Month: May 2021

And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this is in his Son – 1 John 5:11

Human beings are storytellers. Most conversations we have with each other communicate events both current and in the past that we have experienced. Every year over a million new books are published in the United States alone. Hundreds of new scripted shows and movies premiere annually. Storytelling has been a part of our human experience since the first days we were able to communicate. It comes naturally to us. As Christians, we have a story to tell. We have been redeemed by the cross of Christ and claimed in the waters of baptism. Every one of us has a testimony to give about the eternal life that we have received through Jesus. 

Often though we fall into the trap of comparison. We hear someone’s story about receiving a miracle from God, on the brink of death and brought back, or about being deep in a lifestyle of addiction and sin and how Jesus found them, and by comparison our story feels somehow less than. What might we have to say about Jesus and his love for us to others if we have always been members of a worshipping community, the church, faithful, committed followers of Jesus Christ from the day we learned to walk and talk?

Perhaps we might, on a lesser day, find ourselves, thinking like the elder son in the story of the Prodigal Son in St. Luke’s gospel saying, “For all these years, I have been working like a slave for you and I have never disobeyed your command…but when this son of yours comes back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you kill the fattened calf for him!” (Luke 15.29-30) In these moments, I wonder if we aren’t missing something Jesus taught in many other parables like this one. 

God’s abundant grace and everlasting love have always been with us. The same love and grace have always been with those who have tried to wander far from the God who loves them, far from their heavenly home. This is our testimony. This our story of eternal life. 

Maybe we need more stories told about ordinary holiness and extraordinary grace. Perhaps we need to tell the stories about how we see God’s love in showing up when we go to work, raise a family, spend time with friends, and attend church. Perhaps instead of falling into the trap of comparison, we take a few moments and meditate on the father’s response to the elder son, “Son you have always been with me, and all that is mine is yours.” And in doing so, we might see the story that God has given us to tell. God’s love for us has remained with us through every moment of our sometimes boring, ordinary lives. This love has sustained us whether we realized it or not, whether we felt it or not. This love gifted from the Father and the Son, and poured out by the Holy Spirit, the trinity of love, abides in our hearts. And our hearts bear witness to this love in the world. This is our story to tell.

And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. – 1 John 5:4b

There is an old hymn found in the This Far by Faith hymnal, “Victory is Mine”. After spending the morning researching the backstory for this hymn, I came up empty. The hymnal lists both the text and music as traditional. However, it wasn’t a total loss, I did find a very stirring recording of the hymn by Gospel singer, Dorothy Norwood. If you’re not familiar with the lyrics to the hymn, they read:

Victory is mine. Victory is mine. Victory today is mine.
I told Satan, “Get thee behind.” Victory today is mine.

The hymn continues repeating the same pattern substituting another of the abundant gifts (joy, peace, love, hope, faith, happiness, etc.) that God graciously gives us in place of “victory.” The song proclaims the good news by reminding us that there are many things that God has given to us that are greater than any power that attempts to overthrow God’s work in us. The powers and principalities that try to overwhelm us are themselves overwhelmed and defeated at the foot of the cross and from the empty tomb.

By faith, we live. The writer of Hebrews teaches us that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Heb 11.1) It was our ancestors in faith that model for us trusting perseverance. Their faith models for us the victory that we have now received in Jesus. By faith, they lived and were instruments of God’s tremendous power in the world, and yet they “never received the promises, but from a distance, they saw and greeted them.” (Heb 11.13) By following their examples, we, too, are invited to “run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of our faith.” (Heb 12.1-2) By faith, we will endure.

Our faith in Jesus, the crucified and risen Lord, will see us through this life. When the world weighs us down, Jesus lifts us up. When we feel like we can’t go on, Jesus carries us. When we are lost and do not know the way, Jesus is our light and the way. When we are broken and unloved, Jesus abides in us and loves us. And when we feel our past choices have sullied our future and defined our present, Jesus washes us clean in the power of his blood.

The victory of the cross and grave grants to us the gift of faith. We receive through hearing and cling to the good news that Jesus has conquered the world and all other powers that lay claim to his beloved people. This victory has seen us through hard times, it remains with us now, reminding us that we are loved and never alone, and it will continue to hold to us through whatever may be ahead, until this earthly pilgrimage is complete, and we rest with the one who claims us by his cross.

And so we can sing boldly:

Faith is mine! Faith is mine! Faith today is mine!
I told Satan, “Get thee behind!” Faith today is mine!

No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. – 1 John 4.12

“Who doesn’t want to be loved unconditionally?” asked our enlightened professor of systematic theology in the dimly lit back room of the tavern that we met at weekly for Beer and Theology. B&T’s format was simple. We went around the room introducing ourselves by name, year in school (alumni status, pastorate, etc.), and offered our deepest theological and biblical questioning of the week. It was a great way to decompress, have a beer (Millstream, brewed in the Amana Colonies, was the unofficial beer of choice) or root beer for the teetotalers among us, and enjoy a conversation. I can’t say that we ever really received an answer to the group-decided ponderings, we loved discussing it, and may have on occasion, learned something. Most of the time, it just created more questions. But that is theology, the Bible, life, and even God. When you think you have it all figured out, something comes along to remind you, perhaps even humble you, that there is always something more to learn. God is a mystery.

The Letter of St. John gives us a glimpse into one of the certain, knowable attributes of God, God is love. Where there is love, there is God. And where there is God, there is Jesus and the Holy Spirit, a perfect unity, the blessed Trinity. St. Augustine writes that “God is invisible, and must be looked at not with the eye, but with the heart.” When we explore the mysteries of God this is our starting point. Everything that we are as the church, as citizens, as children of God begins with the heart where divine love abides. Divine love is sacrificial. Love that as St. Paul reminds us often “is patient and kind, not envious, boastful, or arrogant…it bears all things, believes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” (cf. 1 Corinthians 13)

As human beings, prone to wandering, our love is imperfect, but we have been given Jesus, whose perfect love we cling to by faith. That perfect love, by faith, casts out fear, especially the fear of being unloved. In Jesus, God’s love is presented in human likeness. And in the incarnation of God’s beloved Son, who offered his life for the sake of the whole world, you are perfectly made and unconditionally loved. God loved you first. Not as you should be, but as you are. Yet, God’s love doesn’t leave you there but raises you up in that love to abundant life. This love abides in you. And in this everlasting, sacrificial, divine love, we see God. Who doesn’t want to be loved unconditionally?