Dearest e-votees-
This weekend we commemorate Mother’s Day. This weekend we linger in the good news of the empty tomb. This week our appointed epistle text reminds us that we are beloved children of God.
May we steep in these rich and poignant moments. May we share them with those who are jaded or maimed or disenfranchised. May God’s will come to bear in our lives.
Peace,
Karl
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1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3 For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, 4 for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. 5 Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 6 This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth.
Three strands of this text jump out from this appointed for this upcoming fifth Sunday of Easter (which also happens to fall on Mother’s Day):
• We are reborn children of God.
• God has commands and expectations that are good for God’s children.
• Blood and water testimony.
We are reborn children of God.
Through baptism and through belief in Jesus we are born as God’s children. The image of God in which we are created is drawn back to God in a loving and saving relationship. We are brought into a loving community that loves not only God (the parent) but also all of God’s children (including us). Part of what assures us and testifies to the world is our love for God. God loves us as a parent. The language in our text is particularly masculine in regards to God but other scriptures also testify to the more feminine aspects of God. Genesis 1:27 talks of us being created male and female in God’s image. Perhaps this weekend, and for all times, we would do well to expand our understanding of God to embrace all aspects of parental love—male and female—and give thanks that God has birthed us into the family through belief in Jesus as Christ.
God has commands and expectations that are good for God’s children.
“Eat your vegetables, they’re good for you.” has never been a winsome argument for me. Asserting (even rightly so) that something is good doesn’t make it less burdensome. Our text asserts that the commandments that God’s lays out for God’s people are not burdensome. I don’t know if this is so. What does seem evident to me after some years both on the inside and on the outside of minding God’s commandments is that they are far less burdensome than what ensues when we choose to disobey. God loves us as a parent. No mother, no father wants ill to come to their children. Part of what assures us and testifies to the world is abiding in God’s commandments. Not only will abiding in God’s commandments relieve burdens on our lives but will also help us to “conquer the world”—whatever that means. It strikes me that we would conquer the world much in the way of Jesus—with sacrificial love, with forgiveness, with a washbasin and a towel, etc., etc. We have seen too many of God’s children slaughtered, jaded, maimed and disenfranchised through our understanding of conquering the world. When Jesus said to forgive our enemies and love those who persecute us that was a commandment. If we love God we will allow this commandment to take deep and abiding root in our lives.
Blood and water testimony.
Jesus came into our world in much the usual way (after the rather miraculous conception). Human births are bloody and watery affairs. Jesus testified to his love for us by becoming one of us as a child. Jesus left this world in a brutally painful way. He died a bloody death on the cross. He undertook a foreboding baptism on our accounts. John 19:34 tells the grisly account of blood and water gushing forth from Jesus’ dead body as a soldier thrust a spear into his corpse. Jesus testified to his love for us by dying for us as a wrongfully condemned man. Jesus sustains us in a sacramental way. He commanded us to go into the world and baptize in water in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. He commanded us to eat his body and drink his blood in the forms of bread and wine. Jesus testifies to his love for us by continuing to offer water and blood for our sakes and for our salvations. And the Holy Spirit affirms this testimony.
God we thank you that you have brought us into your family. We thank you that you want what is best for us and lead us to be people who abide in your commandments. We thank you that you continue to testify to us about and through the works of Jesus—with water and blood—and shore up that testimony with the Holy Spirit. Continue to Mother us (and Father us) until we fully rest in you. Amen.
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