All Saints Lutheran Church
Pastor Raita Neely
March 30, 2003
Lent 4B John 3: 14-21; Ephesians 2: 1-10
"Wondrous Love"

Grace and peace to each of you from God our creator, and Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen. It is always sad when nations go to war. In recent years the sadness has been magnified because just a little more than a decade ago, we seemed so close to a lasting peace.

The wall had gone down in Berlin. Eastern Europe had opened up. The cold war with Russia had thawed and at that time in the early 1990's we thought, "Finally! At long last, we can have a peaceful world. But then suddenly in August of 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait launching a crescendo of tension-packed events that led to the Persian Gulf War. Then, ten years later, we experienced the horror, tragedy and heart-wrenching pain of 9/11, which led to the War on Terror, prompting military action in Afghanistan. And now, war with Iraq. Over the last few dramatic days, unforgettable images have captured our minds and touched our hearts. Some of the images that have caught my attention have been: The image of people by the thousands here in this country and around the globe holding peace prayer vigils. The image of our cousin John who is a jet pilot in our Air Force and is stationed in Germany, but who could be sent to the Middle East because of his experience. The image of a little preschool girl saying on television, "I hope we don't have war because people might get hurt." The image of world leaders and congressional leaders and people in the streets agreeing that something should be done, but strongly disagreeing over how to do it. The image of people all over the world stopping what they were doing and being glued to television sets for hours and hours. The image of President Bush speaking to the nation...and the world from the Oval Office. The image of one young soldier showing four different crosses he is wearing constantly around his neck sent to him by different friends and relatives and then reminding us of what we have heard before, "In foxholes, there are no atheists." And another young marine wearing around his neck a piece of debris from the World Trade center. The image of TV and radio news correspondents giving the news in dangerous situations and then scurrying to safety. The image of two little girls crying because their mother is in the military and is stationed in harm's way in the Middle East. The image of a family fleeing Basra, with a huge tank right behind them. The image of seeing war, as never before , on live television.

On and on we could go with a moving and poignant litany of these powerful images etched indelibly into our hearts and minds. I think today, the war is the elephant in our living room and we need to think about how we are going to continue to live together as Christian people who have many different ideas about what has been, where we are today and what is yet to come.

I think that the questions we need to address and discuss deserve dialogue. We need to speak with much humility and respect for each other. We need to recognize that there is a tension between Christian people who have very different viewpoints and different ways of solving issues. If ever we needed caring conversations with each other it is now. I don't believe that our questions are going to be helped by a monologue or a diatribe. That's why we have initiated the peace forums on Sunday evenings. Last Sunday's morning forum speaker said that right now on this globe we call home, 34 wars are being fought. We are so focused on Iraq, we have already forgotten Afghanistan, the Philippines, and other places in the world where our troops and others are in conflict. Are we going to learn peace, or will wars plague us until we destroy each other? When and how will we be a part of God's dream for us- the day when swords are beaten into plowshares...and there is war no more.

Many of us have been sitting in front of those glowing electronic windows of ours called Television. The ceaseless flow of wartime imagery is addictive, for we are watching history in the making, we tell ourselves. Yet those images also have a certain mesmerizing effect. We watch, and after a while we can hardly recall why. We see, but we don't see. We see events that undoubtedly bring pain and death to those in harm's way, but we scarcely feel that pain. We can turn our sets off and make the war stop.

Those who have never been in a war, have no way of knowing war. It is more like a video game, that one can observe, but not be involved in. If you have ever lived through a war, the emotions experienced are very different. Having lived through World War II in Latvia and Germany I can draw some wide strokes for you what war is all about. The war in Latvia started the year I was born. It ended six years later. War is fear. There is never a day when you feel safe, secure. The sirens sound and you know that once again, someone you know, someone you love will lose their life. My mother, my brother, and two of our close friends were all killed when our house was bombed. Was our house the intended target? No, it was the railroad station a number of blocks away.
So war is young children growing up without parents and without siblings who were their best friends. War is sleepless nights spent in trenches. War is no sanitation, no food, raging disease, and death all around. There is a stench to war that will never leave you if you have been surrounded by it. War is families separated from each other, some become refugees, some are deported, some stay in their country and try their best to survive. War is the story of Stone Soup all over again, sharing your meager possessions, and some finding it impossible to share, and so hoarding until they also have nothing. War is loss of trust in human ability to do good. War is tears and a deep ache for the human family that stays with you all your life.

War brutalizes the ones who fight and the ones flee. It brutalizes the winner and the loser. No one leaves war unscarred.

There are two images from World War II that have been seared unto my heart and mind. The first one is at age four standing at my mother's and brother's grave site and my mother's best friend pointing to the sky and saying to me, "Look, look, there they go up to heaven." And thinking to myself, but I need them so badly here.

The other image that has claimed my life and my heart is something that happened right after WWII. We were living in a small town in Germany called Blomberg. Just a few days before, the last English liberation tanks had come rolling through town shaking us with their incredible rumbling on the brick streets. It was early evening. Suddenly, it seemed like an unearthly hush settled over the whole town, and people, in total silence began to pour out into the streets. If we were in Blomberg today, I could lead you to the exact spot on the street where my aunt and I stood hand in hand. We were all facing west, where in the evening sky we could see an immense cross, covered with blood. It hung there for what seemed like a long time, then slowly, it faded away. Mass hysteria? Childish imaginings? That cross evoked nothing but awed silence from the people on that day. In the days to come, I never heard anyone speak of it. It seems everyone assigned their own meaning to what we had witnessed. Seven years ago, just before my aunt died, I asked her about the cross, and if she also remembered that day, or was it just a young child's faulty memory. She said, she remembered that day very clearly, and yes, she remembered it exactly as I had.

To me, that cross said, enough blood shed. Christ has died for you, that is enough, cling to that cross, don't create crosses for others. Be a peacemaker, there has been enough sadness and pain in the world. Be a lover of life and bring life wherever you can.

You see, in the midst of all our sorrows and all our pain, sometimes self inflicted and sometimes inflicted by others, come the clear notes of the gospel for this morning, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."

How do you and I, Christian people, live in face of that good news. What does the global village look like in light of that good news. What does the cross mean?

God on a cross. Humanity at its worst. Divinity at its best... God isn't stumped by an evil world. God doesn't gasp in amazement at the shallowness of our faith or the depth of our failures. God knows the condition of the world...and loves it just the same. For just when we find a place where God would never be - or at least we think God won't be there -like on a cross. There is our Lord , in the flesh.

God on a cross? The creator of the universe sacrificing the son for the creation? How could that be? Who is this Jesus?

The Lord was and is a God with tears. A creator with a heart that loves. Bloodstained royalty. A God who became earth's mockery to save God's children.

At the heart of our faith is the conviction that God's love is unfailing. Generations of recurring cynicism, indifference, and despair have never had the last word or given the definitive comment on our human situation. God's love for all humanity is persistent, and the Word of God always finds a new voice in the most hopeless circumstances. We are hemmed in by circumstances, or crushed by them, discouraged or despairing; yet in all circumstances, Christ commands our notice and our hope so that we may believe that the life we have been given is wrapped in God's love.

By our world's view, how absurd to think that God would go to such lengths to share God's love with such thankless souls. How incredible to know that Jesus died on a cross for you and me. What wondrous love God has for each of us. What strength in weakness. What sacrifice for the unworthy and undeserving. Incredible!

Where does God's love lead us? From darkness into the Lord's light. There's an old story of a sage who asked his followers how they could tell when the night had ended and the day had begun. "Could it be," asked one of the students, "when you can see an animal in the distance and can tell whether it's a sheep or a dog?" "No," answered the sage. "Is it," asked another, "when you can look at a tree in the distance and tell whether it's a fig tree or a peach tree?" "No, that answer is wrong also." "Then when is it?" asked the followers. "It is when you can look on the face of any man or woman and see that it is your sister or brother. Because if you cannot see this, it is still night."

May we never be so educated, may we never be so mature, may we never be so religious that we can see your love for all your creation O Lord, without wonderment and awe, without tears. Amen.