· Ray issued a prophetic warning to me in that sermon: do NOT try to be holier than Jesus. Rather, give yourself fully to loving the folk – and that means ALL the folk – those who fit in and those from the periphery, those who love God as well as those who are either ambivalent or even hateful. Remember: Jesus didn’t come to condemn the cosmos, but to love, nourish, and bring a measure of healing. Like the old song says: he’s got the WHOLE world in his hands
· So, in the spirit of both St. John the Evangelist and Ray Swartzback the urban preacher, let me risk unpacking some of the problematic and even uncomfortable parts of today’s readings for you because they not only strike contemporary people as troubling, but evoke a sense of God that no longer holds water. A creator who sends poisonous snakes to kill the community’s complainers? The source of creative and wild diversity throughout the cosmos who condemns those with doubts or existential questions about the meaning and purpose of life?
That, my friends, is BAD theology, a truth some intuitively embrace and vote with their feet, while others resist – especially if they choose to interpret the Bible literally. We would do well to recall that our spiritual cousins in Judaism long ago concluded that nuance, patience, and creativity are essential for making sense of the Bible. In fact, they crafted a four-tiered approach to Bible study using the acronym, PaRDeS, to keep things fresh. Pardes, in Hebrew, means orchard or garden, a reference to the paradise of Eden God created in the beginning.
P stands for p’shat meaning plain – a medieval exploration of a text’s literary, linguistic, and historical context – that strives to articulate what the words of Scripturehtml meant when they were first written, spoken, and/or collected. R represents remez meaning hint - a teasing out the allegorical possibilities of a passage – D is for drash from the Hebrew word midrash – the preferred, practical, and playful application of Scripture for everyday life – and S is for sod, meaning secret, or the creative consideration of the mystical and sacramental meaning of God’s word. The rabbis concluded – and we would do well to emulate – that the Bible is open to a host of interpretations – some are more useful than others – but all carry a piece of the truth. John Robinson, pastor to the Pilgrims who came to this continent in 1620, told us that: “God hath yet more light and truth to break forth from the Holy Word,” than we now grasp.
· Such a perspective is essential if we’re to make ANY sense of passages like Psalm 61: I long to dwell in your tent, O Lord, forever, and take refuge in the shelter of your wings? Oh really? God has wings…?
· Same holds for a rigid interpretation of some of the purity codes like not ever touching pork: does that mean Christians and Jews can’t play football? Let’s not even open the door on some of the sexual references that today strike us as bizarre except to note that once upon a time women’s hair made into braids or a top knot was considered an offense to the Lord. No wonder Jesus quoted the prophet Hosea to the scribes and Pharisees saying: “There is something greater taking place than even the Temple so go and learn what this means: I, the Lord your God, desire mercy not sacrifice.” Compassion always trumps rigid rule keeping for Jesus.
So, with these qualifications, I think Bible scholar and pastor, Bruce Epperly, is right to ask: Is God for us or against us in these readings? Is God primarily punitive or graceful in nature?
Can we trust God’s love or is there a “hidden” violent side to God, inspiring fear and not companionship? The texts for today describe an ambiguity in divinity. Though they speak of divine rescue and global love, they also suggest a dark side to divinity. In the Numbers passage, God causes suffering and seems to be the source of punishment that far exceeds our misdeeds… (while) the gospel of St. John asks us to wonder: Is God the source of condemnation or does condemnation occur in the natural course of events in response to our actions? Can our love of darkness thwart God’s grace? What is the nature of this condemnation – is it a matter of inability to experience the fullness of God’s love or is it eternal in impact? Is there a limit to divine love and, if so, does it come from our side or our ability to say “no” to God? Is it possible to have moral responsibility without condemnation or accountability without destruction? These passages invite us to ponder the relationship between grace, punishment, and personal responsibility.
· We know many of our neighbors no longer find solace or hope in the institutional church now at least partly because of such passages. They intuitively sense what depth psychologist, Carl Jung, once said about the story of Job: with a God like THAT, who needs Satan?
· Declining numbers for the past four or five generations have given rise to a culture with NO experience with church. Episcopal lay theologian, Tricia Gates Brown, writes that we are “on the cusp of a change… where almost every aspect of our country is in upheaval — cultural, technological, political, environmental, and spiritual. We are well past the time when we thought we could reverse the tide…for this cultural shift is much larger than us.” And while there are clues that the tide is beginning to turn in this vast and epochal cultural shift that may result in a yearning for communities of compassion like the church, so much remains beyond our control. My hunch, Dr. Brown, writes:
Is that in time, the shared faith expression people get from religious services is something they will, again, long for. But only in the way we appreciate something so long absent that the reper-cussions of the absence become evident and undeniable… and it’s not likely to occur in my life time.
· So rather than lament and fret over this – or give-in to nostalgia or worse to fear – why not become allies of the Holy Spirit as St. Paul encouraged in Philippians 4 and give attention to whatever is “honorable, just, pure, pleasing, true and commendable: if there is any excellence or anything worthy of praise, give your attention to these things.”
· From my perspective this includes rigorously sorting out what is true and salvific, good and noble, even in our holy scripture, ok? And today’s texts are a GREAT place to start given the ambiguity and contradictions they describe about the nature of the Lord we’ve chosen to wor-ship.
I take my lead from a wise and wonderful Bible scholar, the late Rev. Dr. Walter Wink, who taught at my alma mater, Union Theological Seminary in NYC, and later went on to do truly remarkable re-search at the Presbyterian Auburn Theological Seminary. Walter used to say that there are at least three perspectives concerning Biblical interpretation and each is thoroughly grounded in Scripture.
· One is a literal reading of Torah – the Law in Hebrew – that’s shaped by Leviticus and Deut-eronomy. There are liberating passages within Torah but also severe restrictions concerning who is in and who is out – who is acceptable and forbidden – who belongs and who must be banished from community. Can you think of a Biblical story or character that speaks to this restrictive perspective?
· A second interpretative lens comes from the prophets: rather than celebrate an austere and fixed sense of who is acceptable to the Lord and who is not, the prophets ground themselves in the story of Exodus and urge us to incarnate acts that emancipate and heal people, the land, and all that lives and thrives in creation. Tradition suggests that the essence of the pro-phetic expression was synthesized in Micah 6:8: What does the Lord require but that we do justice, love mercy, and walk with God and neighbor in humility. Do you sense the differ-ence between the path of the prophets and those favoring a more simplistic sense of Torah?
· And then there’s the path of Jesus who is every bit as devout as the Pharisees but without their penchant for segregation: Jesus rarely offers an unyielding set of rules, preferring, in-stead, parables, stories, and testimonies of faith rather than inflexible tests of faith. That’s the school OUR tradition favors – testimonies not tests of faith – and while we haven’t always gotten this right – think of the genocide our founders enacted upon first nations people or our acceptance of slavery for way too long – one of the great poets and hymn writers of the Congregational Way, James Russell Lowell of Cambridge, MA, put it like this in Once to Every Man and Nation: New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth; they must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth. Contemporary commentators insist that the readings for today are so curious and problematic that we MUST wrestle with them in worship, so here’s a few concerns:
As the story goes, when the wilderness people (of the Exodus) continue to grumble and misbehave, God gets impatient and angry and sends poisonous snakes among the people, whose bites cause several fatalities. The people confess their sin and ask Moses to intercede on their behalf. God relents and has Moses fashion a bronze serpent as an antidote. So, while God has offered a remedy, the snakes are still running loose, and people are still getting bitten… This story shows us a God who hurts and heals; a deity somewhat arbitrary and unpredictable whose moral ambiguity borders on abuse and should be called into question because the path of Jesus abhors even a hint of divine torment and terrorism.
The spirit, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus thoroughly rejects any portrayal of the holy as arbitrary and vindictive. As the Reverend Dr. Bruce Epperly put it writing in the on- line website Patheos: “If there is any redemption in this passage, it comes in recognizing that an orderly universe can involve pain as well as joy and that acts have consequences… any-thing more must be denounced as unworthy of Jesus and his love.” I would add that as St. John notes: the bronze serpent that Moses raises symbolically prefigures the Cross of Christ. Scholars at the SALT Project write:
· Such a perspective is essential if we’re to make ANY sense of passages like Psalm 61: I long to dwell in your tent, O Lord, forever, and take refuge in the shelter of your wings? Oh really? God has wings…?
· Same holds for a rigid interpretation of some of the purity codes like not ever touching pork: does that mean Christians and Jews can’t play football? Let’s not even open the door on some of the sexual references that today strike us as bizarre except to note that once upon a time women’s hair made into braids or a top knot was considered an offense to the Lord. No wonder Jesus quoted the prophet Hosea to the scribes and Pharisees saying: “There is something greater taking place than even the Temple so go and learn what this means: I, the Lord your God, desire mercy not sacrifice.” Compassion always trumps rigid rule keeping for Jesus.
So, with these qualifications, I think Bible scholar and pastor, Bruce Epperly, is right to ask: Is God for us or against us in these readings? Is God primarily punitive or graceful in nature?
Can we trust God’s love or is there a “hidden” violent side to God, inspiring fear and not companionship? The texts for today describe an ambiguity in divinity. Though they speak of divine rescue and global love, they also suggest a dark side to divinity. In the Numbers passage, God causes suffering and seems to be the source of punishment that far exceeds our misdeeds… (while) the gospel of St. John asks us to wonder: Is God the source of condemnation or does condemnation occur in the natural course of events in response to our actions? Can our love of darkness thwart God’s grace? What is the nature of this condemnation – is it a matter of inability to experience the fullness of God’s love or is it eternal in impact? Is there a limit to divine love and, if so, does it come from our side or our ability to say “no” to God? Is it possible to have moral responsibility without condemnation or accountability without destruction? These passages invite us to ponder the relationship between grace, punishment, and personal responsibility.
· We know many of our neighbors no longer find solace or hope in the institutional church now at least partly because of such passages. They intuitively sense what depth psychologist, Carl Jung, once said about the story of Job: with a God like THAT, who needs Satan?
· Declining numbers for the past four or five generations have given rise to a culture with NO experience with church. Episcopal lay theologian, Tricia Gates Brown, writes that we are “on the cusp of a change… where almost every aspect of our country is in upheaval — cultural, technological, political, environmental, and spiritual. We are well past the time when we thought we could reverse the tide…for this cultural shift is much larger than us.” And while there are clues that the tide is beginning to turn in this vast and epochal cultural shift that may result in a yearning for communities of compassion like the church, so much remains beyond our control. My hunch, Dr. Brown, writes:
Is that in time, the shared faith expression people get from religious services is something they will, again, long for. But only in the way we appreciate something so long absent that the reper-cussions of the absence become evident and undeniable… and it’s not likely to occur in my life time.
· So rather than lament and fret over this – or give-in to nostalgia or worse to fear – why not become allies of the Holy Spirit as St. Paul encouraged in Philippians 4 and give attention to whatever is “honorable, just, pure, pleasing, true and commendable: if there is any excellence or anything worthy of praise, give your attention to these things.”
· From my perspective this includes rigorously sorting out what is true and salvific, good and noble, even in our holy scripture, ok? And today’s texts are a GREAT place to start given the ambiguity and contradictions they describe about the nature of the Lord we’ve chosen to wor-ship.
I take my lead from a wise and wonderful Bible scholar, the late Rev. Dr. Walter Wink, who taught at my alma mater, Union Theological Seminary in NYC, and later went on to do truly remarkable re-search at the Presbyterian Auburn Theological Seminary. Walter used to say that there are at least three perspectives concerning Biblical interpretation and each is thoroughly grounded in Scripture.
· One is a literal reading of Torah – the Law in Hebrew – that’s shaped by Leviticus and Deut-eronomy. There are liberating passages within Torah but also severe restrictions concerning who is in and who is out – who is acceptable and forbidden – who belongs and who must be banished from community. Can you think of a Biblical story or character that speaks to this restrictive perspective?
· A second interpretative lens comes from the prophets: rather than celebrate an austere and fixed sense of who is acceptable to the Lord and who is not, the prophets ground themselves in the story of Exodus and urge us to incarnate acts that emancipate and heal people, the land, and all that lives and thrives in creation. Tradition suggests that the essence of the pro-phetic expression was synthesized in Micah 6:8: What does the Lord require but that we do justice, love mercy, and walk with God and neighbor in humility. Do you sense the differ-ence between the path of the prophets and those favoring a more simplistic sense of Torah?
· And then there’s the path of Jesus who is every bit as devout as the Pharisees but without their penchant for segregation: Jesus rarely offers an unyielding set of rules, preferring, in-stead, parables, stories, and testimonies of faith rather than inflexible tests of faith. That’s the school OUR tradition favors – testimonies not tests of faith – and while we haven’t always gotten this right – think of the genocide our founders enacted upon first nations people or our acceptance of slavery for way too long – one of the great poets and hymn writers of the Congregational Way, James Russell Lowell of Cambridge, MA, put it like this in Once to Every Man and Nation: New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth; they must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth. Contemporary commentators insist that the readings for today are so curious and problematic that we MUST wrestle with them in worship, so here’s a few concerns:
As the story goes, when the wilderness people (of the Exodus) continue to grumble and misbehave, God gets impatient and angry and sends poisonous snakes among the people, whose bites cause several fatalities. The people confess their sin and ask Moses to intercede on their behalf. God relents and has Moses fashion a bronze serpent as an antidote. So, while God has offered a remedy, the snakes are still running loose, and people are still getting bitten… This story shows us a God who hurts and heals; a deity somewhat arbitrary and unpredictable whose moral ambiguity borders on abuse and should be called into question because the path of Jesus abhors even a hint of divine torment and terrorism.
The spirit, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus thoroughly rejects any portrayal of the holy as arbitrary and vindictive. As the Reverend Dr. Bruce Epperly put it writing in the on- line website Patheos: “If there is any redemption in this passage, it comes in recognizing that an orderly universe can involve pain as well as joy and that acts have consequences… any-thing more must be denounced as unworthy of Jesus and his love.” I would add that as St. John notes: the bronze serpent that Moses raises symbolically prefigures the Cross of Christ. Scholars at the SALT Project write:
While God could have saved the Israelites by having them look upon any object at all, the chosen remedy is to look upon a bronze serpent, a vivid reminder — even in the midst of healing and restoration — of two things: first, the deadly, self-destructive nature of sin; and second, God's gracious transformation of even our worst into part of our redemption. The Christian cross can play this dual role, too reminding us of the many ways we turn against each other in violence and betray-al, and at the same time, of God’s graceful, transformative forgiveness and deliverance Like St. Paul wrote: we KNOW that in everything God works for good with those who are commit-ted to love. Not that everything IS good, but that God’s love is greater than even evil.
In the 21st century, connecting church with the cultural shift that engulfs us must include calling out bad theology even as we highlight the awesome accounts of sacred love that are beautiful, true, noble, and salvific. I like the way Pastor Dan Sadlier of Mosaic Church in NYC put it when he said that while formal theology can be confusing, the way of Jesus is pretty clear:
We move toward the poor, empower women, create space at the table for everyone who wants to eat, throw parties, widen the boundaries of family, poke holes in oppressive systems, don’t retaliate with violence, forgive the enemy, don’t horde, and be present with one another. Heal, share, and trust God as you push back the darkness because the kingdom is within and among us all.
So what do we do with the ambiguities and contradictions of today’s gospel? As you might expect, to make sense of this in OUR generation involves a choice. Some, like the Pharisees before us, are inclined limit and segregate God’s grace saying: ONLY those who confess Jesus as Lord the way I do are entitled to experience eternal life after life on earth is done. Others, and I place myself in this group, perceive at least three reasons to trust that salvation is way more inclusive.
First, throughout John’s Gospel, “the world” (kosmos in NT Greek) is a term used as shorthand for sin or estrangement from God — be in the world but not OF the world – which makes it all the more striking that Jesus says, “God so loved the world” (the kosmos) not, “God hated the world but loved the remnant of those who believe.” Second, in Torah, when God provides the remedy of the bronze serpent, the strategy is not to save just a few well-deserving Israelites, but rather to save “everyone” who had turned against God and then (for arguably less-than-noble reasons) sought deliverance (Num 21:8). And third, as if to clarify this very question, in the next verse Jesus underlines that God sends the Son not “to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17). (SALT Project)
I think this causes us to make a choice: do we trust that God loves ALL of creation and is doing all that is possible to heal rather than hurt? Or, is God’s love eclipsed by divine violence so that we worship not a God of mercy but one of retribution and suffering?
· To save, you see, is NOT to offer a pass to get into heaven at the END of this life – although that’s not excluded – rather the New Testament word we translate as salvation – soteria from the root sozo – means… to heal. To rescue from danger, pain, as well as the consequences of sin, confusion, and brokenness.
· So, what I hear in our new context is that those who choose to trust the way of Jesus – the path of forgiveness and compassion – are made whole. Healed. Empowered to pass on God’s love to others. Fr. Richard Rohr likes to say: if our wounds and sins are NOT transformed with-in, they are transmitted outwardly to others – most often to those we love the most. To be a part of the charism of this era, therefore, calls us to greet one another with open hands and arms rather than closed fists, hearts, and minds.
Reality is calling our community to incarnate an alternative to the chaos both by being creative and faithful to the gospel that Jesus makes flesh; and, by wrestling with the hard, troubling, and often unacceptable bad theology found in the good book. Symbolically, these challenging parts of Scripture are a lot like you and me: they’re real – they have to be dealt with – and by grace we need not be afraid to engage and be changed by them. Bad theology, like aspects of our own inner brokenness, you see, can point us in new and better directions IF we’re paying attention.
And that’s where sacred humor becomes part of God’s salvation plan: over the years I’ve discerned that most of us do NOT respond well to criticism, challenge, or what some overly pious people call speaking the truth in love. Most of the time, we just walk away from such insights and never find out the real issue. But bring a bit of self-deprecating humor to the table and suddenly hard truths within can be owned, named, accepted, and addressed. And you know who tells a GREAT story sat-urated in spiritual humility and humor? The mystics of Islam: the Sufis. One of my favorites involves the Holy Fool known as Mullah Nasruddin.
One day, the Mullah was sitting in a tea shop when a friend excitedly came in. ‘I’m so happy, my old friend,’ he gushed, ‘I’m about to get married and wanted to know if you had ever thought of marriage?’ “Oh many times,” smiled the old man. “When I was young, I very much wanted to and set out in search of the perfect woman. I travelled far and wide to find her. I went first to Damas-cus where I met a beautiful woman: she was gracious, kind, and deeply spiritual, but had no worl-dly knowledge, so I decided she was not the perfect wife. Later I travelled further and went to Bagdad and met a woman who was both spiritual and wise in the ways of the world. She was beautiful in many ways but we did not communicate well. Finally, after much searching, in Cairo I found her: she was spiritually deep, graceful, compassionate, savvy, and beautiful in every way. She was at home in the world and at home in the realms beyond it. In her I knew I had finally found the perfect woman.’ At which point his friend blurted out: ‘Why then why did you not marry her, Mullah?’ “Alas,” sighed Nasruddin as he put down his tea cup while shaking his head, “Alas, it seems that she was searching for the perfect man.’
We need not be trapped by bad theology: its existence in our Bible gives us a chance to name it, call it out, make it good and get it right just as we do in prayer and contemplation. And I submit to you that the more we do – and do it playfully and tenderly, with humble humor – the more God’s truth will shine within and among us to lead us from the darkness into the light.
For this is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And here’s why: so that no one need be destroyed; by trusting him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.
And THIS is the good news for today for those with ears to hear.
In the 21st century, connecting church with the cultural shift that engulfs us must include calling out bad theology even as we highlight the awesome accounts of sacred love that are beautiful, true, noble, and salvific. I like the way Pastor Dan Sadlier of Mosaic Church in NYC put it when he said that while formal theology can be confusing, the way of Jesus is pretty clear:
We move toward the poor, empower women, create space at the table for everyone who wants to eat, throw parties, widen the boundaries of family, poke holes in oppressive systems, don’t retaliate with violence, forgive the enemy, don’t horde, and be present with one another. Heal, share, and trust God as you push back the darkness because the kingdom is within and among us all.
So what do we do with the ambiguities and contradictions of today’s gospel? As you might expect, to make sense of this in OUR generation involves a choice. Some, like the Pharisees before us, are inclined limit and segregate God’s grace saying: ONLY those who confess Jesus as Lord the way I do are entitled to experience eternal life after life on earth is done. Others, and I place myself in this group, perceive at least three reasons to trust that salvation is way more inclusive.
First, throughout John’s Gospel, “the world” (kosmos in NT Greek) is a term used as shorthand for sin or estrangement from God — be in the world but not OF the world – which makes it all the more striking that Jesus says, “God so loved the world” (the kosmos) not, “God hated the world but loved the remnant of those who believe.” Second, in Torah, when God provides the remedy of the bronze serpent, the strategy is not to save just a few well-deserving Israelites, but rather to save “everyone” who had turned against God and then (for arguably less-than-noble reasons) sought deliverance (Num 21:8). And third, as if to clarify this very question, in the next verse Jesus underlines that God sends the Son not “to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17). (SALT Project)
I think this causes us to make a choice: do we trust that God loves ALL of creation and is doing all that is possible to heal rather than hurt? Or, is God’s love eclipsed by divine violence so that we worship not a God of mercy but one of retribution and suffering?
· To save, you see, is NOT to offer a pass to get into heaven at the END of this life – although that’s not excluded – rather the New Testament word we translate as salvation – soteria from the root sozo – means… to heal. To rescue from danger, pain, as well as the consequences of sin, confusion, and brokenness.
· So, what I hear in our new context is that those who choose to trust the way of Jesus – the path of forgiveness and compassion – are made whole. Healed. Empowered to pass on God’s love to others. Fr. Richard Rohr likes to say: if our wounds and sins are NOT transformed with-in, they are transmitted outwardly to others – most often to those we love the most. To be a part of the charism of this era, therefore, calls us to greet one another with open hands and arms rather than closed fists, hearts, and minds.
Reality is calling our community to incarnate an alternative to the chaos both by being creative and faithful to the gospel that Jesus makes flesh; and, by wrestling with the hard, troubling, and often unacceptable bad theology found in the good book. Symbolically, these challenging parts of Scripture are a lot like you and me: they’re real – they have to be dealt with – and by grace we need not be afraid to engage and be changed by them. Bad theology, like aspects of our own inner brokenness, you see, can point us in new and better directions IF we’re paying attention.
And that’s where sacred humor becomes part of God’s salvation plan: over the years I’ve discerned that most of us do NOT respond well to criticism, challenge, or what some overly pious people call speaking the truth in love. Most of the time, we just walk away from such insights and never find out the real issue. But bring a bit of self-deprecating humor to the table and suddenly hard truths within can be owned, named, accepted, and addressed. And you know who tells a GREAT story sat-urated in spiritual humility and humor? The mystics of Islam: the Sufis. One of my favorites involves the Holy Fool known as Mullah Nasruddin.
One day, the Mullah was sitting in a tea shop when a friend excitedly came in. ‘I’m so happy, my old friend,’ he gushed, ‘I’m about to get married and wanted to know if you had ever thought of marriage?’ “Oh many times,” smiled the old man. “When I was young, I very much wanted to and set out in search of the perfect woman. I travelled far and wide to find her. I went first to Damas-cus where I met a beautiful woman: she was gracious, kind, and deeply spiritual, but had no worl-dly knowledge, so I decided she was not the perfect wife. Later I travelled further and went to Bagdad and met a woman who was both spiritual and wise in the ways of the world. She was beautiful in many ways but we did not communicate well. Finally, after much searching, in Cairo I found her: she was spiritually deep, graceful, compassionate, savvy, and beautiful in every way. She was at home in the world and at home in the realms beyond it. In her I knew I had finally found the perfect woman.’ At which point his friend blurted out: ‘Why then why did you not marry her, Mullah?’ “Alas,” sighed Nasruddin as he put down his tea cup while shaking his head, “Alas, it seems that she was searching for the perfect man.’
We need not be trapped by bad theology: its existence in our Bible gives us a chance to name it, call it out, make it good and get it right just as we do in prayer and contemplation. And I submit to you that the more we do – and do it playfully and tenderly, with humble humor – the more God’s truth will shine within and among us to lead us from the darkness into the light.
For this is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And here’s why: so that no one need be destroyed; by trusting him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.
And THIS is the good news for today for those with ears to hear.
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