Life in the Son

“He who has the Son has life; He who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” 1 John 5: 12

It all comes down to this. This is the line in the sand that God’s truth draws. What do you think about the Son of God? Do you have Jesus?

To the faithful, these words of John the Apostle make perfect sense. To have the Son is to have life to the full. And the opposite is also true: those who do not have the Son do not have life. Oh, they may be alive. But they do not possess the kind of life that John is talking about. They may be breathing, walking, talking, sleeping, and so on, but that’s not the kind of life John is talking about. John is talking about life that springs from a connection with Jesus; a life of service that is deeply meaningful; a life that unafraid of death. Life joined to Jesus, the Son. He who does not have the Son doesn’t have any of these.

It all comes down to this: “He Who Has the Son Has Life; He who does not have the Son does not have life.” This is Christian truth at its most straightforward, and it either makes a person rejoice or curse. Take for instance, one of our culture’s preeminent daytime talk show hostesses. Thanks to YouTube, you can watch a portion of an episode in which she used her microphone to declare, with utter conviction, that Jesus cannot be the only way to God. When a Christian woman in the audience refers to Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life, she vehemently disagrees and ultimately shuts the dialogue down. “He who has the Son has life; He who does not have the Son of God does not have life” was not allowed on that program. If the apostle John were her guest, he would have a battle on his hands. Something tells me the footage wouldn’t even air.

The media’s influence is deep and wide; but one wonders if it is setting the tone or is merely running with the current. Certainly, it speaks for many who will not hear of Jesus being the only way to heaven. It gives voice to the dark and self-centered hope that it really doesn’t matter what you believe.

We are under pressure to conform to a “choose-your-own-truth” spirituality. We don’t want to be perceived as unloving or judgmental, but when we speak the “foolish” message of the cross, we will be. So we have choices to make. We can simply not say anything, never bringing our private faith to light, and therefore never offend anyone. We can say that we’ll speak of Jesus when “the time is right,” banking on the fact that it never will be. We can be seduced by the opinions of those who seem so reasonable, so thoughtful, so successful, that they must be on to something. The sin that lurks within us is more than willing to listen to the question, “Did God really say...?” In a sense, isn’t that the oldest sin on record…to doubt that what God says is true?

Well, it all comes down to this. This is the line in the sand that God’s truth draws. The uniform, consistent message of God’s truth is: “He Who Has the Son Has Life; He who does not have the Son does not have life.” And here’s what it means to “have the Son.” It means that you have been drawn to Him. It means that you have heard Him say, “Repent and believe the good news.” It means that you have been challenged to repent, to admit your sinful actions and sinful nature, to come before the Lord with empty hands, empty pockets, just plain empty. It means to agree that God’s judgments are just and right—that we do deserve punishment and banishment because of our sin. To have the Son means that He sees you and He knows your condition and still offers you forgiveness that He earned. Your sins have sickened you, and He has the antidote. To have the Son means that He has given Himself to you; tying himself to you in Holy Baptism; covering you with His cloak of righteousness. To have the Son means you share in His resurrection and that all the questions that matter about “life after death” are answered in Him. To have the Son means to turn away from sin and to go in God’s direction, believing that you are claimed and forgiven by Jesus’ incarnation, suffering, death, and resurrection. Or one could say that to have the Son is to believe that the Son has you. You are His by his gracious, merciful, loving choice.

Do you see that it is not unloving to preach this message? Do you see that it is not hateful to believe it? Having the Son is the only lifesaving remedy there is! How could we think that withholding it from someone is at all helpful to them?

Here’s a part of my biography that you probably didn’t know. I was a jaundiced baby. Jaundice is a liver disorder that can cause skin and the whites of your eyes to turn yellow. The doctor probably told my parents that this is a potentially devastating disease but it’s easily treated. All they had to do was put me under a special light for a while and this would stimulate my liver properly and I’d be all right. Now, my parents could have said, “That sounds too easy. How about instead if we scrubbed him with soap and dipped him in bleach? If we worked hard enough, I’m sure we could get his normal coloring back.”
But the doctor would have said, “No, there’s only one way to handle this.”They could have replied, “Well, how about if we just sort of ignore this and pretend everything’s OK? You know — the jaundice is your truth, Doc, not our truth. And if we sincerely believe that, things will work out for the best.”
The doctor would have said, “You’d jeopardize your baby if you did that. Look, there’s only one way to cure him. You’re hesitant because it sounds too easy, but look at the credentials hanging on my wall. I’ve studied at medical school and I’ve used what I’ve learned to cure countless babies like yours. Trust me!”
Would anybody accuse my parents of being narrow-minded for trusting the doctor and pursuing the only course of treatment that was going to cure their son?

To have the Son is to be healed of the terminal illness of sin. To have the Son is to live each day with a clear conscience as we repent and return to Jesus, drawing on our baptismal connection with Him. To have the Son is to have confidence in the face of death, when all other supports are washed away, because we stand on the Rock of Christ, who rose and who lives. He has opened the gate of everlasting life to you. If you have the Son, you have this life. He has given all to have you.

Friendship with Jesus

Mother’s Day is the perfect time to talk about family resemblances. And when you talk about family resemblances, of course, you’re talking about physical appearances, but you’re also talking about mannerisms and things that you say just like mom did. What’s really interesting is when people pick up mannerisms and language from someone you’re not related to, like a close friend. It’s not unusual to identify with a friend so strongly that you unconsciously sort of imitate each other.

 Jesus and his disciple John had that kind of friendship. That is reflected in John calling himself “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” It is reflected in John taking Jesus’ mother Mary into his home at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion. And it is really reflected in the writings that John left to the Church. The close relationship between John and Jesus is evident in the way John says things. You can hear Jesus all through it. When you compare the epistle lesson with the gospel lesson for today, it’s as if the same person is talking. It sounds like John has absorbed Jesus’ teachings to the point that he speaks with his Master’s mannerisms. So it should not shock us too much to learn that what John says is challenging, uncompromising, and truthful, just like Jesus. The resemblance is striking.

Just like Jesus, John links love for God with obedience to his commandments. That sounds simple, but if you take it seriously, that’s pretty provocative. John says, “If you really love God, you’ll obey him.” And he goes onto say that “his commandments are not burdensome.” You might be thinking to yourself, “Oh really? Not burdensome? God’s command to always love and forgive—not burdensome? God’s command to love others as we do ourselves—not burdensome? Does John know what he’s talking about?

Well, yes he does—don’t forget, he was perhaps Jesus’ closest friend. And therein lies the key to understanding the link between love and obedience. Like the apostle John, you and I are invited into friendship with Almighty God. Jesus calls us his friends. His friends! If we think of obeying God’s commands in some kind of impersonal way, then we will always be hit with the Law. That is to say: commands are rules, and by nature, we break rules. By nature, we resent anyone who tells us what to do. We will, however, on occasion, listen to a trusted friend. We will listen to the perspective of someone whom we know really cares. This is what Jesus is saying to you through the words of John 15.

He says, “I consider you my friend. I’m not some faceless deity in the sky ordering you around, trying to make your life miserable. I am your friend who loves you. Jesus defines for us the greatest test of friendship: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” Think of some of your best friends—the people you love spending time with—the people you have shared so much with—the people you can be yourself around. Now ask yourself—would you die for them? Sometimes there are heroic people who do just that.

 Consider the life and death of Marine Corporal Jason Dunham. In April 2004, while leading a patrol of his Marines in an Iraqi town near the Syrian border, a nearby Marine convoy was ambushed. Corporal Dunham led his squad to the site of the attack, where he and his men stopped a convoy of cars that were trying to make an escape. As he moved to search one of the vehicles, an insurgent jumped out and grabbed the Corporal by the throat. The Corporal engaged the enemy in hand-to-hand combat. At one point he shouted to his fellow Marines, "No, no, no, watch his hand." Moments later, a grenade rolled out. Corporal Dunham did not hesitate; he jumped on the grenade to protect his fellow Marines, using his helmet and his body to absorb the blast.

A friend who was there that day put it this way: "Corporal Dunham had a gift from God. Everyone who came in contact with him wanted to be like him. He was the toughest Marine, but the nicest guy. He would do anything for you. Corporal Dunham was the kind of person everybody wants as their best friend." Despite surviving the initial blast and being given the best of medical care, Corporal Dunham ultimately succumbed to his wounds. And by giving his own life, Corporal Dunham saved the lives of two of his men.

Jesus would call that the ultimate expression of friendship. You may see where I’m going with this. Jesus can call you his friend because he laid down his life for you. He’s proven his friendship to you in the most extreme way possible. Because of our inability to love and obey, we deserve to be blasted with punishment. That’s not going to happen now, thanks to a Friend who loves so fully that he would voluntarily take the impact of your sin and guilt upon himself. He laid down on the cross beam for you. That is friendship. That is love. He did it to claim you as his friend forever. I’ve had great friends throughout my life, and they’ve been very good to me, but they’ve never done that. They didn’t suffer what I should have suffered. They didn’t die what should have been my death. Only Jesus did that. Only Jesus could. What a friend we have in Him!

Since He has done this for us; since it is His desire to call us His friends, that changes the whole way we look at the idea of obedience.

Think again, if you will, of someone you consider a close friend, if not your best friend. If they ask you to do something, how will you generally respond? Most of the time, you will do whatever you can to help out a friend. Even if it means shuffling your schedule and sacrificing valuable personal time, you’ll do it precisely because that person is your friend. You do it, not out of fear or obligation, but because of a bond of love and friendship. You might recall the image of one small boy carrying another on his back, with the caption, “He ain’t heavy Mister; he’s my brother.” That became the motto of what is now Girls and Boys Town, founded by the real-life Father Flanagan. And that captures how we feel and what we would do for a friend.

Since Jesus calls us His friends and demonstrated His friendship by laying down His very life for us, we, in turn, can call Him our Friend. More than that, the Holy Spirit enables us to treat Him as our Friend. That means we can come at the concept of obedience not in some detached way, but our response is wrapped up in a relationship of friendship with the One who paid for our sins with His death! In other words, because Jesus has extended to you his nail-scarred hand of friendship, you can live His way, with Him, not out of fear or obligation, but because of a bond of love—because He is Friend and Savior to us. He ain’t heavy; He’s our Brother.

 As John writes, “His commandments are not burdensome.” Now we can see why. Friendship with Jesus transforms “ought to” into “want to” and “got to” into “get to,” because we know how far He is willing to go to help us.

Chances are you’ve never heard of Mike Dunlap, assistant basketball coach at the University of Oregon. We don’t have time to re-cap his career, but there’s a comment about him that is worth mentioning, that applies to what we’re talking about. Dunlap’s former athletic director says this about him: “He’s very demanding of his players, but he would run through a wall for them and they know that. So they run through walls for him.”

 
            Jesus ran through the wall of death for us, and came out the other side alive. Let’s run through walls for our greatest friend, and let our resemblance to Him shine through.