Monday, March 16, 2009

Today’s text

John 3:14-17

[Jesus said] as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. For this is how God loved the world: he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

Reflection

Everyone who believes … will have life. But this belief is not merely affirming statements about Jesus, who he is or what he does.

It is a believing into, a believing into what he does and gives. Believing into Jesus is a movement of heart, mind and body.

We give ourselves over to a way of seeing and being, Jesus’ way. He is lifted up like Moses’ snake in the desert, a fearful symbol of death and destruction. Surely no one wants to be bitten by the snake or end up as Jesus on a cross, an instrument of execution.

But we are invited to ‘believe into’ this way, to see in Jesus’ destruction God’s ultimate sign of love and life. Giving ourselves to it means cleaving to this sign, holding it fast even when it seems we are being torn apart by destructive forces in our lives.

It is hoping against every whisper of hopelessness that as Jesus rose from destruction to new life, we too shall find life out of the ashes of every trial and terror, every destruction and loss, even that of life itself.

Believing in Jesus is living trust that the one who is lifted up on the cross now lives to lift us from each valley into the fullness of God’s love and life.

We look at the sign of the cross and make it on ourselves, knowing Jesus way is and always will be our own.

Pr. David L. Miller