You can always tell when we are getting close to the season of Advent; our Sunday lessons begin to turn toward ominous images of the end of times, a time when the messiah will return to earth and make God’s kingdom a final reality on earth. There are images of difficult times that will allow us to perhaps guess at when Jesus will return. But honestly, aren’t we always in the middle of hard, painful times? I often find myself thinking, “you know, now would be good”. Not sure how much more trouble the world could be in, but here we are waiting and hoping.
Hope can be at once a wonderful life-giving concept as well as a dangerous one. People who have hope are willing to go to extremes to change their situation for the better. Hope is one of the great themes and promises of the Advent season and I’m sure it will come up again before too long.
I have, like all of us, been subjected to having to “earn” emotional well being from others – you know, situations where either love or status or some other perceived good is earned by our behavior or loyalty. In those situations love or status or whatever the payoff is, is something that is conditional and can be lost easier than it can be won. It can be a quid pro quo situation like we often see in movies like the Godfather, where people are rewarded for their loyalty. But God doesn’t look or act like Marlon Brando, and the kingdom of God and its benefits cannot be earned. They are freely given by a God whose love surpasses our understanding.
I have often been asked questions like, “If God’s love means everyone is accepted, why bother being good and believing in Jesus”? I have had a lot of time to think this past week and this is what I have come up with… We follow Jesus and we keep his commandments because it’s what WE are called to do. Whatever happens to someone else and their “status” with Jesus is frankly, none of our business. I tend to believe that the major “judgment” on humanity has already happened on the cross that Jesus died on. He paid the price and paved the way for all of us to be reunited with God in love forever. We can’t earn it – no amount of money or good deeds is going to give us any kind of upper hand in the kingdom. God’s love is radically overflowing so that there is enough for everyone. And, if we are lucky enough to get that message then we should love God and love our neighbors out of sheer gratitude and awe for all that God has done and has given us. God’s mercy and forgiveness overflow for all of creation. Too many people out there make themselves busy by judging other people’s salvation and relationship with Jesus rather than paying attention to their own, It’s easy to get caught in that trap – but then we become people who think we are in charge of our own salvation and we are not; it is a totally free, undeserved, unearned gift from a God who loves foolishly and extravagantly. We have had many lessons from the book of Hebrews these last few weeks and that to me seems to be a point: God has loved us so much that he became human in Jesus to be in a relationship with us in such a way that we can never be separated from God again. And we cannot pay the price of that relationship, only God can.
“Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.” God is faithful, faithful in ways that we cannot even imagine. God’s sense of Justice is so very different than ours. And thanks be to God but that is the truth because none of us could ever do enough in this life to earn that kind of love. So let us not get tangled up and wondering about someone else’s salvation or someone else’s relationship with God. Let us work for the kingdom because we are grateful. Let us love God and love our neighbors because it’s what we have been called to do. It is the least we can do to say thank you to a God whose love knows no limits.