Grace and Peace to you from God, our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
I heard a funny joke. A 60 years old couple were celebrating their 40th anniversary and the good fairy miraculously appeared. She said, "You each get one wish for having been such a loving, faithful couple. What will it be?" The wife said, "I want to see the world!" Whoosh, two tickets appeared for air travel and continuous cruises. The fairy turned to her husband and said, "And for you?" He responded, "I want a spouse who is 30 years younger". Whoosh! She waved her magic wand and he instantly become ninety years old! You got to love those fairies.
Now there is a point to my joke. Jesus talks today in John's gospel about the world. He says, "I have given them (the disciples, believers, the church, my body) your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. ”What in the world does Jesus mean by the "world"?
The world is a complex concept in Biblical thought. The actual Greek word Jesus uses is Kosmos - we get our word cosmos, in English, from it. When the New Testament uses the term the “world” though, it is talking about the human condition as it now exists because of the complex phenomena of fear, anxiety, unbelief and outright rebellion against God's sovereignty and power that we call human sin. The earth and we its inhabitants are subject to the influence of sin in our lives.
Sin affects everything we do or try to do. Sin is an equal opportunity employer. It hits Democrats and Republicans, men and women, Whites and Blacks, Muslims and Christians - every human institution is marred by the ill-effects of sin. As the great hymn says "There is a balm in Gilead to heal our sin sick soul". We are “sin sick”
A friend was telling me recently about why her husband retired from his government job as a supervisor. He is a really good man. He is honest open, reasonable, kind, patient - not without a few flaws,but overall the kind of ideal,fair-minded person you would want to have in authority over you. Do you think that made him exempt from office politics? In your dreams right! He had people who would lie about him to advance their own agenda. He would find out that people went behind his back to report grievances or withhold important information from him to make him look inept or foolish at meetings. Doing this deliberately, with the intention of undermining him.
This phenomenon of mean-spirited, deliberate, wrong-doing is what the Bible calls the "world". The world is egocentric, wants its own way, doesn't live by the Golden Rule and seems to be under the direct influence or Satan and evil. That is what Jesus is talking about when he says the "world". He says, "The world has hated them because they do not belong to the world".
The existence of evil is always a mystery. How could Hitler so poison the minds of 50 . million Germans - the most of them profoundly faithful Christians to follow him into the demonization and planned genocide of 6 million innocent Jews, Gypsies, and Gay people? How could the town of Cambridge Maryland participate in the lawless vigilantism of the forced kidnapping of an accused Blackman and his subsequent lynching without the participation and direct influence of evil in the 1930's? How could a congregation of Christians turn against their loving Pastor and then devolve into feuding, snarling factions and give itself over to the dark side? All these examples are real. We don't have to look very far to see how powerful evil is and how the world pulls us into the influence of its dark gravity.
If we were left on our own to fight the “world”, we would be hopeless and the future would be dismal. But we aren't on our own; the future of all humanity is bright with light because Jesus is the door to our, and the “world's” future.
Jesus overcomes the world by absorbing human sin in his own body on the tree. He becomes vulnerable to sin. God in Christ draws close to us to show us that there is an alternative to our sin-sickness. He teaches the higher way. Wash the world's darkness with love - turn to other cheek. Refuse to seek vengeance, but return good for evil - that is your mandate. Do not see the one whose skin color is a different shade as someone different - but cast your eyes on them with love - they are family. Customs and cultural differences are not barriers to relationships, but should be seen as enrichments - as gifts. Perfect love casts out fear Jesus taught us. He told us so, and lived out that love until he took his last breath dying for us on the cross.
Jesus radically re-oriented our values. The world values power, money, status, winning, coming in first. The Kingdom of Christ, the rule and reign of Jesus has this love based value system. Not the ones with the most toys wins - the one who gives away the most is held up as the ideal Our power is not based on bending others to our will but in serving others, pouring out love to them. It is not status and public recognition we seek but instead offering ourselves in humility to others to be a blessing to them by loving them, helping them and relieving their suffering.
I've been reading a cool book lately about what Jesus has done. It takes the image that Jesus repeatedly uses - the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven and tries to explain it. The word Kingdom which in Greek, the NT's language, actually can be translated as God's Reign or God's Rule, God's Dominion or Lordship over us and all creation - all the world.
“Of course, the essential presupposition of all this proclamation of the need of God's saving presence in a human life is that human beings are not all right in their present condition. The presupposition is that human beings are fallen and cannot get up by their own efforts. They are lost in a world of self-centered and self-seeking ventures and realities and require a radical rescue operation to be set right so that they may truly learn to love others and become other-directed individuals. What the Dominion of God entering the heart does is to take a person out of a circus-like hall of mirrors environment where one is perpetually looking at and admiring various configurations of oneself and to I place that person out in the fresh air of God's world where he or she may see the world as it is and understand his or her own place in it”. pg 15 “Imminent Domain” – Ben Witherington III
Jesus has triumphed over the world, over sin, over death, over pride, over all the forces of ego-centricity and negation that seek to defeat us. Jesus says it best himself also in the Gospel of John, "In deed God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him".
Rejoice, the world in you has been overcome by the divine love of Jesus.
You are free. Be at peace, and serve your neighbor and love your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.
In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
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