Everything Changes in the Light of Love

Sunday, May 18 – Acts 11:1-18, Psalm 148, Revelation 21:1-6, John 13:31-35

Have you ever had the experience of something that you initially thought was a bad thing turning into a good thing?

When I lost my job at the University of the South during Covid in 2020, I was devastated. I didn’t necessarily love everything about the job, but I thought it was going to be the place I’d build a small house and settle in. Then they pulled the rug out from under me.

The truth, though, is that if I hadn’t lost that job, I would never have moved to Bradenton. I would never have had the chance to serve Redeemer in this way, and I might not have had the opportunity to enjoy this time of living near my parents.

Surprising turnarounds can even happen when people face a terminal illness. I’m not saying there’s always a gift in such hard situations but sometimes joy and peace surprise us amid the deepest sorrow and grief.

On a website called Healthtalk.org, I read about a 59-year-old man who was diagnosed with a terminal illness at 57. He had this to say in an interview:

If I were run over by a bus tomorrow then that would be a terrible thing and an awful shock and suddenly to have to come to terms with that for my family would be awful. And an awful lot of people have to do that. Well, now they’ve come to terms kind of with what’s happening to me now and they can see and hear that I’m well and healthy and positive and still performing, still working and… yeah fine. [Now] if I were run over by a bus tomorrow it wouldn’t make any difference because they’re already prepared themselves, you know?”

I also read about a woman who was diagnosed at 52. She said:

…people sent me cards and flowers and goodness knows what, and they would all go up on the window. This was the first time, and there were over two hundred cards all over the room and I wouldn’t take them down until I was in remission. So, I had all this power and all the energy and all the love coming to me…

I mean, I have been so well blessed by friends and relatives and neighbours and people, when you’ve got cancer, they are honest with you, they tell you what they think about you. They tell you what you have been like during your lifetime, what they have admired you for, what silly things you have done, you know, everything comes out…people can live and die and never be told how wonderful they are. You have cancer and people come out with all kinds of things, which is good. It makes you feel good about yourself.”

Another woman diagnosed at 48 had this to say about her marriage:

I mean we’ve always had a long and wonderful relationship, but I didn’t think it could get so much better, but it actually has done. I mean our depth of feeling is about a million times deeper than it was. We didn’t know that those depths were there but again going through something like this is incredibly bonding. And we’ve sat up in the middle of the night with pots of tea and tears and we’ve laughed and cried together. We’ve been through the bad news together, we’ve been through the good news together and it’s made us value each other in a way we didn’t know was possible and that’s the great thing about this.”

It seems that sometimes, through the grace of God, suffering can ease, and pain can become peace.

We see this in the cross. In today’s reading from John’s gospel, Jesus talks about God being glorified in him, in his path to the cross. That shocks us because the cross and its use as an instrument of torture and execution is not what anyone would have ever associated with glory.

But like in so many other aspects of Jesus’ life, he shakes everything up. Because in the kingdom of God, nothing is at it appears. We think it’s supposed to be one way, but again and again, God shows us something different.

We think glory goes with power, might, success, and riches. But the cross completely overturns our expectations. In the cross, what is a horror show, what is the ultimate suffering, becomes God’s glory. In the cross, the glory of God is found in vulnerable love.

Living in this “great ordeal,” under the illusion of separation, things seem isolated, divorced, painful, and even dark and evil. Death seems like our greatest enemy. But when heaven and earth are joined, we can see everything in the light of Love. Love is the most powerful force there is.

Even the cross could not defeat the love of Jesus.

And here’s the most important part. The cross is God’s glory, not because of the suffering, but because of the Love. The love of Jesus was so strong, so true, that he could face his own death, he could be tortured and beaten, and still not stop loving.

And because he walked that pathway all the way to its end, he was raised from the dead by the power of God which released that indestructible Love into the world in a way that the world had never seen before.

In his passion, we might say that Jesus goes up on the cross, down to the dead, and then is raised up again and ultimately joins God through his ascension. But here’s the best news of all. God isn’t looking for us to ascend in order to find that union. We are shown in Revelation that God comes down to us.

In truth, God has always been here, residing with us, in every moment of our lives. But because we live in the “great ordeal,” under the illusion of separation we don’t see it.

Paul didn’t see it until the scales fell from his eyes after his encounter with the risen Christ. Not everyone has such a mystical, world-shattering experience while alive on this earth. But in the new heaven and the new earth, we will all see the glory of God fully revealed. Until then we are called to love one another as Jesus loved us. That’s it.

We’re not asked to be perfect. We’re not asked to turn ourselves inside out.

We’re just asked to love.

In the face of pain, sorrow, and even in death, we’re just asked to love one another. In that love, we can glimpse what is not yet fully here. In that love, we can glimpse the glory of God.