God so loved the world . . . in those five words is the foundation of my faith, I think. For it’s the existence and the experience of love that enables me to see point and purpose in human life, in my life; this is what makes us more than mere mechanicals. St Paul expressed it superbly in that tremendous thirteenth chapter of the his first letter to Corinth: nothing we can do, nothing we can achieve, nothing we can give has any meaning or value without love. And if, as Paul tells us, love stands above all else, then love must be the divine nature of God himself; a God who is anything less than all loving cannot be God - or that’s how it seems to me.
I was being told the other day that the reason why our churches are not very full is simple - I’m not preaching the right message. Well, certainly I could be a better and more persuasive preacher than I am - but the right message? I think for the man who was instructing me (yes, I think that’s what he was doing) the right message would contain rather more fire and brimstone than I usually manage to include. I think he might prefer his sort of preacher to speak less about love and more about keeping the rules. I think the sort of church he would like to see would be completely clear about who is in, and who is out.
The fact is, I can’t be that sure. Does love keep to the rules? Wasn’t it the Pharisees and the Priests in the Temple who were all about the rules, who were so sure about who was in and who was out? Jesus says this: “It was not to judge the world that God sent his Son into the world, but that through him the world might be saved.” Not just some people, note, but the world.
In John’s Gospel, whenever Jesus speaks about being lifted up, we must think of the cross. It is on the cross that Jesus will be lifted up, so that all can see him. Most who see him there will despise him and spit on him, or else turn their heads away in shame. Even his own disciples will run for cover. Yet here is where the glory of God is revealed, for it is the glory of love.
In our Gospel reading for next Sunday Jesus will speak again about being lifted up. He says, “When I am lifted up I will draw all people to myself.” All people. That’s not to say that Jesus isn’t absolutely clear about the ways in which we go wrong, the things about us that deny God’s love, the things about us that subvert that love. Last week’s Gospel heard him saying, “If you follow me you must deny yourself.” Change is required of us, and there’s no doubt that a church that strives to be like Jesus must hate sin; but at the same time that it hates the sin, it must also love the sinner - for God meets us in our sin not with condemnation but compassion, not with rejection but forgiveness.
Now here’s the thing. Jesus holds back nothing when he gives himself on the cross. This is love in its most complete and purest form. Love is a wonderful thing when we experience it, but - well, but, there’s always a but. We hold back, keep a bit for ourselves, try perhaps to manipulate the situation, or maybe our love gets soured by jealousy or grievance. There is no holding back at Calvary: Jesus takes upon himself all that condemns any one of us to death, all our sin - without limit. We are forgiven, you and I. Before anything else, we are forgiven.
The mission message of the church can never be: “Sign up with us, come to church, and we will organise forgiveness for you, once you're with us, your sins will be forgiven.” It can only be, “Your sins have been forgiven. Come and recognise that forgiveness, receive that forgiveness, come to church to join us as we say thank you for all that Jesus has already done."
Everyone is forgiven. The power of every sin is broken. But of course, not everyone is ready to recognise and receive that forgiveness. Not everyone even believes they are in need of it; in fact, these days the public definition of sin is no narrowed down and trivialised that if I decide to speak about sin to, say, parents bringing their child to be christened, I first have to carefully define it and explain it before they really even know what I’m talking about.
A doctor may prescribe medicine, but if the patient refuses to believe that he or she needs it, no good will come of the prescription. Or to give a different example, I’m reminded of the rabbit which we once had, and one night my brother forgot to close the door of his hutch after feeding him. Next morning he realised what he’d done and rushed out to what he expected would be an empty hutch, but so far as we could tell the rabbit hadn’t even bothered to look outside, let alone go there. The hutch was comfy and warm and he had food. Yes, he was in prison, but he didn’t realise it, he didn’t recognise it - and thankfully we had no foxes around.
Jesus also says, “The light has come into the world, but people preferred the darkness.” Forgiveness is on offer, but to accept forgiveness you must first recognise that there are things about you that need to be forgiven; and then you must also be prepared not to do those things again, to cut them out of your life. To change, and to live in a new way. That’s a fair step to take, and some of the most famous Christian thinkers and writers and speakers on mission have themselves had to hit rock bottom before they were prepared to accept the truth about themselves and the truth about Christ.
What was that truth? Something about the shortage of love in their own lives; something too about the light of love that we see in Jesus. Bright lights are not always comfortable: they disturb us, they show up stuff we’d rather keep hidden, they force a response. But also this: that even when they had been at their most degraded, in the darkest places of their lives, the furthest away from home and safety, they were already forgiven, their sins were already discounted, for they were already loved.
Everyone we see this week, God already loves them; everyone we see this week, Jesus died for that man, that woman, that child. No-one is ruled out, God’s love has no limits. That’s the only starting place I know for the mission and ministry I have.
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