“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.”[1] Think about that a minute; don’t let your familiarity with this verse steal from you the gift of understanding.
When people confess anger or hatred for someone or some others, maybe even if that someone or some others are hard to like or are unlovable entirely or even genuinely bad—maybe you’ve confessed such to me, and so you know what I say—I say, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son;” and just think, for a moment, how wicked and fallen that world is that he loves.
It’s a world that rejected him, scourged him, crucified him, but which God loved, nonetheless. It is a world given to violence almost from the very beginning. Only four chapters into the Bible do we find the first murder, brother killing brother; by the sixth chapter it says that God regretted having made us.[2]
But instead, he saved us; he didn’t wipe us out. The story continues with Noah and the flood, that great Old Testament sign for baptism, a story about a God who forgives and saves his creatures, wicked and foolish though they are. For God so loved the world.
Which is why we should love nonetheless, as hard as that is to do often; for that’s the Christian standard, to love the fallen world and fallen people just as God does—as he loves you, my fallen friends, as he loves me. And because we were invited not just to follow Jesus, but to take up our cross and follow, because we are meant to love like the Father loves, that does mean that we have been invited to suffer and to sacrifice for others, and not just for those we love or like or agree with but for “the world,” for everyone in it—the good as well as the bad.
This, however, is where many of us get off the bus and usually stop acting like Christians. This is where fear takes over and where Christian witness, the evidence of God’s love, goes out like lights in growing darkness. This is where too many of our leaders today play the tempter, tempting us to believe at least in the utility of hate. This is where we forget the full extent of the love God calls us to have for people—for all people, everyone, enemies included.
And I get it. It is scary to put one’s faith to the test like this, to love like this. It’s difficult to know when you’re called to suffer and sacrifice for others, what the difference is exactly between Christian sacrifice and simply being runover by evil or by wicked people. Are we not called to stand up and fight? Where do we draw the line? These are difficult questions; I hope you’re wrestling with these questions.
I am not going to preach very long today. I don’t really feel like it. I could in fact talk about any of the several evils of the day, our current violence; I could in fact say all sorts of things either to comfort you or disturb you. Maybe another time; the stillness of somberness seems still better now, at least for me. It still seems to me too loud out there. I promise to preach better next time.
All I really have the energy to say is that God does indeed love everyone, that his grace is truly amazing. And, that we are called to love exactly as God loves, “for your Father who is in heaven…makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good.” “Love your enemies…so that you may be sons of your Father,” Jesus says.[3]
And yes, it will cost you something to love like that. Yes, it will at times be risky. Yes, you may even be killed for loving like that. But that’s what Easter is for. Do you believe in the resurrection? Has your belief in it made you brave enough to love as God wants you to love, as God so loved the world?
Again, these are difficult questions; again, I hope you’re wrestling with them. For this world needs such love, such people courageous enough to love even in the face of fear. To put themselves at risk to love as God loves, to take up the cross and follow. Amen.
[1] John 3:16
[2] Genesis 4:8; 6:6
[3] Matthew 5:44-45
© 2025 Rev. Joshua J. Whitfield
