And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal
life. “For God so
loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him
may not perish but may have eternal life. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world
to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are
not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they
have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that
the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light
because their deeds were evil. For
all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their
deeds may not be exposed. But
those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen
that their deeds have been done in God.”
The
world, for John, was not exactly an amazing place. Throughout his gospel, John talks about how
the world is darkness without Jesus, that it’s ruler is wicked and needs to be
cast out, that the world does not know the Word of God, and that the world in
fact hates God. John really sets up God
and the World has brutal enemies… yet he also says “For God so loved the world
that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish
but have eternal life, Indeed God did not send the Son into the world to
condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through
Him.” So God, in God’s infinite mercy
and compassion, chooses to not demolish or condemn the world, which has been
actively acting against God, but instead sacrifices God’s only Son in order to
save the world from itself.
Could
we honestly say that we would do the same?
I doubt it. As mortals we tend to
be quick to condemn. Our law system
states that we are “innocent until proven guilty” but so often our judgments
are made far before the end of the trial, usually before it even begins, that
the person who is there is guilty, if not of what they are being tried for than
of something at least as bad as what they are accused. We love to badmouth our enemies, speaking ill
of them and wishing death upon them. How often have we heard each other say
things like “They should just carpet bomb the whole Middle East and be done
with it?” We live in a world where the best
way to unify people is to give them an enemy that they can hate and fight
together. Whether it is The X-Men and
Magneto fighting against Apocalypse or The United Stated and Russia fighting
against the Nazis, we are all easily united through hate and violence. It is far harder to unite people with love and
compassion, because we don’t want to share with the people that we don’t
like. Its just that simple. We live in a world that is full of
schadenfreude, the feeling of pleasure at other people’s pain.
Who
among us doesn’t want to be the greatest, doesn’t want to be the best at
something and hasn’t taken pleasure when someone else did not quite measure
up? All we need do to see this is look
at the early episodes of competition tv shows, when they show all the people
who have no place at all being in the competition. They are shown because we love to take
pleasure to watching other people suffer and to laugh at them in our delight,
because heaven forbid someone has a dream.
We have this emotion towards complete strangers, so it comes to no
surprise that when we see our enemies, whether they are really our enemies or
we just imagine them to be, that we would wish to condemn them, to have them
fall and suffer as well. One of the
hottest songs out there right now is Cee-Lo Green’s “Forget You” which is all
about a guy’s hatred of an ex-girlfriend.
You hurt me, well then forget you, you are a bane on the existence of
any man who would ever dare date you. Even
our joyful sounding songs are ones that show our disdain for our brothers and
sisters. And yet here we have God, who
looks upon this broken world which fights against Him and refuses to call Him
King, who makes itself God’s enemy, and God says, I love you and I am going to
sacrifice my only Son just for you.
And
before we imagine that God was looking at only non-Christians and said “I love
you all, even though you are my enemies” think about how we treat God’s name at
times. Each time that we show hatred for
others, every time we use God’s name for our personal benefit, every time that
we sin while carrying His name, do we not dishonor God and become His enemy?
This is not a phenomenon of just the crusades or the churches that aligned
themselves with Hitler, but it’s every one of us who look at another person and
say “You I cannot love, you are beneath me and you are what’s wrong with this
world.” We are called to be God’s hands
in this world, and we are the way in which people see God’s face and experience
God’s love. If we show hatred and
backbiting and vengeance, then people will see God as hating and cruel and
vengeful and we have defiled the name of God and caused others to scorn God’s
name as well. And yet God looks upon us,
his sinful, neglectful children and says “Yes, I know that you act against me,
even unwittingly, and you I still love as well.”
We still live in a world of darkness, in a
world that willingly defies God, ourselves included, and yet we still have God
desiring to be close to us, to show us the light of His grace and a way that
eases our burdens. Hating people and
carrying around anger creates a life that is filled with pain and sorrow. We weigh ourselves down when we lay upon our
backs all the memories of the ways people have wronged or slighted us, and it
gets to the point that all we can see is pain and suffering, where instead of
seeing hope we can begin to see only continual disappointment and
dissatisfaction. I know I have carried
around a lot of burdens in my life. I
was bullied all the way through high school, seen as that weird kid who would
sing in the hallways with the bad allergies.
I was easy prey for those bigger and stronger than me, and I became
anxious of social situations, wondering who was going to reject or hurt me
next. It was a terrible way to live and
I carried that pain for far too long, causing me to miss out on friendships and
relationships that I never thought were possible. It came to the point that we have to just let
things go, to see that the people who hurt us are also humans who are in need
of love and compassion as well, not some demonic force. Letting go of that pain is hard, and there
will always be some small memory that stays in our minds, but we need not be
haunted and controlled by those memories and experiences.
“For
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes
in him may not perish but may have eternal life. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the
world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through
him. Neither are we called to condemn,
instead we are called to bring healing to this broken world, the healing that
forgiveness and sacrifice brings. Here
is my challenge to all of us this week, including myself – Think of one person
whom you have carried a grudge against or someone who has a grudge against
you. It could be a friend, a family
member, a co-worker, a kid from school, anyone.
Honestly pray for them, not that they will change or that they will be
stricken dead by God, but pray for them that they may be healthy and filled
with joy in their lives. Then get a hold
of them and invite them to something. It
could be dinner, or a party, or a walk in the park, whatever. They might turn
you down or even curse at you for daring speak to them, but still invite them
to conversation, to a time of getting to know one another better and to set
aside all the hurt and the pain and to move on with your lives. It might mean that it is best that you two
don’t speak ever again, especially in an abusive relationship, but there can
still be forgiveness and a letting go in that as well. God created this world and sacrificed much in
order to bring healing to it. God has
blessed each and every one of us in our lives and given us great opportunity to
enjoy all that He has done. Let us not
spend our days being weighed down by the hurts of this world and the grudges
that we carry upon our backs, but instead let us rejoice in the day that the
Lord has made and let us rejoice in the forgiveness that God has given us and
share it with our brothers and sisters throughout this world. We don’t need to sacrifice our sons and
daughters in order to do it either, all we need do is sacrifice our grudges, give
them over to God and rise up in His love and compassion. When we do, I promise you that we will be
filled with new life and our lives will be changed for the better, for we shall
finally see and feel the saving grace of our God.
Amen
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