This is a talk I gave at our church four years ago.  I'm sharing it because some people recently told me they remembered it and found it helpful.

Like over 500 million people worldwide, I have a profile on Facebook.  I don’t post much; in fact, I don’t think I’ve posted any updates for more than three weeks.  I do, however, use it to keep track of what my friends and acquaintances are doing, and it has been very useful to that end.  From reading Facebook, I found out that three people I knew from high school got divorced in the past year, my college roommate had twins, another college friend got married to a guy and robbed at gunpoint on a bus in Mexico all within a week, and a guy who lived across the hall from me in the dorm wants to join the Army Rangers.  I have never picked up an issue of the National Enquirer or been much interested in celebrity gossip, mainly because the lives of my friends are so much more interesting!

This past summer, a Facebook update came up on my news feed.  It was from Matt, a guy I knew in high school, a classmate of my brother’s.  His five-year old daughter Juliette was feeling sick and they were going in to see a doctor that weekend.  Juliette had been feeling weak and suffering from dizzy spells, so they thought it was some kind of ear infection and were asking for prayers.  As a kid, I suffered from extremely painful ear infections all the time, so I felt sympathy for the little girl and put her on my prayer list.  To be honest, though, I didn’t think of her situation except for the times that I’d glance at my prayer list.

Then, a few days later, I was checking my Facebook news feed again, and a message came up from Matt.  It said something to the effect of “Back from the hospital…diagnosis is the worst thing possible.”  As he continued to post updates, I began to pray much harder and more often for Juliette…and I learned about something called DIPG.  Juliette’s diagnosis was a Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma, a kind of malignant tumor that grows in the brain.  As I scanned the internet for information, I discovered that indeed, this was the worst thing possible.  This type of tumor grows in the brain stem, which controls many vital functions such as heartbeat and blood pressure.  Surgery is not an option, as the tumor is intertwined with neurons and brain tissue, and cutting into this part of the brain would almost certainly result in permanent damage or death.  As the tumor grows, it interferes with these vital and sensitive parts of the brain.  It is fatal in all cases.

Needless to say, Juliette immediately moved to the top of my prayer list.  Whenever I’d have an urgent need that would compel me to pray—lost keys, traveling mercies, inspiration for youth Sabbath School or Kids’ Church—I’d also remember Juliette.  Surely if God could help me with mundane concerns like finding my wallet or traveling the 91 freeway to La Sierra, he could help a five-year-old girl whose parents loved her very much.  For the last few months, I’ve been praying, sometimes a dozen or more times a day.  God, remember Juliette.  Creator, redeemer, healer, heal your daughter.  Please, God, if you can do this little thing for me, work something huge for this family.  Save this girl.  Please, God, remember Juliette.

The Facebook updates kept coming.  Juliette went in for specialized treatment at a children’s hospital.  Matt stopped working to care for Juliette full-time.  The local SDA church put up a website and began collecting donations for the family.  A Facebook page went up devoted to news updates, and over 1000 people signed up on it.  People wrote in with messages of support.  I’m praying for you.  Praying for a miracle.  Keep the faith—God is able.  Even though the diagnosis was grave and the situation desperate, it was pretty awesome to see a community of faith spring up around this family.  Incredibly, some of those encouraging messages came from the family themselves.  God, give us strength and faith to get through this.  God is able.  Praise God for the time we have together.  We prayed, we hoped, we believed that a miracle was coming.

A few days before Thanksgiving, an update came up on my news feed.  Juliette was not doing well.  Her blood pressure was very low, and the nurses couldn’t find a pulse.  The encouraging messages and prayers flooded in.  God, remember Juliette.  Heal your daughter.  Please.

I woke up the day after Thanksgiving.  Still full from the 50,000 calories I consumed the day before, I shuffled over to my desk and logged into the computer.  Stories of Black Friday insanity topped my internet home page, and I shook my head at the people who waited in line outside of Best Buy in freezing cold weather.  Then, as always, I logged onto Facebook to check out the news from my friends.  There on the newsfeed, I read from Matt:  Juliette was gone.

I sat there in silence for what seemed like a long time.  What do you do after such news?  I had prayed—we had prayed.  We had believed in a miracle.  But it was not to be.  What happened, God?  The wrongness, the perversity, of a five-year-old girl dying the night of Thanksgiving—it was almost overwhelming.  I suppose I should have prayed then and there for the family, those who were left behind.  Honestly, though, I came to God with more questions than prayers.  Questions to which I almost believed I’d get answers.  But there was only silence.

The last few times I’ve spoken for this church, I’ve been looking at the different Sabbaths in the Bible and sharing what each one means to me.  Creation Sabbath reminds us that God created us in love, and invites us to participate in creation both by exercising our creative gifts and by caring for this world, this environment that God created.  The Sabbath in Deuteronomy proclaims God’s rescue and redemption of captives, challenging us to free those in bondage, to bring hope and dignity and liberty, to break all chains “for the slave is our brother, and in His name all oppression shall cease.”  As I sat there in silence, staring at that Facebook status update trying my best to will it not to be true, an answer came although it wasn’t an answer to any of the questions hanging in the air all around my study.  Not a voice, not a thought, not an idea.  Just a word.  Sabbath.  That Sabbath.

Dawn broke, spilling orange, red and pink light over the earth.  If one could become like the Greek god Hermes and ride in on one of those light beams, they would see on the earth a city, and in that city a garden, and in that garden…a tomb.  As I imagine the scene, all around the tomb, where normally there would be the sounds of birds chirping and maybe a gardener tending to the plants, there was instead the sound of sheer silence.  The sound had been pushed out by the unanswered questions hanging in the air.  Questions surrounding the one in the tomb.  Questions and unanswered prayers.

Unanswered prayers of a mother, sending up prayers for her son as he grew to manhood and became a famous preacher.  Unanswered prayers of his followers, at first questioning and then giving thanks that they had found the Promised One.  Unanswered prayers of the poor, the women, the diseased, the discarded, who had thought that maybe this was the King who would at last establish a kingdom of righteousness and justice.  Prayers for success, joy, and a happy, peaceful life.  But those prayers had all gone unanswered, because on this day, this Sabbath, the one that they had prayed for was lying in that tomb, lying cold and dead, not a Captain but a criminal.  Upon the wreckage of those hopes, dreams and prayers, however, something else was stirring.  God was afoot.

A question this morning:  What happened on that Sabbath?  What was the significance of that place, that event, that day?  I’ve heard many sermons talking about Friday, when Jesus laid down his life on the cross for our sins.  I’ve heard many other sermons focusing on Easter Sunday, when Jesus burst forth from the tomb in victory.  But I can’t think of a single time I’ve heard anyone speak on the day in between, that Passion Sabbath.

Many Christians believe that this was the day of the “harrowing of hell,” in which Jesus descended into hell and liberated souls from imprisonment there.  People who believe in this idea get support from a number of Bible texts, most notably the gospel of Matthew which states that after Jesus’s death on the cross, a number of people were raised from the dead and walked around in Jerusalem.  There are also a couple of references in 1 Peter which talk about Jesus preaching to the spirits in prison.  It is on the one hand kind of a cool idea—Jesus descending into hell as a prisoner and then breaking free to wreck havoc on the devil’s stronghold and freeing souls imprisoned there.  But it’s also a big problem for Seventh-day Adventists, since we don’t believe in a place called hell where souls are conscious!

Very quickly for anyone who is unfamiliar with Adventist beliefs:  Seventh-day Adventists don’t believe that people go immediately to heaven or hell after death; rather, the dead are in a sort of “sleep state” until the second coming of Christ.  At that point, the righteous are raised and taken to heaven, while the devil is confined to a desolate and abandoned earth.  At the final judgment, the devil and all those still in rebellion to God are cast into the lake of fire; however, this is not an eternally burning pit of fiery torment.  Rather, the lake of fire is the “second death,” the final separation from God and life, a sort of ultimate off switch into non-existence.  Ellen White, the most prominent writer in Adventist history, came from a background in which she was taught that the wicked went to a place of eternal torment.  Rather than motivating her to make sure she was on God’s side, this preaching sent her spiraling off into despair.  In her Testimonies to the Church, volume 1, she describes the preaching of her childhood in this way:

The frightful descriptions that I had heard of souls in perdition sank deep into my mind...the eye of God was upon us always; every sin was registered and would meet its just punishment. God Himself was keeping the books with the exactness of infinite wisdom, and every sin we committed was faithfully recorded against us.

Satan was represented as eager to seize upon his prey and bear us to the lowest depths of anguish,  there to exult over our sufferings in the horrors of an eternally burning hell, where, after the tortures of thousands upon thousands of years, the fiery billows would roll to the surface the writhing victims, who would shriek: "How long, O Lord, how long?" Then the answer would thunder down the abyss: "Through all eternity!" Again the molten waves would engulf the lost, carrying them down into the depths of an ever-restless sea of fire.

Personally, I am glad that Ellen White rejected this picture of eternal torment as contrary to the character of the God she encountered—a God of love, whose passion was to save sinners and love his enemies.  Even when God deals the final blow to sin and death, he still loves those who reject him.  Rather than casting his children, his beloved, into a pit of torment and agony, he gives them up to their choice; ultimately, the choice to separate themselves from God, from the giver and source of life and love.  The result of this separation is the “second death,” non-existence, oblivion.

So again, a question:  What happened on that Sabbath after the crucifixion?  On the cross, Jesus died for us, but he did not die a death like all of us experience.  He died the second death.  He made the choice to lay down his life, to separate himself from God, to experience that agony that caused him to cry out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  As I sat there in my study, struggling with the cruel, agonizing death of a beautiful five-year-old child, it dawned on me that the Adventist answer to that question “What happened on that Sabbath?” is, quite possibly, the most powerful statement of good news that we have to offer the world.

On that Sabbath, Jesus did indeed go into hell.  But if we are correct, hell is not a place, it is not a pit of churning magma where souls are burned and devils poke the wicked with spears.  Hell is the state of being permanently cut off from God.  It is the second death, ultimate separation.  Hell is the place where God is not.  But wait, and here’s where it gets good.  John 1:1  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  John 14:9 “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” Colossians 2:9 “For in Christ the fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority.” Jesus is fully and truly God, the fullness of deity dwelling bodily, the head of every ruler and authority.  Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in Jesus.  Jesus is God, Jesus went to hell, hell is where God is not, hell is ultimate separation from God, but in Jesus God went to hell. The place where God was not…God went there.  If God is where God was not…what is hell? Hell, the second death, ultimate separation, are completely neutered, they are rendered powerless and ineffective because of what happened on that Sabbath when Jesus was in the tomb.  When Jesus said, “If I be lifted up, I will draw all people unto me,” I think he meant much more than simply accepting Jesus’s death for our sins.  Jesus intended to break down the last barrier between us and God, the ultimate power of sin, the state of separation between God and humanity.  God went where he was not, God bridged the gap between us and God, and in doing so God broke the backs of sin and death.  When we by faith respond with all our hearts and souls to God, God’s presence is with us, and no longer can there be any separation. “No power of hell, no scheme of man—could ever pluck me from his hand!  Till he returns and calls me home, here in the power of Christ I stand.”

When Jesus lay in that tomb on Passion Sabbath, he gave an unshakable hope to all who have ever lost loved ones to death.  Because Jesus experienced the second death, because Jesus lay in that tomb, we know that even in death, our loved ones are not separated from God.  God is with them, God is holding them, God is keeping them safe as they sleep, waiting for God to wake them up and take them home.  It is still right for us to grieve.  We grieve because we are separated from them, we love them and miss them.  My heart is heavy today because my friend has been separated from his little girl.  But although Juliette is separated from her family for now, she will never, she can never be separated from her Lord Jesus Christ.  He went before her into the grave, he slept and woke up, and as he was raised so she will be raised to life at the end.

This is the start of the Advent season, leading up to Christmas.  Christmas is a time of celebration, a time when we wish joy and peace to all people of goodwill.  It is a time for family and gifts.  But most importantly, this Advent season is a time when we remember that unto us a child is born, to us a son is given. A child called Jesus—Yahweh Saves, and Emmanuel, God With Us. His life showed us what we could be, his death on the cross showed his love for us, his resurrection demonstrated his victory over sin and death.  But what happened in between, on that Sabbath in the garden tomb, declared truly and forever God With Us.

For much of this past year, we focused on the book of Revelation.  Pastor Dean led us though this book which, when properly understood, is all about Jesus Christ, from first and last, beginning to end.  At the end of the book, Death and Hell are thrown into the lake of fire while the righteous reign with Christ.  I am grieving with many others today, grieving for a five-year-old girl named Juliette.  But we are not grieving like the heathens do, those who have no hope.  We are grieving, but we know our sorrow will turn to joy.  At the end of all things, we will see our loved ones, we will see Jesus, and then “the last enemy to be destroyed is Death.”  Matt will see Juliette again, and in the end—Juliette will outlive death!  Death and Hell will go into the lake of fire, while Juliette will go to be with her family, her friends, and her Savior.

Who will separate us from the love of Christ?  Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  Come on, now, church, who or what will separate us from the love of Christ?  Will depression, or a break-up, or our children getting sick?  Will the bad economy, or the loss of a job, or the loss of a house?  Will bombing the SAT or MCAT?  What about terrorist attacks, or drug dealers, or car accidents, or cancer?  My worst personal failures or your worst fears?  Will any of these separate us from the love of Christ?

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all of creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35-39)

Juliette’s memorial service was yesterday.  Once again on Facebook, I saw a message from her father Matt, posted a few hours before the service.  This is his message, copied and pasted directly from my Facebook account:

This is the day that the Lord has made!
I WILL rejoice and be glad in it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the day,
This is the day that the Lord has made!

Rejoice my friends for the Lord our God IS with us!

Happy Sabbath.  Joy to the World, the Lord is Come.  Let earth receive her King.