One of the most recognizable, most quoted verses in the entire Bible is John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” It is the Gospel in a nutshell. Nearly every Christian has this verse memorized from early on in their faith. Athletes paint John 3:16 on their faces; it’s plastered on billboards in the middle of bustling metropolises; the verse is printed on T shirts and tote bags and coffee mugs; you can probably even find it on cardboard signs held by the street corner evangelists of our cities and towns. Next to Psalm 23, John 3:16 is likely the most well-known bit of Scripture for both believers and non-believers alike.What some people may not know, however, is that this wonderfully compendious verse comes on the heels of Jesus’ clandestine conversation with the Pharisee Nicodemus, a conversation in which Jesus preaches the Gospel to the mystified teacher. John 3:16 is the bookend to Nicodemus’s own personal mini-sermon, preached to him by Jesus Himself.

Before he became the Father of the Reformation, Martin Luther was once asked, “Brother Martin, do you love God?” His response was, “Love God? You ask me if I love God? Sometimes I hate God. I see Christ as a consuming judge who is simply looking at me to evaluate me and to visit affliction upon me.”

Well, at least he was honest.

Luther’s hatred of God and misconception of Christ may seem strange to us, especially for a monk, but it was inextricably linked to the faulty theology and false doctrines of Roman Catholicism, most pointedly, the Roman church’s failure to distinguish between Law and Gospel…

At the heart of the Christian faith is the good news that Jesus came for the weak, the frail, the guilty and the shameful. He came to save sinners, and yet when we find ourselves (as we so often do) in any of the aforementioned categories, our first response is not to remind ourselves of the gospel and rest in our Savior’s grace. Instead, we are prone to turn inward in endless, fruitless introspection. We turn to disciplines and human willpower, things which “have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but … are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh” (Colossians 2:23). And when these things fail us, when we stumble yet again, we begin the cycle anew, never progressing and never finding that soul-stabilizing assurance we so desperately seek.

So the question is: Why do we do this? What’s missing from the equation? We’re stuck in a rut that just keeps getting deeper, and all we seem to be able to do is spin our wheels. We need something to pull us out, something to lift us above the mire of sin and suffering and set our feet on solid ground … and that something is union with Christ.

It happened again today.

I found myself wondering if the trials I experience, the struggles in my life are God’s punishment for my sins. Maybe you’ve wondered the same thing about your sin. You know the one I’m talking about, the one you can’t seem to shake. It might get better for a while, then something comes along and all of a sudden it’s rearing its ugly head again. It’s that area in your life that feels like a constant one step forward, two steps backward situation. You’ve confessed it so many times you feel like a broken record. Could be you’ve stopped confessing it because you feel that pressure of “I should be better by now,” and so you bury it. In the dark. Where sin loves to grow and feed and thrive.

Maybe you’re uncomfortable now. That’s ok. So am I.

Let’s talk about the cross. I want you to imagine you are a first century Jew living in Jerusalem under Roman oppression. Go ahead, close your eyes and get those imagination juices flowing. I’ll wait.

So, what does your life look like? Are you married? Do you have children? Is your home small with dirt floors and stone walls? Did you make the bricks yourself? Does the sun rise outside your kitchen window every morning, warming you as you begin the day’s tasks? Are you a fisherman, a seamstress, a farmer, a shepherd? Whoever you are, sorry, but I’m going to interrupt your day a little bit…

KNOCK! KNOCK!

Pondering the marvels of the Creation story afresh today… When we think about God creating the heavens and the earth, it’s easy to picture a white-haired sage in a robe sitting down at a drafting table to plan the internal workings of a star like some empyrean architect, or opening a thick, tattered, leather-bound journal and sketching out a myriad of species of flora and fauna. But this is to humanize God, to see Him in our own image rather than the omnipotent, omniscient, totally-and-completely-other Being that He is.

Could God have done those things, just for the fun of it? Yeah, sure. He’s God.

Did he need to do those things? Absolutely not. He’s God.