Lent 4

Lent 4 (John 3:14-21) “For God so loved the world…”

Jesus reveals that God is real, God is personal, God is love, God is Jesus Christ.

Sadly, the religion of Jesus’ day taught that God is a distant transcendent principle which governs the universe by certain rigid, inflexible laws. This God interacts with people through a series of angelic intermediaries who select certain human prophets to teach the law. The prophets then appoint teachers to instruct people in the law. The teachers create religious police to enforce the law, religious lawyers to interpret the law, and religious courts to judge who is or is not keeping the law.

The Judaism of Jesus’s day was divided into dozens of competing and conflicting sectarian forms. Each sect claimed that they and they alone knew the true interpretation of the law. Each sect sought to impose a rigid system of rewards and punishments.

Into this religious culture Jesus came with the announcement that He is the way, the truth and the life. Jesus’ best friend, John, summarizes the presence of Jesus in the words: for God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son, to the end that all who believe in him shall not perish but have eternal life; for, God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through hum might be saved.

This brief statement is unique. It can, if we are paying attention, revolutionize our understanding of God, each other and ourselves. God is not wrath. God did not give the Law to Moses to provide a way for people to gain God’s favor and avoid God’s wrath. The prophets did not teach that the Law is the basis for whether we earn heaven as a reward.

The law is about living well in the here and now.

Jesus is very clear. No one can keep the law. God’s favor, his grace, is unconditional.  St. Paul teaches that the law is holy and good. The purpose of the law is to restrain evil and convict us of our need for a savior.

The law is about the principle of choice God designed into the universe. The principle of choice has three aspects for human beings. Those three aspects are: self-responsibility, cause and effect, and justice. We make a choice. That choice enters into the world of cause and effect. The result of our choice is just insofar as it follows the pattern of the Law.

Most forms of religion attempt to form an institution to control God and other people. Certainly, this is why the religious authorities feared Jesus and hated Jesus. This is also why virtually all of those who followed Jesus never understood who he was and what he taught until after the resurrection.

Jesus is the personification of Divine Love. Jesus teaches that there is no way we can earn God’s favor. There is no way we can lose God’s favor. Jesus refocuses our attention through the structures of personal responsibility, cause and effect, and justice.

Jesus says: you never lost God’s love but you are lost.

Jesus said: there is no condemnation in God but you do condemn each other and yourselves.

Jesus says; I have come to remind you and yes to prove to you that God is with you, God is for you, God always and only ever loves you.

The problem is not God’s condemnation. There is no condemnation. The problem is the choice we made and continue to make to follow the way of separation. That choice enters into the world of cause and effect. The immediate results are the terrible distortions the Bible calls sin. The continuing consequence is conflict at all levels of society. The end is death.

The solution to separation is reunification in Jesus Christ. The pattern of the universe reveals that just as separation is a choice that produces a result so reunification in Christ is a choice that produces a result.

Once we make the choice to reunify with God the Father through God the Son we begin to experience the help of God the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit slowly and persistently and constantly reminds us of what he revealed to the people who wrote the many books of the Bible.

God is love. There is no condemnation in God. God offers us all blessings through Jesus Christ.

We see in the Biblical record how religious and political authorities tend to use religion to control people and to justify their own rule. Jesus never criticized religion. He did challenge the misuse of religion to bully and intimidate people.  He did caution people not to focus exclusively on the outward and visible forms of religion while ignoring the inward and spiritual grace God designed into religion.

Religion has a place in our lives. Religion holds much beauty, art, music and poetry. Religion can help form the community of faith that heals separation. Religion apart from Jesus Christ, apart from incarnate love, is not the solution.

One of my teachers once said: there is sufficient truth in all religion to provide a path to the truth. The truth is that “God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son, to the end that all who believe in him should not perish but have eternal life; for, God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but that world through him might be saved.”

The truth is Jesus Christ, the incarnation of infinite and eternal love.