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It wasn’t easy being a Christian in the early Church’s first three centuries. It was an underground movement that was quite costly. The early Christians had found Truth in Christ Jesus, were filled with joy and shared in a rich common life centered in the Eucharist, and were working out their salvation with fear and trembling because they understood the proper fear they were to have of God, trembling in their souls when they offended Him and hurt each other, and at the same time having the human fear and trembling of heart as persecution was assured and martyrdom common for their obedience to Christ their King above all earthly rulers.

They also hungered for the reality of heaven, and feared the reality of hell. They took Jesus at His word that there was a heaven and a hell, and that both held the prospect of being the Christian’s final abode depending on how he lived, and what sins he failed to confess.

The Gospel today was recorded by St. Matthew as an inspired writer of the Gospel. He included in his account of the life and teachings of Jesus (as did St. Mark and St. Luke) the words of Jesus about what the cost of discipleship was.

In shocking and graphic terms, Jesus says that He sends His Apostles and disciples out “as sheep in the midst of wolves,” and tells them that they were to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves”— meaning that they were to be wise as to what following Him will cost, and that they are to maintain an innocency of life — living holy and righteous lives, and putting their trust and confidence in Him beyond this life for all eternity.

They are to trust the Holy Spirit for what they are to do and say, and not to be anxious when they are delivered up, flogged, and dragged before the authorities. He speaks about family disintegration, accusation, and betrayals, and even children rising against parents and having them put to death. This did happen, and what the early Christians suffered is nearly unspeakable. Jesus however, challenged them with the words, “But he who endures to the end will be saved,” and then made the statement that I offered at the beginning of this sermon, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul (those who will persecute, betray, arrest, and murder the Christians); but rather fear him who can destroy soul and body in hell.” He is speaking of God. Men can kill other men’s bodies, but they cannot kill men’s souls, but God can kill both. And quickly I will say that that is not His desire or will, for as St. Paul states in his first letter to Timothy, God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2:4), and of course it is so clearly stated in the most oft-quoted verse of the Bible, John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, to the end that all that believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

We as first-world twenty-first century Christians are in such a different place and mindset than the early Christians, aren’t we? Firstly, it is highly unlikely that any one of us will be a martyr. We live in a time and place where freedom of religious faith and practice is our fare. In other countries where radical Islam is strong, this is not the case, and increasingly Christians are tortured, disappear, and are killed. One doesn’t read about this in the newspapers or hear it on the major stations, but it is going on. Touchstone Magazine has within each of its monthly issues a section called “The Suffering Church” in which are documented instances of what is horrifically happening to Christians in many parts of the world.

Not being faced with such a cost for the faith makes us soft and dulls our witness to the Lord. We get upset when the church temperature is too hot or cold, when the sermon is too long, and when the liturgy is not what we want it to be. We are critical and suspicious of each others’ motives in the absence of life and death issues. So often, we are not brightly burning lamps for Christ full of the oil of the Holy Spirit, but more like dimly burning wicks. We must remember that in the Book of Revelation, Jesus condemned the Church in Laodicea because they were “lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot” (3:16). Jesus said to them, “I will spew you out of my mouth!”

As first-world twenty-first century Christians, we are not concerned as we spiritually should be about heaven and hell. If I have been listening correctly to people during my life as a priest and as a bishop, I would conclude that many Christians assume that they will go to heaven, and that just about everyone will, and that hell is not a place or state worthy of much concern, if it exists at all! Neither position is supported by scripture or the teachings of the Church Catholic and Apostolic. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount speaks five times about hell, and as Peter Kreeft writes, “If there is no Hell, or even if there are only a tiny few in it so there is very little practical danger for ordinary people, then Jesus is scaring us just for the Hell of it, and is a bad teacher, not a good one” (Every Thing You Ever Wanted to Know About Heaven But Never Dreamed of Asking, p. 217).

This past week I searched through the 1928 Book of Common Prayer and found two references to hell outside of the “He descended into hell” of the Apostles’ Creed. Yes, just two – in the Gospel readings for two different Sundays. No mention of hell in the Catechism, or in prayers for spiritual awareness and discernment. The theoretical “Magisterium” for Anglicanism avoids hell.

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church (which you know was the focal point for this past academic year’s Adult Forum, there are five lengthy paragraphs on hell, and words are not minced about its reality. For example, in Paragraph 1861 is stated: “Mortal sin is a radical possibility of human freedom, as is love itself. It results in the loss of charity and the privation of sanctifying grace, that is, of the state of grace. If it is not redeemed by repentance and God’s forgiveness, it causes exclusion from Christ’s kingdom and the eternal death of hell, for our freedom has the power to make choices for ever, with no turning back. However, although we can judge that an act is in itself a grave offense, we must entrust judgment of persons to the justice and mercy of God.”

Last Sunday I challenged you to reclaim the faith and practice of the Apostles possessing a sense of urgency to witness to and minister to others in the Name of Christ, and to be dependent upon His grace and provisions in life. Today, I challenge you to pray fervently for those whose lives are in peril as Christians, and for you to be willing to face persecution and hardship for Christ if you are faced with such things, and for you to cast off the spell which began in the Enlightenment which scoffs at, denies, or doesn’t want to deal with the reality of hell.

A Christian who insulates himself from the cost of discipleship and the consequence of failed discipleship is not living the Christian life. He may be keeping the form of religion, but denying its substance.

Let us humble ourselves before the Lord for what He has done for us, what He gives to us, His Body and Blood, in the Mass, what others have done for us because of what they did for Him, and being fully alive with both a fear of God and the sure knowledge of His love and mercy.

+In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.