- John 3:1-17 - read this passage online here »
When I pick the individual titles for a message series, I usually do so several weeks in advance. The overall theme for our journey through Lent and into Easter this year is “Being Christian: Jesus Calls, We Follow.” But when I looked again at this week’s title of “Love Is Certain,” I wondered if I should change it. The vicious way some leaders in some nations have recently treated their citizens, their people might wonder about the certainty of love – and so might we. The way Planet Earth has treated various areas of the world recently, such as Japan and that country’s inhabitants, they might also wonder about the certainty of love or even if they are loved – and so might we. But I decided to keep the title because I believe it is a true statement. Despite the worst evil that human beings may experience at the hands of other human beings, despite the most calamitous conditions we may experience in nature and despite the most difficult personal circumstances we may experience here and now, I still believe that love is certain.
If you have been following the disastrous situation in Japan, there are more than a few glimpses of love to be seen. There is the story of the “Fukushima 50” who are risking their lives to prevent a severe meltdown of the nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. While there are more than 50 personnel involved, they all know the possible deadly dangers to which their lives are exposed with the massively high radiation levels in the plant. And there are stories such as the following that I received this week in an email from a Japanese friend. The story’s author is a non-Japanese teacher of English as a second language in Sendai, which was hit the hardest by the earthquake and the resulting tsunami. Here is part of what she wrote:
How much does love cost? Or another way to put the question might be: What is the value of a human life? A writer for the New York Times wrote an article in the February 16, 2011, issue and talked about the fact that the United States government has been grappling with this particular question: what is the value of a human life? Or to be more precise, there are government agencies trying to find what is called “the statistical value of life.” The answer will influence how much American society (especially businesses) should spend to prevent a single death. In 2004, the United States government's Office of Management and Budget told agencies they should pick a number between $1 million and $10 million, although it also warned that any figure under $5 million would be too low. So, as of last month, the following agencies have offered their price tags on the worth of one human life:
I wonder what God thinks about these human calculations? Does God put a dollar value on our heads? Or how does God express that value? Rather than dollars and numbers, might our value to God be expressed in God’s love for us – and for all in this world? For those of us who grew up in the church, I hunch that one verse we all probably memorized was John 3:16. If this verse is new to you, it is one of the most significant passages of the Bible. Millions of followers of Jesus have loved John 3:16 for 2,000 years because it sets out the limitless dimensions of how God values – of how God loves -- the entire human world:
God is love. And by looking at the character of God in Jesus, we discover the nature of God’s love for the world. Jesus Christ and the salvation he offers have their origin in the will and action of God’s love. God loved and God specifically acted at a point in time -- God gave his only Son to the world for the world.
The intensity of the love of God, the agony of God’s love, is expressed in that little word “so” – “God so loved the world.” “So” means “how much.” The Message Bible says, “This is how much God loved the world: he gave his son, his one and only son.”
We are in Week 2 of Lent when we, as followers of Jesus, journey with him toward the inevitability of his suffering and death on the cross of Good Friday. And it was the intense love of God in Jesus that compelled Jesus to give his life for us so that we could experience God’s gracious forgiveness and accept his loving invitation to give our lives to him.
The breadth of God’s love embraces the whole world. On the night Jesus was arrested, just before he left the house for the Garden of Gethsemane, he prayed that the world would know God loved them. And the world – that includes the entire human race -- is no small place.
There are also other Scriptures in the New Testament that speak strongly about the dimensions of God’s love. Listen to the writer of Ephesians:
God’s love also runs deep. God’s love has depth. John 3:16 says, “that whosever believes in him [in Jesus] should not perish but have everlasting or eternal life.” That statement is bold, is it not? When Jesus talked with Martha about the very real physical death of her dearly beloved brother, Lazarus, whom Jesus also deeply loved, he said to her with similar boldness:
God’s love has the cosmic dimensions of breadth and length and depth. The love of God also possesses height -- “everlasting or eternal life.” Everlasting life, as the Scripture teaches, has a beginning but no ending. Eternal life includes all the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love for all his followers now but also real life that continues with God after our short lives on this Earth are over. And this is the great hope of the human heart!
Oswald Chambers, in his book The Highest Good, wrote:
So, my friends, I dare to conclude with a prayer for you – the same prayer the Apostle Paul prayed for those he worked with and loved. From The Message Bible:
Rev. Chris Miller,
Lent 2, March 20, 2011
If you have been following the disastrous situation in Japan, there are more than a few glimpses of love to be seen. There is the story of the “Fukushima 50” who are risking their lives to prevent a severe meltdown of the nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. While there are more than 50 personnel involved, they all know the possible deadly dangers to which their lives are exposed with the massively high radiation levels in the plant. And there are stories such as the following that I received this week in an email from a Japanese friend. The story’s author is a non-Japanese teacher of English as a second language in Sendai, which was hit the hardest by the earthquake and the resulting tsunami. Here is part of what she wrote:
“Things here in Sendai have been rather surreal. But I am very blessed to have wonderful friends who are helping me a lot. Since my shack is even more worthy of that name, I am now staying at a friend's home. We share supplies like water, food and a kerosene heater. We sleep lined up in one room, eat by candlelight, share stories. It is warm, friendly, and beautiful.When I read this email, I asked myself, Are these not glimpses of love – of people acting with compassion toward others? Are these not hints that we really do consider one another valuable enough and worth enough to give our lives for or, at least, act with the utmost compassion and care toward each other?
“During the day we help each other clean up the mess in our homes.... If someone has water running in their home, they put out a sign so people can come to fill up their jugs and buckets.
“It's utterly amazingly that where I am there has been no looting, no pushing in lines. People leave their front door open, as it is safer when an earthquake strikes....
[There are] other unexpected touches of beauty [such as] the silence at night. No cars. No one out on the streets. And the heavens at night are scattered with stars. I usually can see about two, but now the whole sky is filled. The mountains around Sendai are solid and with the crisp air we can see them silhouetted against the sky magnificently.
And the Japanese themselves are so wonderful. I come back to my shack to check on it each day, now to send this e-mail since the electricity is on, and I find food and water left in my entranceway. I have no idea from whom, but it is there. Old men in green hats go from door to door checking to see if everyone is OK. People talk to complete strangers asking if they need help.
How much does love cost? Or another way to put the question might be: What is the value of a human life? A writer for the New York Times wrote an article in the February 16, 2011, issue and talked about the fact that the United States government has been grappling with this particular question: what is the value of a human life? Or to be more precise, there are government agencies trying to find what is called “the statistical value of life.” The answer will influence how much American society (especially businesses) should spend to prevent a single death. In 2004, the United States government's Office of Management and Budget told agencies they should pick a number between $1 million and $10 million, although it also warned that any figure under $5 million would be too low. So, as of last month, the following agencies have offered their price tags on the worth of one human life:
- The Environmental Protection Agency set the value of a life at $9.1 million.
- The Food and Drug Administration declared that a life is worth $7.9 million (up from $5 million in 2008).
- The Transportation Department has determined that one life is worth $6 million.
- [Binyamin Appelbaum, “As U.S. Agencies Put More Value on Human Life, Businesses Fret,” The New York Times, 2-16-11]
I wonder what God thinks about these human calculations? Does God put a dollar value on our heads? Or how does God express that value? Rather than dollars and numbers, might our value to God be expressed in God’s love for us – and for all in this world? For those of us who grew up in the church, I hunch that one verse we all probably memorized was John 3:16. If this verse is new to you, it is one of the most significant passages of the Bible. Millions of followers of Jesus have loved John 3:16 for 2,000 years because it sets out the limitless dimensions of how God values – of how God loves -- the entire human world:
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. [John 3:16, New King James]Look at the cross behind me and let us ponder the breadth and the length of the love of God, and the depth and the height of the love of God.
“For God so loved the world … ” Hear the intensity and see the breadth of God’s love in these words.God’s invitation of love is broad – as wide and expansive as God’s very nature. When we follow Jesus from place to place in the Gospels and listen to him, we will hear him say he came not to save a few good people but he came to seek those who are lost – the whole world of humanity, the very ones God loves. Even at our best, we all are marred by sin. One definition of sin is the human bent to fall short of God’s glory – or God’s standard of goodness. This coming up short needs to happen only once in our lives for us to be marred or broken. And if we are honest, we know there have been many times when we have come up short of God’s standard of goodness. But God loves us – marred and broken though we are because God’s very nature is love.
God is love. And by looking at the character of God in Jesus, we discover the nature of God’s love for the world. Jesus Christ and the salvation he offers have their origin in the will and action of God’s love. God loved and God specifically acted at a point in time -- God gave his only Son to the world for the world.
The intensity of the love of God, the agony of God’s love, is expressed in that little word “so” – “God so loved the world.” “So” means “how much.” The Message Bible says, “This is how much God loved the world: he gave his son, his one and only son.”
We are in Week 2 of Lent when we, as followers of Jesus, journey with him toward the inevitability of his suffering and death on the cross of Good Friday. And it was the intense love of God in Jesus that compelled Jesus to give his life for us so that we could experience God’s gracious forgiveness and accept his loving invitation to give our lives to him.
The breadth of God’s love embraces the whole world. On the night Jesus was arrested, just before he left the house for the Garden of Gethsemane, he prayed that the world would know God loved them. And the world – that includes the entire human race -- is no small place.
“For God so loved the world ... that he gave his son, his one and only son.”This speaks of the dimension of length (or the extent) of God’s love – the length God was willing to go to forgive us because of his incredible love for the human race.
There are also other Scriptures in the New Testament that speak strongly about the dimensions of God’s love. Listen to the writer of Ephesians:
“I pray that you may have your roots and foundation in love, so that you, together with all God’s people, may have the power to understand how broad and long, how high and deep, is Christ’s love. Yes, may you come to know his love -- although it can never be fully known -- and so be completely filled with the very nature of God.” [Ephesians 3:17-19, Good News Translation]In many languages, to speak about Christ’s love being broad and long and high and deep is awkward since love cannot be conceived as having spatial dimensions. So this figure of speech could well be translated: “So that you will be fully able to understand how very, very great is Christ’s love for you” or “You cannot even imagine how great Christ’s love is!” or so you will grasp “how much Christ truly loves you.” [Newman, B. M., & Nida, E. A. (1993). A Handbook on the Gospel of John. Helps for translators; UBS handbook series (89). New York: United Bible Societies.] My friends, the extent of God’s love seen in Jesus Christ for you and for me is beyond our comprehension and imagination. But I say, God’s love is certain!
God’s love also runs deep. God’s love has depth. John 3:16 says, “that whosever believes in him [in Jesus] should not perish but have everlasting or eternal life.” That statement is bold, is it not? When Jesus talked with Martha about the very real physical death of her dearly beloved brother, Lazarus, whom Jesus also deeply loved, he said to her with similar boldness:
“I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” [John 11:25–26, TNIV]That is Jesus’ question to us too: Do you believe this? You see, Jesus loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus. They were like family to him. He would sometimes take time away from his disciples and the crowds and spend weekends with them. They were his friends. Even so, he still asked Martha, “Do you believe I am the resurrection and the life?” God’s love possesses enormous depth because that love includes anyone and everyone who believes in Jesus as the resurrection and the life. And Jesus said these people will never spiritually die but will live with him forever.
God’s love has the cosmic dimensions of breadth and length and depth. The love of God also possesses height -- “everlasting or eternal life.” Everlasting life, as the Scripture teaches, has a beginning but no ending. Eternal life includes all the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love for all his followers now but also real life that continues with God after our short lives on this Earth are over. And this is the great hope of the human heart!
Oswald Chambers, in his book The Highest Good, wrote:
“To realize the dimensions of the love of God, its breadth, and length, and depth, and height, will serve to drive home to us the reality of God’s love, and the result of our belief in that love will be that no question will ever profoundly vex our minds, no sorrow overwhelm our spirits, because our heart is at rest in God, just as the heart of our Lord was at rest in His Father. This does not mean that our faith will not be tested; if it is faith, it must be tested.” [Chambers, O. The Highest Good. London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1996.]Paul the Apostle said something similar and expressed the extravagance of God’s love in his letter to the Romans 8:31-39. Here is what he said from The Message Bible:
“So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? [Doesn’t this include Jesus’ journey of suffering toward the cross for us? Doesn’t it also mean he rose from the dead to defeat the stranglehold of sin and death in human lives? Paul continues:] And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us -- who was raised to life for us! -- is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. [We could say “praying for us!”] Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture … None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. [Now, that is some statement of faith!] I’m absolutely convinced that nothing -- nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable -- absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master [or Lord] has embraced us.”I believe with Paul: God’s love is certain!
So, my friends, I dare to conclude with a prayer for you – the same prayer the Apostle Paul prayed for those he worked with and loved. From The Message Bible:
“I ask [God] to strengthen you by his Spirit -- not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength -- that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask [God] that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.”My friends, may this be so for you and for me.
Rev. Chris Miller,
Lent 2, March 20, 2011
OYM Oriole-York Mills United Church, Toronto
Visit with us online!
No comments:
Post a Comment