Some of you have heard that my eldest son attends school a little bit out of the area, and I’m usually the assigned driver to drop him off at school in the morning, and it’s pretty common for me to pick him up as well. Well, as we get close to where he attends school, every day I drive past an Orthodox Jewish Synagogue, which has a school attached to it. And regularly in the afternoon, as I am driving to pick up my son, I notice on the closest major intersection a man – I’m pretty sure it’s the same man each time – standing on the street corner holding a large sign that says, “Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” I feel fairly confident that this gentleman’s choice of location is very intentional, as the school attached to the synagogue has a similar schedule to my son’s. And it makes me wonder – how does his holding this sign point people toward God in Christ Jesus, and how might it actually create a barrier?
And I’ll be honest – I have no intimate knowledge of this individual. I don’t know whether they feel hostile in any way toward those who don’t profess to be Christian. I am convicted by my understanding of the 8th Commandment not to bear false witness to assume the very best – that this person loves Jesus and wants to share his understanding of Jesus’s saving work in a way that gets the most eyes without necessarily being intentionally confrontational. And yet, if this sign is all he has to offer, I feel as if there’s something missing. Because anyone can make a sign – John 3:16, right? But the question is what happens after the sign is made?
Because the good news that we capture today – that God so loves the world? It’s amazing news. It’s the best news. But until it’s lived out, it’s only words on a page. So let’s ask the question – what does this mean that God so loves the world? And how, then, are we called to respond? How is that love revealed? Truth be told, for us it is revealed first and foremost in the fulfillment of the gospel story; Jesus Christ, the son of God, dies on a cross to unite us to him in his death and resurrection.
What Jesus speaks in our gospel reading becomes more than just words. This sacrificial love reveals and restores to us God’s holy purpose – that we all live our lives in trust and obedience to God’s word. And if we have truly received this love into our lives, then we can’t remain who we once were. God’s love in Jesus Christ is by nature a transforming love, revealing the gospel through how we live transformed lives.
And this is the truth that the writer of the letter to Ephesians reminds us of today – that we are saved by grace, and if we are saved by grace, then we are not in charge of our own salvation – we can only respond, and we are told today that we are in fact created to respond, to live our lives doing the good work that God puts before each and every one of us.
And our response declares to the world that our faith is more than just a sign. It’s more than just a logo. It’s lived out. It’s active. As people of God we are a people who proclaim with Spirit-led action the boundless grace and love shown to us in Christ’s death and resurrection. So if we are a people who are called to Spirit-led action to proclaim the promises of God’s eternal grace given to all of us in Christ Jesus, what does that look like? Because what I just said doesn’t really fit on a piece of poster board.
But the good news of today – and there is a lot, which is a little surprising for Lent – tells us that salvation is not earned through our actions, but our actions reveal our salvation – and the salvation of the world that God so loves. And when we live our lives as redeemed by God’s love found in Christ Jesus, then that is the only poster we need. Because the love of God not only transforms us, it also transforms those whom we meet. So as much fun as it is to think about these signs we could create to share God’s love – and I’m not saying these signs couldn’t or shouldn’t be made, one of the challenges for us today is the fact that how we live our lives is in fact the sign that advertises for the world what God has done for us. And this is far better than any sign, because our testimony in our actions is supported by the relationships formed through these actions.
So if God’s love for the entire world is revealed through us and our actions – after all, Jesus says that those whose deeds are done in God are drawn to the light, and light is that which reveals who we are, then what we are revealing is testimony not just to the world at large, but also more personally to those we encounter along the way. And that’s the difference between the passive work of a sign and the active work of people who are drawn to the light of Christ. Each of us gathered in this space has a story that is so much deeper than any signage. Maybe as you shared your faith in motion thoughts a little bit ago, you heard bits of somebody’s story that drew you in. I encourage you, keep leaning in to these stories. Because the story of salvation that we hear today in our passages from scripture are only a part of the good news – we too are the good news proclaimed today, when we live our lives in such a way that God’s love is truly reflected in the actions that the Holy Spirit invites us into.
So what does this look like? Well, maybe we do go back to those short phrases many of you wrote a little bit ago. I wonder, if you were to look at those phrases, what would it mean for you to live them out? If you said something about Jesus’s love, does that mean that you should also then share that same love with those you meet? If you spoke about the splendor of God’s creation, does that mean that you might feel special responsibility toward the creation that we are all a part of? I encourage you all, as you go through this week, and the remainder of this Lenten season, be mindful of how who we are reveals God’s love for the whole world. And know this truth – much as God loves us so much that God sends the Son, God loves in such a way that God will continue to seek us out, and seek out those we have never met, so that the entire world may walk in the light of God found in Jesus Christ, who lived out salvation for all of us, so that we could live our lives for the glory of God, in whom we find our salvation.