John 3:1-17
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ
The People of God started out as a family, actually an elderly couple, Abram and Sarai. God changed their names to Abraham and Sarah and because they were faithful to God’s request, for them to move away from their people and their land, God promised them a son and that the family of his son would grow to become a nation and a special land would be provided for them. As outlandish as these promises were, God made them possible; first God made it possible for Sarah to conceive and bear a son, Isaac. Isaac then had two sons, twins, but it was from just Jacob that the People of God would grow. Jacob was not opposed to taking advantage of others and he wrestled with his faith in God and God’s will for him, but Jacob eventually reconciled with God; Jacob had twelve sons and it was these sons who gave the names to the twelve tribes of Israel, who, for the most part, remained faithful to the one true God. The People of God grew as a people over the generations, as they resided in the foreign land of Egypt. They held to the promise of the Lord their God, the promise of a land to be theirs, a land of milk and honey. Egypt, however feared them because of how they were growing in number and so Egypt enslaved them, but the People of God continued to pray and hope for the Promise to be fulfilled. It was Moses who brought word from God, that he was about to fulfill this promise; it was Moses who brought down upon Egypt God’s plagues until the Pharaoh let them go. And God set before Israel a cloud to lead them and when needed the cloud moved behind them to protect them, and when Egypt’s armies attempted to harm God’s People, the Lord sent them into the sea, the sea that first provided escape for the People of God.
You would think that the People of God would have been happy and secure in God and in God’s promises after experiencing such a magnificent escape from Egypt and a new beginning. But fear and complaint took over among the People of God, they disobeyed God and they turned to the god’s of Egypt, even after seeing the Egyptian army fall to the power of God. God punishing the People of God, but even as God was punishing them, God was planning to give to them the Law that would help them to live in peace and find prosperity in the Promised Land. And so it was, that Moses went up the Mountain of God to receive this Law. I’m not going to go into all the ups and downs of God’s People, of Israel and Judah (the two kingdoms of God’s People). It should be enough for me to say that they went through many times when God sent to them prophets to lead them back to their God and the Law, and there were times when God punished Israel (or it could be said, when God left the People of God to the protection of the other gods they turned to and left them also to their own abilities just as they wanted), and they were in those times over-run by their enemies and suffered greatly. But still we can see that God never abandoned his people and God always restored Israel. I very much believe that today God continues to care for Israel, as he had promised.
But because of the, up and down nature of God’s People, in their keeping up with their relationship with God, God did also a new thing. God sent his Son into the world. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, or for that matter to condemn Israel or the Jewish people. God sent his Son into the world to save the people of the world, Jews and Gentiles alike. God did not, so much, go back on God’s promise, as God extended his promise to everyone, though I often wonder of the hurt that God must still suffer because of the many, Jews and Gentiles, who continue to deny Jesus. But, as Abram and Sarai had to sacrifice for God’s promise, so it would be that God through God’s Son, Jesus, would need to sacrifice. God’s Son, Jesus’ sacrifice would not be a sacrifice like Abram and Sarai’s and it would not be like the sacrifices of God’s People, who with donations of animals and other earthly goods stood before the altar of God, or with a life style of righteousness gave up some life opportunities for God, but a sacrifice of himself. Jesus would give his life in service to all God’s people, healing and preaching, feeding and teaching. Jesus would travel during his years of ministry, living as though he had no home, depending on the generosity of others, often sleeping out beneath the stars and going without meals. But this kind of sacrifice was not new, many of the prophets and leaders of Israel had suffered such. Jesus also lived a life without sin; if that is not a sacrifice it is surely an amazing act; I can’t leave my house in the morning without doing, thinking or saying something wrong. Jesus sacrifice, and I must add, pretty much the reason that we have the season of Lent, was his willingness to suffer abuse and lashes with a whip and be nailed to a cross and be treated and crucified with and like a common criminal, and then die for humanity. It is hard for us to fathom, but we believe that Jesus took on for all humanity the punishment deserved for our sins. I can’t imagine the physical pain of all that he was put through, but to endure suffering he did not deserve, suffering that was deserved by me for my sins, by you for your sins and by so many others who care nothing about righteousness and or about God. I find myself at a loss, unable to describe it or explain why God would even allow it. Yet I am thankful, and along with so many who do not truly understand the meaning, I say with thanksgiving and joy, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes on him may not perish but may have eternal life.”