Pastors frequently get asked, “is (insert name here) in heaven? I’m not sure if they are saved…they never went to church…they did a lot of rotten things,etc.” No, that is not a direct quote from anyone in particular, but those are, in effect, the very things we ponder the most. There is someone in everyone’s life who we wonder about, salvation-wise.

This blog is not an attempt to answer these questions, especially in the case of suicide. Catholics still consider this a mortal, unforgivable sin.

The season of Lent perhaps brings these musings more to the forefront. As we travel through the biography of Jesus, particularly his suffering, death and resurrection, our thoughts are often filled with terror and dread about eternity. How sad, how contrary to the resurrected joy we are promised in Christ Jesus! Yet our broken humanity, our sinful self, leaves us wondering about ourselves and the someones in our lives.

God is limitless. His love is boundless, incomprehensible to us. Is it anathema, heresy to submit that Adolf Hitler is in heaven? He is, after all, a baptized child of God. His belief in what he was to do with his faith was certainly warped and twisted, but…isn’t it limiting God to suggest that His love did not extend to Der Fuhrer?

Here’s what I DO know, and St. Paul attests to it in Romans 8: “neither life nor death shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.” It is correct, I believe, to assert that (insert departed saint’s name here) is with the Lord. In a deep, dream-like sleep. Dreaming dreams that are oh-so real. Waiting with great joy and expectation for the second coming of our Lord. Free from earthly pain and suffering. We believe in a God who “judges the quick and the dead”, but also the God described in John 3:17, who sent His Son into the world not to condemn it, but to save it.

Be at peace as we sojourn through Lent. Know without any shadow of doubt that God loves you unconditionally.

Pastor Art