Do you have a favourite verse in the Bible? Or a verse you know by heart? Certainly when I was a young Christian the most frequent answer to that question was John 3:16 which we heard this morning: 'God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have everlasting life.' I remember once in a Lent course listening to a couple of bishops and other church leaders who were asked if there was one verse which summed up the gospel for them and three out of four of them said this verse.
I'll begin this morning by pondering on this verse and what it says about God's love and then reflect on how it relates to our love, and especially, on this Mothering Sunday, to the love of mothers.
God so loved the world. Everything begins with God and his love, including the very existence of the world and all there is. God didn't need to create, yet out of his self-giving abundance he created the universe. But God didn't just create and then step back and admire his handiwork from a distance. In his love he was involved with his creation and not only through messengers and prophets. God gave his only Son, his beloved, not just for some people, but for the whole world. God's love is not confined to his chosen people; God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son. Through his one unique Son, his love embraces everyone and everything.
But we need here to avoid a possible serious misunderstanding. It's not that God remains detached, and sends his Son in his place. In giving us his only Son, God is giving himself; in sending his Son into the world, he is coming into the world himself. As Jesus says in John's gospel 'I am in the Father and the Father is in me'... 'The Father and I are one.' Or as Paul says: 'God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.' In giving us his Son, God gives us himself.
'God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son...so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have everlasting life.' God's love gives life. Just as God has created the world and all that lives in the first place, so in his love he offers us new life in his Son; we share in his resurrection life, life from the dead. God's Son is the Word through whom all things were made, and through whom all things will be re-made. 'In him was life' as we hear in the opening of John's Gospel which we read every Christmas Eve.
God so loves the world that he gives himself in his Son that we might have life. Self-giving love is of the very nature of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 'God is love' in Godself as we read in the first letter of John. And because we are created in the image of this God, we are called to self-giving love too.
All love comes from God. Today we think especially of the love of mothers. Being a loving mother (or father) isn't just about giving good gifts to our children – food and shelter, education and opportunities to learn and grow – it's also about giving our very selves. Last week, David quoted the Beatles song 'All you need is love'. We might agree that love is the crucial thing we need to give as parents, and indeed in all our relationships, but love is not just an easy emotion; it can be very demanding, as it requires the self-sacrificial giving of ourselves.
If we knew how much self-giving it would entail perhaps some of us would think twice about being parents! Of course the self-giving love of a mother or father brings great joy. We might think of the joy of a tiny baby curled up in our arms, or the joy of their first smile and gurgles of laughter, the wonder of seeing them grow, with their own unique personality, developing their own gifts and interests, and the sheer delight of that bond of intimacy and love.
But being a mother (or father) can also be very costly. Think of mothers whose children are born with a severe disability, those who are trying to bring up children in the midst of war or persecution; those whose children have turned to crime or violence or completely rejected them; those whose children have died. In the Western world, there has been a serious rise in depression among young people, especially during these Covid times, and the parents of those suffering from depression carry a very heavy burden. All of us who have had children will be aware of the cost involved in loving our own children, or be able to recall the pain we inflicted, intentionally or unintentionally, on our own mothers.
To love is costly. We see that in the love of mothers and fathers. We see it also in the love of God. God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. Jesus came into the world as one of us in the incarnation. But he didn't just come into the world to be born as one of us, but also to die for us. We also heard in our gospel reading this morning that 'the Son of Man was lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life'. This is a reference to Jesus being lifted up on the cross. John also refers back to the strange passage we heard in our Old Testament reading from the book of Numbers. When the people of Israel are bitten by serpents, they are healed by looking at the image of a bronze serpent lifted up on a pole. So, Jesus takes on himself all that bites and destroys us; he takes into himself all the sin of humanity, so that looking to him and believing in him we might find life and health. Christ is our 'true medicine' as someone once put it. Looking to Christ we find life and health; but this is costly. God's love in Christ, and the life he offers, cost him everything. Our life comes through his death. As one chorus puts it: 'Hallelujah, my Father, in his death is my birth. Hallejujah my Father, in his life is my life'.
The cost of love. I always find it striking, every year, that Mothering Sunday is followed by Passion Sunday and the beginning of Passiontide. We celebrate the love of mothers and the love of God one week, and then we move into the reflection of Christ's suffering and death the following week. But of course, love and sacrificial self-giving belong together and nowhere do we see that love expressed so powerfully as in Christ on the cross.
The love of a mother is costly. The love of God is costly. Perhaps the most painful experience is when love is rejected, for whenever we love we long for a response. Mothers at their best will keep loving even if their children turn away from them, but of course, they yearn for their children to return their love. The same is true for God. God yearns for us to respond to his self-giving love in Christ. But he will not coerce us; we need to respond freely. God's love embraces everyone, but not everyone wants to receive that love. Certainly within Jesus' own ministry, some people responded to him and some people didn't. As we heard in our gospel reading, his presence was a light, but not always a welcome light, as light shows up darkness, and sometimes it's easier to live in the shadows.
Do we sometimes run away from God's love in Christ; are we tempted to hide away in the shadows? We may, at times, want to hide away from God, because we are aware of our sins and failures; we feel they are exposed in his presence. But God always wants us to come to him, whatever mess we are in. Just as a mother wants her children to come to her even when they are in a terrible state. I am reminded of a powerful passage in the writing of Mother Julian of Norwich, who wrote her book Revelations of Divine Love in the midst of a pandemic of the plague, the Black Death, in 14th century Norwich.
Like several Christian writers over the centuries she compares Jesus' love for us as being like that of a mother and says:
'Sometimes, when we are shown the extent of our fall and wretchedness we are so scared and dreadfully ashamed that we scarcely know where to look. But our patient Mother Jesus does not want us to run away; nothing would be more displeasing to him. His desire is that we should do what a child does; for when a child is in trouble or is scared it runs to mother for help as fast as it can. Which is what he wants us to do, saying with the humility of a child 'kind, thoughtful, dearest Mother, do be sorry for me. I have got myself into a filthy mess, and am not a bit like you. I cannot begin to put it right without your special and willing help.' Even if we do not feel immediate relief we can still be sure that he behaves like a wise mother. If he sees it is better for us to mourn and weep he lets us do so – with pity and sympathy, of course, and for the right length of time – because he loves us. And he wants us to copy the child who always and naturally trusts mother's love through thick and thin.
(Mother Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love)
So today, let us give thanks for the love of our mothers, and remember the costly love of God in Christ, seeking to follow his way of self-giving love in our own lives. And let us pray that we might continually put our trust in Christ, receive his love, and find our life in him.
'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that everyone who believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.'
Helen Marshall