Missional Canadian

I wrote the article that follows for the Easter edition of the Chronicle Journal … thought I’d post it here for those of you who don’t read Thunder Bay’s fine daily paper …

 You don’t see him as much anymore, the guy with the rainbow-coloured afro-style wig turning up at every major television sports event with his John 3:16 sign, although I have noticed a few churched types sporting John 3:16 T-shirts. Most folk don’t know what to make of the John 3:16 sign or T-shirt, except with good Canadian politeness, quietly write it off as just a bit weird.

 John 3:16 – it’s the spot in the Bible where the these words of Jesus are recorded, “God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son so that whoever believes in him may not be lost, but have eternal life.” (NCV)

Easter is the ultimate demonstration of love, where we see how the Creator of the Universe in his passionate irrational love for the people he made, entered this world to live among us, as one of us through Jesus. And then he allowed his own creation to brutally nail him to a cross, only to bust through death itself three days later!

 Christians, through the teaching of the Scriptures, understand that this death and resurrection of Jesus has made a way for us to access life as it was meant to be – full of love, freedom and peace, and to access this life for eternity. And because of this love we personally experience from God’s hand, authentic Christ followers seek to live and love like Jesus, pouring out our lives sacrificially on behalf of those who need and yearn to experience God’s love in personal and tangible ways.  

 Further, Christians understand that the death and resurrection of Jesus is God’s expression of love towards his entire creation, towards the entire world, making it possible for not only for you and I to experience healing and wholeness, but ultimately for this planet to experience healing and wholeness. Christians look forward to the promised new creation, the new earth and new heaven made possible by the cross and resurrection. As a result they do all that they can to see pockets of restoration and healing pop up all over the world, in anticipation of what is promised to come.

 It really is all about our God who so loved the world, including you and me, even in the midst of the human mess we get so entangled in; as well as our planet, even in the midst the decay and degradation it continues to experience.  He so loved us and our planet that he made way through Jesus to see all that is wrong made right.

 Jesus said the Christian faith and all of the Scriptures can be best summed by these words: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your mind and all your strength.  And love your neighbor as yourself.  There are no commands more important than these.”  (NCV)

 We respond to the God who so loved as at Easter, by loving him with everything we’ve got. And to love God the way he wants us to love means loving our neighbour, even as we love ourselves. It means giving our lives for the sake of our neighbours here and around the world, it means helping our neighbour experience the love of God for themselves, including touching the very neighbourhoods they live in with a bit of this promised new creation.  We love because He first loved us. And like Jesus, we love not just with words but with sacrificial action.

 This  Easter season, why don’t you check out a local gathering of Christ followers for yourself, and see if you don’t just personally experience God’s life transforming love, that in turn will empower you to love and live sacrificially in a city and world of deep need.