That the world might be saved

In tomorrow's Gospel reading, Jesus meets with the Jewish leader Nicodemus and delivers that most famous of lines,

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.

A first-person sermon from Nicodemus point of view called The Untamed Wind—God’s Spirit is in the archives. In it, Nicodemus says,

God so loved the world. Those words were the new thing that came blowing into my life. I was so sure that God was for us Jews and us alone and the only way the world could come to God was as a Jew. God loved the world. I didn’t. I saw the world as broken. Fallen, with no hope for repair. I was waiting for the Messiah to come take us faithful away while bringing judgment to all the rest. And here was Jesus, doing these amazing miracles and then telling me that the spirit of God would blow wherever it wanted.

God so loves the world that the spirit of God is still out there creating. The spirit of God was making all things new. I could be born again, from above. I could be made new. This new teaching was a bit too much to take in. My eyes were opened to be sure, but I couldn’t quite yet see. Not clearly anyway.

It's can still be challenging to realize that God loves the world. The world is full of us flawed humans bent on hurting one another, and yet God did not condemn the world, but loved it so much that through Jesus God became a part of the creation to set things right. 2,000 years later, it is still an amazing concept. As John 3:17 says,

Indeed, God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

God came into the world neither to condemn us, nor to leave us unchanged.

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor + King of Peace Episcopal Church