I enjoy living in the California Bay area for a number of reasons. The weather, the beauty of the scenery, the changing ecosystems within miles of each other and the variety of ethnic food that is slowly adding to my fleshly burden.
So, when I have friends visit I enjoy giving them a view of where I live, but I love to ask them, “Have you ever been to the gates of hell?” It is a tongue in cheek question, but I truly mean it. When they say “no” I follow up with, well, it looks like it will be a great day to do just that.” Then I explain to them one of the incredible wonders that I have found located at the Art Museum at Stanford University.
Of course I play with it a little. I ask them what they think the gates of hell look like, or what they are expecting and when we arrive I take them immediately to the gates and have them contemplate for a few minutes.
The Gates of Hell is a sculpture created by Musee Rodin that depicts scenes from the Old Testament, contemporary cultural life and one person that really made me think (and this is not a pun). As you look at the sculpture you notice people in all sorts of circumstances being sucked into the gates with expressions of despair and hopelessness. But, sitting on top of the Gates of Hell is probably the best known sculpture of Rodin’s, The Thinker, who seems to be contemplating all that is taking place below.
It is amazing to me that a pagan could create such a masterful, visual and vivid picture of the predicament of mankind destined for a tormented eternity in hell. And to have The Thinker as the focal piece. Wow! There is something very humbling standing in front of this masterpiece. The weight of the world, the burden of the souls of man, the destiny of so many and the seriousness of the picture of man’s hopelessness and despair.
I enjoy visiting the Gates of Hell every now and then. It is a healthy reminder of the beauty of the certainty that I have as a child of God. I don’t have a thinker sitting above, I have the very Son of God, enthroned above, who has my soul in His safe and secure hands. He has snatched me from the Gates of Hell and will one day bring me to my inheritance prepared for me in heaven.
It is hard to imagine, but it is a certain truth that the Bible calls “our hope”. Let me encourage you to be the thinker for a few minutes today and contemplate man’s plight…
Filed under: Odd's & End's, Theology | Tagged: Hell, Rodin
