Fr Mark Schultz

Dear Friend,

Our reading from John today presents us with those familiar and comfortable words (literally, they’re in the BCP on page 332 in Holy Eucharist Rite I and called the Comfortable Words), “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16). What a great comfort and unsurpassable joy this is! What a mystery of love that God has desired for us, in which God has desired to root us and home us! What unspeakable grace: that even in the midst of our perishing, our death-centeredness, God chose to gift us with God’s own self; that God chose to clothe us with God’s own self; that God chose life for us, and not just any life, but God’s own eternal Life.

A little later on the wonders of this passage don’t cease, because Jesus chooses to address the topic of judgment.

Notice, though, what he doesn’t say. Jesus doesn’t say, “God judges, sending some to life and some to death everlasting.” No. Jesus says: “this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil” (3:19). This is a profoundly different idea of judgment than we might be used to. Because what Jesus is saying here is this: “God desires you so much! God wants so much to be in relationship with you! And that will never change. That’s why God has sent Light into the world: because you were living in darkness. But look! A Light has shined! And you have been empowered to live in that Light! And you’ve also been given the capacity to slink back into the shadows if that’s what you want. But you were not made for that darkness and that darkness is not where you’ll flourish. Yes, you can choose it. But God will never choose it for you. God will never stop desiring you. So know this: how you respond to the light…that is judgment.”

That judgment, of course, is ours. The ability to make it is a terrifying gift that God has given us.

God’s own judgment on us, though, is very different thing. I talked about it a little bit on Ash Wednesday at the early service. I said that, in the blinding Light of the Cross, we glimpse who we were made to be, the one in whose image we were made to be. And we see that this light of mercy and of grace is meant for us, is reaching out for us. And we know beyond any shadow of a doubt God’s judgment on our lives. Because in the cross, make no mistake, God sees us, and yes, God judges us: God has declared judgment on the world, on us, on all of humanity who on that terrible day nailed God to that tree. And the judgment of God on us, his own murderers, is: Grace. Gift. Life everlasting and joy unlimited and peace beyond understanding and forgiveness beyond all imagining.

That is God’s judgment on our lives. God grant us grace to live into it, to walk in the light of God’s healing, loving and redeeming presence!

Under the Mercy,
Fr Mark+