John 3:14-21Jesus said to Nicodemus, "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."
“I came to understand that God hadn’t lost me, even if I seemed for years to have misplaced God.” The writer Kathleen Norris’s words certainly ring true for me and apparently the writer of John’s gospel knew something of this as well. “The light has come into the world and people love darkness rather than light…” No wonder so many of us talk about our “dark nights,” our times of gloom and sense of being abandoned by God. Although God’s eternal light is here present, it seems we choose darkness instead.
ReplyDeletePerhaps that is because light exposes our unbelief and our unbelief is revealed in all the ways we turn our backs on God. If you are anything like me, the ways are legion! (In orthodox Christian language we call this sin.) No wonder we stay in the dark. Who wants their sin to be exposed? The thing is, the only way we can stand before God is naked. It’s been that way ever since the garden when Adam and Eve exercised their will and turned away from God then full of shame they blamed each other and a snake and hid in the shadows of fig leaves. Oh how they wished their deeds were not exposed! Oh how naked we are in the presence of God’s Light.
This would be very bad news except that “God did not send the Son (the Light of Christ) into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” So, the humiliating exposure is not to kill us but rather to cure us; cure us in every sense of the word. Aid, heal, preserve, redress, restore and renew. This is the work of the Light of Christ, the new and eternal fire we will soon light at The Great Vigil of Easter. All that we do we do in God. Nothing is hidden from the Light of Christ. So we might as well swallow our pride (God already knows our sin so what do we care about the judgment of other people), amend our ways and walk in the Light of Christ.
Thanks be to God!