Eastertide
April 15, 2021
Scripture Reading: 1 John 3:1-7
See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. –1 John 3:1-3
God created the world and all that is in it and called it good. All people are God’s children. I think God chose not to make a puppet theater where God pulled all the strings. God had a great desire for the interchange of ideas and feelings, the same need of parents to reproduce their likeness for the furtherance of human life and the expansion of possibilities. When God created us in God’s image to attain that vision, we were also granted free will to follow the Lord’s path or not. Thus, the anti-God, we sometimes call evil, was allowed a presence.
The world has fallen far short of God’s glory as we become more and more divided. We are being played by evil which is the entity treating us like puppets. Evil tries hard to limit our choices to exclude that which is good and right. We see this when we and society care more about issues that rarely impact our lives while ignoring the teachings of Jesus to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the sick, reform the prisoner, and welcome the stranger. We pick and choose verses from the Bible that support our biases and promote self-righteousness while patently ignoring the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount or Romans 8.
We are not given the assignment of judging or condemning others. We are charged with loving them. Preemptive love fills the void in people’s lives that evil uses to its advantage. Preemptive love is God’s love, and we as Christ-followers are empowered to share it, replacing something of far greater value than evil could ever produce. After this year of tumult, violence, sickness, and death, perhaps we need to reconnect with God’s preemptive love.
Prayer: Lord, heal our weary souls and enable our witness of God’s love. Amen.
All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.