraying Jesus. Yet, he did not have the Love for Jesus, or the capacity to Love period, to find a way to redemption of his audacious act:
24And they prayed and said, "You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen 25to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place." 26And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.
*Acts 1.24-27 (ESV)
There is an irony in the above Scripture. Judas, once among others together in "space" shared, goes to "his own place." Own place, a place his, pictures the isolation C. S. Lewis speaks of above. Judas, unable to live in the Circle of Love, both with its pleasures and trials, cuts himself off from the context of Grace. He goes into a graceless place he can live as he - apparently - wanted to, ruling his own little realm.
However, in that kingdom, though one sits on a throne, she or he finds there is really no one present to rule or to love - another simply has no place in "my" place or "your" place - Could the Lord's Prayer be a Prayer about True Love? And could this be seen in that the Model Prayer has no reference to the one praying having any place other than "our" place?
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The hell of refusing Love is lovelessness. This is not a hell of crackling fire anticipated in an afterlife. Such a hell is not the hell of hate - though hate may be there. The damnation of refusing the offer of being Loved is to be left with oneself, in a place belonging all to oneself, and to know that the hell lived in is the damnation one chose against the Love to belong, to care and be cared for, to risk and be risked for, and even to be willing to give mortal life for another and to have another who would do the same - and, thus, know Heaven as a spiritual grace even now.
Succinctly, who lived in hell? Who paid the cost of refusing Divine Love? Judas betrayed Jesus, but Jesus rose from the grave to reunite with his Circle of Love, and to include you and me - indeed, all the world. Judas betrayed Jesus, and left to himself committed suicide in a field alone. Love may be hurt by lovelessness, but lovelessness is deadened by refusing Love.
Few among us know this hell permanently. Yet, we may know it briefly - such as when we are so hurt or angry that we close our hearts. Likely, even closing our hearts to one person, regardless of how we esteem him or her, gives us a taste of this hell. Thankfully, most of us discover quickly that is not the way we will to live. We, then, do what we must to open again to beauty, grace, and truth. We find a way, even if little by little, to open our heart, if not to be close to, to forgive the one who wronged us.
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I recall when I could no longer walk into a church sanctuary and trust even one person. That was in my mid-20s. I had been deeply hurt too much by the church early in life. Now, I am almost age 50. No longer do I feel the fear and distrust. Rather, I deeply love the church, and I can walk into a church of my former church denomination - wherein I was much hurt -, and love everyone present. It took many years to heal. Yet, when I returned to where I had been deeply wounded earlier in life, and I felt love for everyone there, I knew something wonderful. I knew Grace had delivered me from the damnable resentment and blame that had hovered over my inner wounds.
Yes, deep hurt can occur. But, like Peter, we can be in Love with Love so much as to heal to risk again. Or, like Judas, we can keep protecting our citadel of self, and we will find ourselves in our own place, and it is not a pretty or pleasant place.
So, what is one of the major arguments that there must be a hell of some nature. Well, just look around at the hell of those so caught in their woundish fears that they cannot open their place, their inner space, to risk a Love that is the only way to Life. Or recall a time you were lost to Love, so angry or resentful or unforgiving were you to someone.
Is there hope for such a heart to open again? Yes, except possibly in the rarest of persons who has so hardened the heart to make it callously irreparable. Why? Because I believe in the power of Grace. And I myself would never consider anyone beyond the hope of Grace.
Last, if you have been deeply hurt by Loving, that may be a great grace. I mean, healing from that to open your heart again or not letting that close your heart in the first place, might have allowed you to experience a Loving more Christlike. And that sure is better than living in our "own" place.
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*This writing ministry is the offering of Rev. Dr. Brian K. Wilcox, of SW Florida, a Pastor in the United Methodist Church, and Senior Chaplain for the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office. To contact Brian, write to barukhattah@embarqmail.com .
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