Friends,

One of Wednesday’s appointed scriptures was John 3:16-21 which reads:

“‘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.’”

One thing that baffles me about being a father is just how brazen my boys are when they are total jerks to each other. From my perspective there must be malice behind their actions, but the more I observe them and talk to them, I think it’s more of a compulsion and that they are acting out of instinct rather than pre-mediation. Since they do these misdeeds in the light, I see them, intervene, and hopefully they learn. As part of the process, they have to say sorry when they are in error. When they don’t get it, we talk about it more. Progress happens, but it is slow and never in a straight line.

One day their misdeeds will be calculated. They will learn that they not only want to misbehave, but they want to get away with it as well, and they will start to do their actions in secret, in the dark, if you want to stick with the metaphor in John’s Gospel. I need to prepare myself for this shift, because my task will change. It will no longer just be handing out consequences, but trying to teach them the importance of trust, and why it is innately good to try to be a moral person. It goes beyond consequences, and my hope is that we will instill in them values that will drive them to do good.

We can read the passage above as a condemnation of those who are evil and sin and dwell in the darkness, and a lifting up of those whose deeds have been done in God. But what sort of deeds are those that are done in God? A lot of things pop into mind. Visiting the sick, shut-in, and prisoners. Feeding the hungry. Clothing the naked. Please hear loudly that you should do these things. However, I would put another task in that list. It is harder to do, but so very essential, which is to confess.

We are fooling ourselves if we think we are any different than young children learning the difference between right and wrong through trial and error. The difference is we are so much more afraid of making errors. Reputations and pride are at stake. Grudges can form and linger. Being in error…being in sin can feel like a dangerous thing, so when we suspect we might be in error we hide it in darkness. We hide it by convincing others that we are right, even by unfairly discrediting others. We distort the truth to ourselves and others. Out of fear and a sense of self-preservation we dwell in the darkness.

Confessing is a Godly thing to do. We lose the ability that children are so good at, which is to learn, not just facts and skills, but what it’s like to learn to do good. Failure is part of learning. The fact that you still feel badly about that one thing, is paradoxically evidence that you’ve learned. If you haven’t told that person you are sorry yet, go take that burden off your shoulders. It was love that drove Christ into the world, and the purpose of his coming is our salvation and not condemnation. Our task is to learn to dwell in the light and discover what it is like to see and to be seen.

I hope to see you on Sunday.

Blessings,

Nick