Bishops Libby and Malcolm have been reflecting on the gospel readings set for the principal service for the Sundays in Lent.

Lent 4 Reflection

Bishop Malcolm and I were pleased to gather again online with people from across the diocese to study, discuss and pray. We are blessed by the sharing of insight and understanding.

We began by considering how, in scripture, serpents represent all that diminishes and dehumanises us, and all that divides us from God.

We recalled with wonder and thanksgiving that all this Jesus defeats through love on the cross.

We often read and hear John 3.16 as a ‘stand-alone’ verse but ‘God so loved’ is a commentary on the previous verse that looks all the way back to Moses.

We are therefore reminded that Jesus stands in the long story of salvation history: the same God was saving God’s people in the despair of a snake infested wilderness came for our salvation in Jesus.

We reflected a while on the imagery of light and darkness. It is not darkness itself that is evil but actions, behaviours and attitudes that people would ‘hide’.

These verses also gave hope that all evil may be redeemed when it is brought close to Jesus who can transform and forgive, bringing wholeness and forgiveness.

A personal story was shared by a caver remembering an occasion of being trapped underground and the relief of light as a rescuer appeared in darkness.

As we considered the intersection of light and darkness, we referenced the insights from the national church Lent resource ‘Watch and Pray’ which has brought to our attention the risk of unthinkingly equating ‘dark’ with bad and ‘light’ with good as such imagery may feed underlying ethnic prejudices.

We wondered about the benefits of darkness. It is in the dark that restoration and recreation can occur.

The dark can allow space and possibility to abide, to think, to learn, to be changed shielded from unhelpful and distracting stimulation.

We recalled that God’s creativity emerged out of darkness. Bishop Malcolm remembered seeing light shining from windows of churches on gloomy grey Sundays, and offered that as an illustration, week by week, of the continuing draw of God’s love into the communities we are called to witness to and serve.

We noticed how frequently the word ‘world’ appears in this passage. From the start John speaks of the big picture, of the whole world.

As we read John, we think not just of ourself or even of all ourselves but of the whole world beset by ‘darkness’ and beloved by God - all created order not just humanity.

When John writes ‘God so loved the world’ we hear not just that God so loved people but that whole creation.

How might we respond to the challenge to manifest God’s love that isn’t self-concerned?

The image of love as a three-legged race was shared, of love as being completely in step, of matching ourselves to the pace, direction and rhythm of another.

How can we love God by being in step with God’s love for the whole of creation?

It’s too easy to condemn. But Jesus did not come to condemn the world but to save the world.

In the television series ‘Rev’, the journey to Easter begins before Christmas when the main character resists a culture of condemnation saying, “I will not do another sermon condemning the secularisation of Christmas”.

It is possible that we can feel closest to God at moments of temptation. Temptation can be vicious tool of Satan to highlight sin and increase guilt and shame that makes us feel not worthy to be close to God.

But this passage reminds us that God does not condemn but draw us to the light.

We pondered the reality that Jesus forsaken on the cross is, in fact, God on the cross. The cross is how God so loved the world.

John 3.14-21

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

‘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.

‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.’