Deep Mourning.

Hmm. So lately I have been in this weird emotional phase. It began on Thursday, in a Johannine Literature class. Normally this might be a very boring class, except reexamining this book has been a transformative experience in such a delightful way. It has helped me to experience how criticism and intellectual thought about God's word is not a damaging thing. It has helped me build up my faith by doing critical thinking... something I have very much needed lately.

The thing is that not everything read in class has been easy to read. There are some things that have been extremely challenging. For example, we have been discussing when exactly judgement is made and when human choice is final in regards to accepting Christ. Here is a particular passage:

^"For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment:the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light,lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God." (Jn 3:17-21)

There is such love that God would be in the world, yet there are some who will reject God. In the 4th Gospel there is a sense that there have been some within the Johannine community who were once true believers and now have walked away. It would appear that John needed to provide an explanation for this (So says DK). These apostates have made their choice and there is a sense that they are condemned already. This is so scary and pressurizing. It is by no action of God that they stand condemned. The penalty is of our own choosing.

I fell into such a deep mourning for those who have not chosen the Light. I couldn't stop feeling pain at the idea of people I love and care about in this position. I know that it is nothing I can change, but I feel such a heavy burden for the lost. Part of me was feeling this hopelessness. For a brief moment, I was so wrapped up in the idea of condemnation that I forgot the preceding verse (Jn. 3:16). That God so surely loved the cosmos... the heavens, earth and everything in between. That God so surely loved the one who rejects in spite of their sin, that he entered the world to restore us as children of God (1 Jn. 3:1).

I forgot that condemnation is not the heart of God, rather love and reconciliation. That is something not to be forgotten, no matter how deep our color of mourning is.