April 2, 2010
Good Friday

1 John 5

Such love could be but recompensed were you crowned the non-pareil of beauty. (Shakespeare again).

Such love could be but recompensed were you crowned the epitome of agape.

"Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we are the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes in God?"

What a beautiful message for today. Today, the anniversary of the day that Jesus died for us. Such love. The day that Jesus conquered death and the world and made it new. A new world, conquered for us by our God, given to us in our hearts. To enjoy and love in for all time, and that's how they will know we are Christians.

I read the Left Behind books once upon a time, and I'm not enough of a scholar to parse what was nonsense and what came out of actual Biblical prophecy, but the idea of a visible Mark of God seems, to me, overkill.

You know a sister and brother in Christ by how they act, by the love for God and His children in their hearts. I suppose a physical mark on your forehead would be more immediate, but it's also a little...easy. We should never lose the urge to reach out, to connect; the ability to see God in each other, in our fellow man, and act accordingly.

Because the world has been made anew. Today there was darkness and a rip in a veil and though Darkness fell over the whole land for three hours, during which God Himself suffered and died as a man to save us from our sins, but on Sunday the new world will be reborn.

And today is the proof of His love - such love that could not be recompensed even should we become the people that we know we could be.

And on Sunday His love, His proof, is greater still. He loved us enough to die, enough to limit Himself, enough to suffer, enough to pass through the pangs of death. And then He made the world anew for us so that He would never have to leave our hearts. He set us free from death, and He also gave us this gift: the world is new. The Spring has followed the long winter. Our new life has begun. We are living in the Kingdom of God.

And His love fills our hearts, shining into our world.

There is still so much darkness and so much death, because we put up walls that cast shadows then cower behind them. And our job is to go into the corners of the world and draw the children God loves so absolutely, so shockingly that He did all this from the murky shadows of the world if you let it in.

But He conquered the world today, and it felt like a pyrrhic victory because He died, but that was only the beginning. In the old world, we couldn't see it. Now we can.

It's shocking, it's unbelievable, it's gorgeous, it's true.

For God so loved the world.