Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out His commands. In fact, this is love for God: to keep His commands. And His commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. This is the one who came by water and blood - Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. We accept human testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which He has given about his Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God accepts this testimony.Whoever does not believe God has made Him out to be a liar, because they have not believed the testimony God has given about His Son. And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. (1 John 5:1-13)
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
There’s an old gospel hymn, written in 1939 by Eugene Monroe Bartlett, which includes the following words: “... victory in Jesus, my Saviour forever.” The question, I suppose, is: victory over what? And - victory by what means? Grantland Rice was a sports writer. He was also something of a philosopher. He’s often given credit for the old saying “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.” A lot of people have made fun of his words, and called them into question. Martina Navratilova, for example - the great tennis player - once said that “whoever said ‘It’s not whether you win or lose,' probably lost.” I think Navratilova’s quote probably sums up the thinking of the world. She would have probably agreed with Vince Lombardi - the great coach of the Green Bay Packers, who said, “winning isn’t everything - it’s the only thing.” We have this desire to create winners and losers in our society - and not just in sports. We do it in all aspects of life. Love, business - in so many things, it tends to come down to who wins and who loses doesn’t it. Even in church - as I've noted before - we tend to take votes to decide who wins and who loses rather than take the time to pray and discern the will of God. So, I want to go back to Rice’s words for a moment. You see, he didn’t actually write “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.” The words actually come from a poem he wrote in 1908 called “Alumnus Football,” and it actually says:
For when the One Great Scorer comes
To mark against your name,
He writes - not that you won or lost -
But how you played the Game.
“The One Great Scorer” in this poem, of course, is God. I don’t know anything about Grantland Rice’s religious beliefs, but I believe he did get this right. From a Christian perspective, you see, victory isn’t a matter of winning or losing. Victory is about being faithful to God. We don’t (or at least we shouldn't) have winners or losers in the church. What we have in the church, among the community of believers, are people who are victorious - not because they have outrun or outfought or outscored anyone else. We are victorious because we have lived as God has asked us to live. Victory is not about winning. Victory is about persevering. In 2 Timothy, Paul writes not about winning. He writes, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race” - but he never says that he won either the fight or the race. He does go on to declare victory, though, not because he “won” - but because “I have kept the faith.” In other words, he has held on to that which God has given him - the assurance that in Jesus there is victory. And John, in the passage we read today, also speaks not of winning, but of “victory” - “This is the victory that has overcome the world ...”
So what is the victory? And how is the victory won? For Jesus, victory was about both crucifixion and resurrection - because both were tied up in being faithful to God's call. For us? That's true as well. We can be victorious even when we seem to be obviously beaten. But since we’re in the season of Easter let's think about the resurrection as the victory. The resurrection of Jesus is God saying that even the worst thing that can possibly happen to any of us is already beaten. The thing that none of us can beat God has already beaten. It’s why, in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul can say “where, O death, is your victory,” and then he concludes the passage by saying, “thanks be to God. He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” So what is the victory? The victory is the resurrection. How is the victory won? The victory is won by the resurrection. But there was a third question. What’s the victory over? Is it over death? Well, yes. But is it only over death? I would say no. In John’s words, it’s the “victory that overcomes the world.” It’s a victory over death, but it’s a victory over more than death - the resurrection is a victory over anything that takes away life - and so many things beside death can take away life. So many things can hold us hostage. So many things can hold us in bondage. So many things can turn life into drudgery. Or into meaninglessness. Or into a nightmare. So many things. I think of simple things. I remember a television commercial a few years ago, in which a young man puts a desk lamp out at the curbside for the garbage pickup the next day and then spends the night wistfully gazing at it, worrying that it’s lonely; wondering if he can give it up. And there are people like that. They’re controlled by their possessions. I think of hopeless things. People who have to turn to drugs or alcohol or whatever it might be just to get themselves through another day because their lives have become so meaningless and they can’t find anything else to make themselves feel better. They’re controlled by their addictions. Or I think of tragic things. Like a 17 year old girl in Nova Scotia who takes her own life because of something that happened that was out of her control but whose consequences she couldn’t escape from, and she just couldn’t find the strength to keep battling the demons that had invaded her soul through no fault of her own and wouldn’t let her go. All of these are the things of the world that sometimes we just can’t defeat. But God can defeat them. God can defeat them because God has defeated death - and if God can defeat death, God can defeat anything. This victory won by God - this “victory that overcomes the world” - is a victory that overcomes anything that takes life from us. This is a victory that promises us not only that God will not be defeated, but that we will not be defeated.
Now the whole verse, of course, says “this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.” Does that mean that victory is only for the faithful? Does it mean that those without faith are condemned to defeat? I don’t believe we can be bold enough to say that. John is simply writing to assure those with faith that a victory has been won by God, and God is perfectly loving and perfectly merciful and perfectly just all at the same time. We can’t understand that kind of perfection, which is probably why we’re told not to judge. Our calling is simply to proclaim the goodness and the salvation of God. Once again, in the word of Grantland Rice.
For when the One Great Scorer comes
To mark against your name,
He writes - not that you won or lost -
But how you played the Game.
Each one of us can be responsible only for how we play the game, and not for how others play the game. Claim the victory, and live life to the full, as Jesus asked - which means living a life of love; love extended in all directions; love withheld from no one.
No comments:
Post a Comment