For God so Loved the World
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”
Friends, peace be with you. Our gospel reading today is probably the most popularly known throughout the world: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Now, here’s the context: Jesus here, is still dialoguing with the Pharisee, Nicodemus, at night, and he tells Nicodemus very simply—the Father has sent me here to save the world. And why? Why? Because the Father loves the world. The Father doesn’t hate the world, he loves his creation and he will do what is necessary to set his creation right.
The Son of God has entered into our dysfunction, our brokenness, our sin, not to stand as a judge over it but by the fire of his love—he will redeem it. Now make no mistake—there is judgment. Jesus says it this way: “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does NOT believe is condemned already,” and why, “because he not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” Now, this judgment is not what people often think it is. God is not a Zeus. He is not in heaven waiting to hurl thunderbolts at you or me when we mess up. This was how the ancient Greeks thought of their many gods. They get angry. They are “up there” waiting for us “down here” to mess up their own deviant plans, so they can at best, belittle, or worse, annihilate their own.
Friends, this is not the way of the true God—Yahweh. You wanna know what God is like—look at Jesus. Jesus certainly wasn’t trying to manipulate others into his own ways. He wasn’t trying to seek out vengeance in order to prop himself up. That’s not the way of the God of heaven and earth. No, the true God loves and even in his judgment, he shows mercy. He allows us in our own wills and desires to choose the choices we make even to the degree that we might be aware—“wait, I shouldn’t have done that. I was wrong to do that.” Not all will be awakened to this sense of the law of right and wrong. Maybe most will not. But, some will.
Now. Here’s the turn. Why do people love the darkness? Another way of saying this is, why is sin so enticing? Well, in our fallenness, we desire the things in the world to have our desires met. And our desires are unruly. Let’s face it, when sin ‘crouches at the door,’ it’s hard to resist because our hearts want that ‘thing’ however that thing embodies itself, more badly than we want that which is pleasing to God. We have an insatiable desire within us that wants to feed our own egos, our pridefulness, and our own self-preservation. Desire. It’s incredibly powerful.
So, what do we do about it? That’s probably a false question. I would imagine there are some who may think, ‘man, we just need to try harder and do better.’ I’m not sure that’s the answer. This is why I love the season of Lent. It’s a season where we as believers really hone in, not by trying harder per se, but through God’s favor and strength, practicing those spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting, and giving. We need to cultivate within our own hearts, the disciplines that fuel us: reading the scriptures, praying to the Father, through the Son, and by the Holy Spirit. Getting back to the basics has become such a trite catchphrase but it’s still true. The basics of the disciplines like fasting from something and taking on something during the season of Lent will possibly create habits within us that train our spiritual muscles, so that our desire for sin becomes less of a tethered chain and more of a tethered rope. Awakened by the love that God has for us we will see that tethered rope as an untethered strand. It’s all by God’s grace.
And at the end of it all, we will be able to look back and say to ourselves, God did that. God did that. Thank you Lord Jesus for the strength you provide us to look to you and the cross and empty tomb that call within us the need to get back to the basics. Thank you, Father, for your great love for us and for all of your creation. Come Holy Spirit, come.
I am praying for all of you. Please pray for me.
Pax Christi,
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