Emmanuel Lutheran Church

June 2018

What is wrong with our world? Seems like every time you turn around there is another mass shooting, another sexual crime, increased drug activity, another conflict in the Middle East, the list goes on. What is wrong with our world? I recently preached a sermon on Jesus’ prayer for his disciples (John 17). In this prayer, Jesus asks the Father to “protect them from the evil one” and mentions that “they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.”

Jesus’ prayer can seem rather daunting to understand so I felt it would help to have a starting point, a base on which to build around. The starting point I chose was the word “world.” What is wrong with the world? Absolutely nothing! That may astonish you, based on how I started this article, but it is true. There is nothing wrong with the world. My proof for this is found at the very beginning of our Bible, Genesis 1, verse 31: “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good (emphasis added).”

Our New Testament was originally written in Greek. The Greek word for “world” is “kosmos.” You may recognize this in our English word “cosmos,” meaning “universe.” It literally means “order or arrangement.” Everything that God has created has order and harmony. All you have to do is look out into space and see that it is so orderly that physics, math and science all can be used in extremely accurate calculations regarding it, otherwise our spacecraft would not be able to make it to their destinations and on perfect time. Indeed, everything in the universe that God created is in harmony and is very good. So what is going on upon this little blue speck we call earth that makes it seem so disorderly and chaotic?

On this little blue dot exists something unique to all the cosmos, humankind. God created and all was very good. What is not good is of human creation, not God’s. Created not by God’s desire for unity but our penchant to divide and conquer. Humans created division of racism, sexism, prejudice, poverty, warfare and so much more fueled by hatred, anger, greed, pride, envy and fear among many others.

This is the “kosmos” into which Jesus came. It is of human origin. John writes at the beginning of his Gospel “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world…yet the world did not know him.” We are so far removed from God’s original creation that we can’t even recognize it! And yet, God loves this kosmos so much that he sent his only Son into it, not to condemn it but to save it. That is how much we are valued in all the cosmos.

The “evil one” has many names. I named just a few above. We can sum them up with one name – sin. Sin is anything that divides instead of unites. Sin is anything that comes between relationship among ourselves but most particularly with God. Sin creates disharmony. This is the kosmos, the world, into which Christ sends his Church (you and I) to be a witness. This is why Jesus prays for our protection from the “evil one” that we might not fall victim to or take part in this chaos but be brave and bold enough to proclaim the hope of Jesus Christ to the kosmos.

There is so much more to be said about all this, but the main point is to provide a different look at the world around us. When things just seem to be getting worse and worse, know that the world is very good. Know that God has redeemed the world through Jesus and that you are a part of that wonderful redemption. Take comfort, not in the measures we take to try and straighten things out (for our attempts will most certainly fail), but in the fact that God decisively acted to save the world in the death and resurrection of Jesus. That saving work is begun and continues as the faithful go out into the world to proclaim the good news. Indeed the world is very good. And when we see it that way, it changes our perspective on everything and destroys the evil one.

Blessings,
Pastor Alan