Singing of a Violent, Tireless Mystery

And as Moses Lifted up the Serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only beloved Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

John 3:14-17

As I look at this blog I realize that it really has been some time since I posted here. Much has happened since then, changes in jobs, in churches, in life and in friends. Most everything has been for the good, and I can truly say that God has allowed me to see both some heinous and wonderous things of late. The most noteworthy being the new life of an acquaintance (conversion is not an adequate word to describe it) turning friend that can only be characterized as miraculous. It is these events and the tumults and conversations they have started that have led me back here with the intention of posting something. Yet, I want it to remain something simple and elegant, and that in turn leads me to John.

John 3:16 is possibly the most quoted verse of the Bible. I remember having it etched into my brain at the age of 12 at Tabernacle Christian Academy. They had painted the verse onto the walls of their lunchroom, and by seeing it day in and day out it probably became the first verse I ever memorized. In fact, memorized to the point that it stripped the verse of all meaning, and to this day I have trouble quoting the verse by itself. Something about it feels cheap.

Yet, that singular verse is likely among the most important in all the Biblical account, and shows us the most about the nature of God. "For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten (beloved) Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." So much meaning packed into such a small package, so much in fact that it can often be overwhelming. In that singular statement uttered to a confused Jewish Priest looking for legal retribution Christ defines all that is true and has ever been true of God, and turns most all Jewish expectations of the Messiah on their head.

In it we see a God who has been seeking and planning since the beginning to bring man back into fellowship with Him, despite all that has been done and all that will be done. A God who shows mercy to all that will have Him, beginning with Enoch and Noah, and moving on through Moses, David, Peter, and Paul, and picking up prostitutes, Egyptians, Syrians, and Queens of Sheba along the way.

This is the God that Christianity worships. One who, though He continually demands that we acknowledge justice and our lack of it, never demands that we hold a standard we cannot achieve. One who, when our weaknesses finally show us incapable of following Him, comes to us incarnate, in the flesh, and dies at our hands to save us. He does not do this because it is easy, or because it gives us hope or a nice fairy tale, but because we have agonizingly proved that we cannot save ourselves and that has broken His heart.

In this hope we are justified, in this act we are saved from the tyranny of our own creeping mortality and gnawing resentemente'. By this sacrifice we are given again the ability to approach God as the sons and daughters that He has long sought to have, that indeed Christ may be: "the firstborn among many brothers." (Romans 8:29). That brotherhood is what we rejoice in, and what we ought to remember when either the cares of this world or doctrinal technicalities occupy our souls.

Thought I must be dead or dreaming
When my captain still battered, betrayed
Pulled me up, laid me over the beam he clung to
Breathed his last and sank under the waves

Your body is a bridge across an endless sea

Thrice - The Great Exchange