A World So Loved

A Reflection for the Second Sunday of Lent

photo by Greg Rosenke on Unsplash

A World So Loved

We think we are in this world to wait

To wait for another world

A better world

A more just world

And so on we go, waiting

Only to realize that 

This world already exists

It is already been gifted 

We, however, view it as from below

Imagine what it would look like from above

Get up and do not be afraid

Lift your eyes and your imaginations

Go from your here

to a there not yet even dreamed

Stop waiting and start acting as

Those who live in a world so loved...

There is a temptation, quiet and persistent, to think we are in this world only to wait — to wait for another world, a better world, a more just world. And so on we go, waiting, while the gift already given sits unwrapped before us.

Abram didn't wait. Go from here to a there not yet even dreamed — that is the word that comes to him, and remarkably, he goes. No map. No guarantee. Only a promise larger than his ability to comprehend it. Paul holds that moment up like a lamp: this is what faith looks like before it has anything to show for itself. Not certainty. Not achievement. Trust, extended into the dark.

Nicodemus comes to Jesus in the night, drawn by something he cannot yet name. He is a man of learning, of standing — and still he finds himself at the edge of a mystery that will not be reasoned away. You must be born from above. Not a command to escape the world, but an invitation to see it differently. Imagine what it would look like from above.

Because the world is not a problem to be outlasted. It is — this world, this broken and beautiful world — the object of a love so vast it took on flesh to reach it. For God so loved the world. Not the next world. This one.

The Psalmist lifts eyes to the hills and finds that help was already on its way. Lift your eyes and your imaginations. The watching, the waiting, was never passive — it was preparation for the moment of rising.

This is the call of the second week: get up and do not be afraid. Stop waiting and start acting as those who live in a world so loved.

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The scriptures for this Sunday: Genesis 12:1–4a | Psalm 121 | Romans 4:1–5, 13–17 | John 3:1–17