The Ground Zero of Grace--May 24, 2023

The Ground Zero of Grace--May 24, 2023

"After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, 'Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him'..." [John 17:1-2]

To hear John our narrator tell it, Jesus chooses the path of the cross without resentment or bitterness, but as his unique glory.  He doesn't face down arrest, torture, and betrayal with anger at his disciples for bailing out on him, or at the world's sinners for needing redemption in the first place, or at the Father for somehow putting him in this predicament.  Instead, again, as the Fourth Gospel tells the story, Jesus steps into this moment knowing it will allow him to give life to his people, and choosing it in spite of the pain that comes with it.

Jesus' kind of love counts the cost, and is willing to pay it, because he is convinced that you--and a world full of us--are worth it.  This is how he loves.

This is one of those details that's worth unpacking, because it's easy to overlook.  You may well have heard these words this past Sunday as part of worship, and it's quite possible you might have heard Jesus speak about his "hour" having come, and thought nothing else of it.  But in John's Gospel storytelling, the notion of Jesus' "hour" means something very specific.  Jesus' "hour" is the time of his suffering, crucifixion, and death [although we certainly know, too, that the resurrection lies through all of those].  It's not just a synonym for "opportune time," or "the right moment;" it's always about the cross.  So here we have Jesus, knowing full well that he is headed to the cross, but not trying to get out of it or take others down with him while he suffers.  He is willing to bear the trauma of it all without blaming anybody or lashing out.  And it is this very thing--Jesus' willingness to choose to lay down his life rather than seeking to get even with the ones who have led him to this moment--that is Jesus' glory.  This is what makes the cross beautiful, even as it is terrible.  This is what makes Jesus' kind of love glorious--he doesn't hold resentments against the world for whom he dies.  It is worth the loss for him because it means he gets to give life to us. 

In some ways, anyone who has ever loved a child knows something of that same glory.  Parents choose to lose sleep getting babies, or when their child calls for them in the night, sick or scared.  Teachers pour themselves into plans and lessons and patient care for their students, even knowing full well the students will not recognize all they've done or the hours and money they've given up for their students.  Aunts, uncles, and grandparents give up free time to go watch baseball games or dance recitals, all with complete willingness to do so, because they want the kids to know they are loved.  That is, in a very real sense, the glory of being a parent, family member, teacher, or other caring adult.  You choose a certain amount of inconvenience, suffering, or difficulty, but you choose it exactly because you want to give some of your own life to the children you care about.  And maybe at some point, those kids look up and realize just how dearly they have been loved all along... and they learn to do the same for future children in their lives. I don't know another word for that but "glorious."

In any case, those gifts of lost sleep, spent time, purchases for supplies, and everything else are offered to those who are loved without resentment or accounting.  They are simply part of what it looks like to love a child, and they are given freely.  If you know what that is like from your own life, then you've been given a glimpse of how Jesus' love works.  His love for us comes without those resentments even when it costs him, and it comes without keeping score or bitterness at the loss.  He so seeks our joy and our fullness of life that he is willing to spend his own our behalf.  And he would not have it otherwise.

This is the kind of love into which we are called, as well, because we have been loved by Jesus.  Just like children who grow up knowing they are loved are meant to grow into being loving adults for another generation, we who have been loved by Jesus are now called on to grow into that love for the people around us.  

And in the times we can zoom out our frame of reference for a moment to see how our love fits in a chain reaction of love that goes all the way back to Jesus at the center as the Ground Zero of grace, we come to see the beauty of it all, like ripples in perfect circles on the surface of a pond, or the geometric patterns of dancing droplets when a raindrop hits the surface of a puddle.  It is, quite simply, glorious.

May we participate in such glory today.

Lord Jesus, let us face this hour with your own kind of gloriously unbegrudging love.