The Cure Has Begun, and We Have Relapses

Brad Sullivan

4th Lent, Year B
Sunday, March 18^th, 2012
Emmanuel, Houston
Numbers 21:4-9
Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22
Ephesians 2:1-10
John 3:14-21     

Back in college, I had some friends, who wore these t-shirts which read,“John 3:16...He did it!” I didn’t know what John 3:16 was. I knew it was something Bibley and Jesusy, but I didn’t know what it said. So, my friends quoted the passage to me, “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.”

After finding out what John 3:16 was, I thought, “really,‘he did it!’ That’s your commentary on John 3:16,” but I found out that John 3:16 is something of a quentesential Christian passage. If you know John 3:6, then you’re Jesusy enough for anyone. It’s everywhere, on billboards, sports stadiums, Tim Teebo’s cheecks. John 3:16 is a favorite passage to sum up Christianity to let everyone know about the love of God.

Why in the world, then, are we hearing about this in the middle of Lent? Perhaps because just after John 3:16 we have John 3:17-20, which deals with God’s judgment of those who love darkness more than light. That sounds more like the Lent we’re all used to. Enough of this love stuff, let’s hear about God’s judgment, but God’s love involves judgment. God’s love is expressed in judgment and mercy.

In our reading from Numbers today, we have a story in which Israel sinned against God. So, God punished them, sending serpents to attack them. Then, God gave them a way out, a simple way out. Moses made a bronze serpent, and if ever a serpent bit someone, all that person had to do was look at the bronze serpent, and that person would live. There is no physical reason why that would work. It was a matter of faith, of remembering God and trusting in God, which was what the people were having a hard time with in the first place. God showed judged and mercy.

In Ephesians, we read that they / we were dead through our trespasses. Paul did not say, “you were doing just fine with some slight chastisement through your trespasses.” No. “You were dead through [your] trespasses and sins...”,and yet “by grace you have been saved.” Judgment and mercy are mingled together.

In the Gospel reading then too, we hear also of God’s judgment and mercy.“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.” John 3:16. Mercy. Then, just a couple verses later, we have, “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.” Judgment.

My wife has been leading a study of C.S. Lewis’ “The Chronicles of Narnia”for the last several weeks, and she reminded me of one particular scene from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in which a young boy, Eustace, is turned into a dragon. Now, Eustace had been behaving rather terribly to everyone in the book up to this point. Then, Aslan, the Lion, the Jesus figure in these books, de-Dragons Eustace, turning him back into a boy. To do this, Aslan claws away at the dragon skin, a painful process, piercing down even to Eustace’s heart. Afterwards, C.S. Lewis writes,

It would be nice, and fairly true, to say that “from that time forth Eustace was a different boy”. To be strictly accurate, he began to be a different boy. He had relapses. There were still many days when he could be very tiresome. But most of those I shall not notice. The cure had begun.

This would be a fairly accurate statement for all followers of Jesus. God has forgiven our sins. We’ve been washed clean, brought from darkness to light. We have relapses. The cure has begun. We all have light and darkness in us. We’re never without the darkness, and we often, if not always sink back into the darkness, and love overcomes the darkness.

Our reading from John today puts darkness and light into fairly stark, black and white terms. There are those who love the darkness, and there are those who love the light. His stark contrast made me think of political campaigns. Candidates paint their opponents as wholly evil, all that is wrong with America. Then, they describe themselves as the perfect cure for all that ails America. In reality, of course, none of the candidates are perfect or wholly evil. All of the candidates have some good points and some bad points.

When describing opposites, we tend to think in stark, black and white terms. We have to call evil out for what it is, we should also be aware that there is some good even in evil people and that all of us have some evil within us.

Even as followers of Christ, none of us loves light completely. None of us love darkness completely. We all love varying degrees of both darkness and light. As followers of Jesus, few of us are silly enough to think there is no darkness within us, and when we’re totally honest with ourselves, we know that we even relish some of the darkness within us.

Does this mean, then, that if we have some darkness within us and that if we love some of the darkness within us, that we “love darkness rather than light because [our] deeds are evil”? No. The fact that we have some darkness within us and that we love some of the darkness within us means, “the cure has begun, and we have relapses.”

Our challenge, even with darkness within us, is to love the light, and to come to the light so that our deeds may be exposed. Our evil deeds would be exposed right along with our good deeds. Now that sounds more like Lent.

That sounds like a rather frightening proposition, having our evil deeds exposed. Like Eustace being de-dragoned in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, having our evil deeds exposed by the light of Christ is painful. It is, however, a good kind of pain, a cleansing pain, and one which should not be avoided.

Fear of God due to our evil deeds need not keep us from the light because we know that we are not wholly evil. While there is darkness in us, there is also a lot of light in us. We also need not fear coming into the light because of God’s love for us. As we have seen in today’s readings, God’s love involved judgment, but it is judgment mixed with mercy.

God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 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. (John 3:17, 16) Amen.

So, What We Do Doesn't Matter?

Brad Sullivan

2nd Lent, Year B
Sunday, March 4^th, 2012
Emmanuel, Houston
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Psalm 22:22-30
Romans 4:13-25
Mark 8:31-38     

            Our Gospel for today certainly has taken on a bit of a Lenten tone.  Deny yourself.  Take up your cross.  This adulterous and sinful generation.  Adultery was common way of describing Israel’s unfaithfulness to their covenant with God.  So Jesus was calling out his generation of Israel as being unfaithful in their covenant with God.  This should be no big surprise to us.  Just last week, we heard the story of Jesus going to the Jordan river to be baptized by John.  John was calling all of Israel to repentance, to cleanse themselves, and renew their covenant faithfulness to God. 

            Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, however, that “it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all [Abraham’s] descendants, not only to the adherents of the law, but also to those who share the faith of Abraham...” (Romans 4:16)  Previously in Romans, Paul writes “that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law...” (Romans 3:28)

            Is Paul saying that Jesus was wrong, that Israel didn’t need to have covenant faithfulness to the law to be right with God?  Is Paul saying that what we do doesn’t matter, that so long as we believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that he died for our sins, then no matter what else we do, we’re right with God? 

            There are many who would misread Paul in this way.  There are those who would say Lent is a silly time when we deny ourselves good things and follow meaningless religious rules in order to justify ourselves before God.  Some would say we’re relying on our own actions, our own works rather than relying on faith in God.  They misunderstand what we’re doing and what Paul wrote.

            Jesus calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him, not only to believe in him.  Jesus told his Jewish disciples that he expected them to keep covenant faithfulness to God by upholding the law of Moses.  People’s actions, what they did, was tied to their faith and tied to their being put right with God.

            Paul was not saying that what we do doesn’t matter.  Paul was telling gentile Christians that they didn’t have to keep the laws of Moses because they were gentiles.  Their faith in God was what mattered for them, not the laws of Moses.  Paul was also telling the Jewish Christians that keeping the law of Moses was given live through their faith in God. 

            In our context, without faith in God, giving up desert for Lent simply means you go without yummy desert for a month.  With faith in God, giving up desert for Lent is a way to refocus, to help us realize our desire for God and to help us take a good hard look at ourselves.  

            Are we an adulterous and sinful generation, like Jesus described his generation?  We’ve likely head arguments on both sides.  Some think we are, some think we aren’t.  Maybe we are, maybe not.  In either case, we have to deal honestly with our sin and take our sin seriously.

            God takes are sin seriously.  God is wrathful against our sin.  That’s why God chose to die, as a consequence for our sin.  God took his wrath against sin on himself, rather than on us.  So God’s wrath against sin is greatly to be feared.  God’s love for us, shown in his kindness by taking his own wrath upon himself, God’s love for us, is then to be remembered. 

            Does not God’s very love for us, the kindness that he showed, prove that what we do doesn’t matter?  By no means!  “God’s kindness,” Paul writes in Romans 2:4, “is meant to lead [us] to repentance”, not allow and excuse our behavior.  Paul even says that those who live as though what they do doesn’t matter are storing up wrath for themselves, that God repays everyone according to their deeds.

            Now I can hear questions already forming.  Did God die on the cross for our sins, or does God repay people according to their deeds?  Did God take his own wrath against sin, or is there still wrath building against sin since Jesus died on the cross?   Those are good questions, except they’re asked largely out of fear of punishment.

            Fear of punishment worries about the correct formula for sin and redemption in order to avoid punishment.  Fear is a motivator.  Fear of God’s wrath can bring us to repentance, but love is a better motivator.  Love brings us to repentance not out of fear of punishment, but out of love for God.

            Love doesn’t worry so much with the formula for sin and redemption.  Rather, love looks with gratitude at God’s kindness, taking his own wrath against our sin upon himself, and love looks seriously at one’s own sin and shortcomings, acknowledges them, and repents of them, not out of fear of punishment, but out of a desire to do less harm, more good, and to love more completely. 

            That’s why we have Lent, to take a good honest look at ourselves, to look with eyes of love, and to see how we might love God, love others, and love ourselves more completely.  It takes effort and soul searching.  It can be painful as we take seriously our own sin.  It can be a difficult process, and it is well worth the effort as we seek to do less harm, do more good, and love more completely.  We are all well worth the effort too. 

            Behind, in, and through Lent and any honest appraisal we make of our lives, is God’s great love for us.  In Jesus, God lived out the covenant faithfulness that Israel had not been able to do, that none of us could do, and so Jesus showed God’s love for us.  In Jesus, God took his own wrath against our sin upon himself, and showed God’s love for us.  In Jesus, God created the world anew, giving us a taste of the life to come in the resurrection, and by doing so, Jesus showed God’s love for us.

            And so with this backdrop of God’s great love for us, we hear Jesus’ words.  “Deny yourself.”  “Take up your cross.”  We even hear Jesus say, “this adulterous and sinful generation.”  In these words, we hear God, who loves us enough to die for us, calling us to repentance.  We hear Jesus calling us to leave behind those parts of our lives which lead us to harming others and ourselves.  We hear Jesus calling us to put to death those parts of our lives which lead us to harm others and ourselves.  We hear Jesus calling us to love more completely, with the full assurance of God’s complete love for us, that God can cover our shortcomings and our failings. 

            “Deny yourself.”  “I love you.”  “Take up your cross.”  “I love you.”  “This adulterous and sinful generation.”  “I love you.”  Amen.

Brad Sullivan
4th Lent, Year B
Sunday, March 18^th, 2012
Emmanuel, Houston
Numbers 21:4-9
Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22
Ephesians 2:1-10
John 3:14-21     

            Back in college, I had some friends, who wore these t-shirts which read, “John 3:16...He did it!”  I didn’t know what John 3:16 was.  I knew it was something Bibley and Jesusy, but I didn’t know what it said.  So, my friends quoted the passage to me, “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.”

            After finding out what John 3:16 was, I thought, “really, ‘he did it!’  That’s your commentary on John 3:16,” but I found out that John 3:16 is something of a quentesential Christian passage.  If you know John 3:6, then you’re Jesusy enough for anyone.  It’s everywhere, on billboards, sports stadiums, Tim Teebo’s cheecks.  John 3:16 is a favorite passage to sum up Christianity to let everyone know about the love of God.
            Why in the world, then, are we hearing about this in the middle of Lent?  Perhaps because just after John 3:16 we have John 3:17-20, which deals with God’s judgment of those who love darkness more than light.  That sounds more like the Lent we’re all used to.  Enough of this love stuff, let’s hear about God’s judgment, but God’s love involves judgment.  God’s love is expressed in judgment and mercy. 
            In our reading from Numbers today, we have a story in which Israel sinned against God.  So, God punished them, sending serpents to attack them.  Then, God gave them a way out, a simple way out.  Moses made a bronze serpent, and if ever a serpent bit someone, all that person had to do was look at the bronze serpent, and that person would live.  There is no physical reason why that would work.  It was a matter of faith, of remembering God and trusting in God, which was what the people were having a hard time with in the first place.  God showed judged and mercy. 
            In Ephesians, we read that they / we were dead through our trespasses.  Paul did not say, “you were doing just fine with some slight chastisement through your trespasses.”  No.  “You were dead through [your] trespasses and sins...”, and yet “by grace you have been saved.”  Judgment and mercy are mingled together.   
            In the Gospel reading then too, we hear also of God’s judgment and mercy.  “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.”  John 3:16.  Mercy.  Then, just a couple verses later, we have, “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.”  Judgment.
            My wife has been leading a study of C.S. Lewis’ “The Chronicles of Narnia” for the last several weeks, and she reminded me of one particular scene from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in which a young boy, Eustace, is turned into a dragon.  Now, Eustace had been behaving rather terribly to everyone in the book up to this point.  Then, Aslan, the Lion, the Jesus figure in these books, de-Dragons Eustace, turning him back into a boy.  To do this, Aslan claws away at the dragon skin, a painful process, piercing down even to Eustace’s heart.  Afterwards, C.S. Lewis writes,

It would be nice, and fairly true, to say that “from that time forth Eustace was a different boy”.  To be strictly accurate, he began to be a different boy.  He had relapses.  There were still many days when he could be very tiresome.  But most of those I shall not notice.  The cure had begun.

            This would be a fairly accurate statement for all followers of Jesus.  God has forgiven our sins.  We’ve been washed clean, brought from darkness to light.  We have relapses.  The cure has begun.  We all have light and darkness in us.  We’re never without the darkness, and we often, if not always sink back into the darkness, and love overcomes the darkness.
            Our reading from John today puts darkness and light into fairly stark, black and white terms.  There are those who love the darkness, and there are those who love the light.  His stark contrast made me think of political campaigns.  Candidates paint their opponents as wholly evil, all that is wrong with America.  Then, they describe themselves as the perfect cure for all that ails America.  In reality, of course, none of the candidates are perfect or wholly evil.  All of the candidates have some good points and some bad points. 
            When describing opposites, we tend to think in stark, black and white terms.  We have to call evil out for what it is, we should also be aware that there is some good even in evil people and that all of us have some evil within us. 
            Even as followers of Christ, none of us loves light completely.  None of us love darkness completely.  We all love varying degrees of both darkness and light.  As followers of Jesus, few of us are silly enough to think there is no darkness within us, and when we’re totally honest with ourselves, we know that we even relish some of the darkness within us. 
            Does this mean, then, that if we have some darkness within us and that if we love some of the darkness within us, that we “love darkness rather than light because [our] deeds are evil”?  No.  The fact that we have some darkness within us and that we love some of the darkness within us means, “the cure has begun, and we have relapses.”
            Our challenge, even with darkness within us, is to love the light, and to come to the light so that our deeds may be exposed.  Our evil deeds would be exposed right along with our good deeds.  Now that sounds more like Lent.
            That sounds like a rather frightening proposition, having our evil deeds exposed.  Like Eustace being de-dragoned in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, having our evil deeds exposed by the light of Christ is painful.  It is, however, a good kind of pain, a cleansing pain, and one which should not be avoided. 
             Fear of God due to our evil deeds need not keep us from the light because we know that we are not wholly evil.  While there is darkness in us, there is also a lot of light in us.  We also need not fear coming into the light because of God’s love for us.  As we have seen in today’s readings, God’s love involved judgment, but it is judgment mixed with mercy. 

God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.  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. (John 3:17, 16)

Amen.