Musical Prelude and Service.

Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22 & John 3:14-21
The Hebrew scripture option for today’s lectionary readings comes from the book of Numbers and tells another of the stories of Moses and the Israelites during their years in the wilderness. The Israelites are once again getting impatient with their time wandering. They’re thirsty, they are tired of the food they have. They are sick of living out of a tent and speculate about returning to Egypt and slavery.
Amid their complaints, God responds by sending a plague of venomous snakes.
It’s one of those sections that can seem to be the portrayal of God as a harsh and punishment focused master, but it is also a story that tells of God’s desire to be in constant and loving relationship with the people of Israel. Because after this fit of anger, annoyance? God continues to listen and respond to the people’s prayers. The snakes are driven off and the wounds are healed, and they are shown how to prepare a cure for the snake bites.
In the end it is not so much a story about God, but a story about the people of God. It’s a story about people longing for comfort and security. A people afraid of the unknown and fearing failure and perhaps even death. And those fears leave them paralyzed and turning on one another. It is only through God’s unrelenting love that they find healing and community once more and continue their journey.
That theme of God’s unending and all enduring love for humanity, and God’s constant desire to be in relationship with us, runs throughout Hebrew scripture. The people lose their way and begin exploiting and abusing their neighbours. God warns them of the consequences. Those warnings, and the prophets who provide them, are ignored and disaster befalls the people of Israel. And as much as God expresses righteous anger, God keeps reaching out with love.
It is with that theme that we turn our attention to the Gospel of John. Once again, hearing the cries of God’s people, the creator of all sends Jesus. God so loved the world that God sent God’s son.
This verse, verse 16, is perhaps the most well known of the entire New Testament. For God so loved the world….
We don’t often continue to the next verse. Not to condemn the world but to save it.
God desires a relationship with creation, and in that yearning offers us salvation. But what does that salvation look like?
John provides a few hints in this passage. It’s based on our treatment of one another I would argue. John notes that those who ignore or deny this sign of God’s love are already condemned, and that can be seen in their actions. Their capacity for evil.
Meanwhile, the love of his fellow humans demonstrated over and over by Jesus, is a sign of God’s constant love.
Our salvation is contained in the invitation to a life of love and justice; it is found in the chance to see the world through new eyes that recognize the worth and beauty of all of God’s creation. And this offering is open to all of humanity. It’s a choice presented to us. We get to choose whether or not to say yes.
God offers us healing. God desires peace and love for all of creation. God’s love for us, as I said is on constant display in the life and teaching and actions of Jesus. Once again, Jesus reveals God’s love for all of us.
Now, I feel the need to offer a quick proviso here. This statement of the divinity of Jesus and our salvation is not, in my view, a proclamation that salvation is only open for those who confess that Jesus is the son of God. That is a view held by a great many people. I know this, but I find that a remarkably dangerous position. It immediately condemns most of humanity.
Jesus shows us a way of loving in this world. He lives a life that brings healing to the world. He accomplishes this through living a life of love, of peace and compassion. When we choose to follow that path and live life that brings healing and compassion to our neighbours, it leads the world towards the light that God offers. Not everyone sees Jesus as the son of God.
I do.
When I read about Jesus, when I reflect on Jesus, I see God’s love revealed to me. I see God in the face of Jesus, but that means I am called to share that love with the world.
If I choose to ignore that message and that call, then I have chosen to live in the darkness John speaks of.
We get to choose. Will we live in the light of love? Or not.
But here’s the thing; as I have said before many times, God does not give up on us. To paraphrase a number of other writers, when discussing this passage from John; God loves us whether we want it or not.
We need to choose. Do we accept that love of God? Do we consider the implications of that love and how far Jesus was prepared to go to live out that deep and unending love for us? How will we respond? Will we live in the light of that love? Will we celebrate and share that love and commit ourselves to live our own lives of love and compassion? To join in the fight for a world of mercy and peace?
Or will we resist and retreat to the shadows? Will we succumb to the lure of selfishness of putting ourselves above all others? Will we give in to the temptations of fear and hatred to live being guided by a lack of trust and a lack of faith? Will we be guided by a desire for wealth and power and the lie that by putting ourselves first we will find the security and comfort we long for?
God answers our cries, if only we are prepared to look and listen.
Can we tell of God’s deeds with songs of joy? As we join hands with our neighbours with signs of love? And welcome the light of love that God offers all of us?
Thanks be to God.
Rev. Warner Bloomfield

Music provided with permission through licensing with CCLI License number
2701258 and One License # A-731789