“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. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.” (John 3:16-21, NRSV)
John 3:16 is one of the most famous verses in the Bible. For God so loved the world... It makes us feel warm and fuzzy. We want to jump up and say "I believe!" in response to this amazing love, so that we might be saved. But it is not in the words that salvation is found. I have come to love the rest of this passage even more than verse 16, because in it I find a way to live, not just something to say I believe in. I find a way to live those words, as Jesus did.
"And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil." John minces no words here. Jesus, God incarnate, animating force of the universe, is light. Sometimes, the light is so bright that it hurts our eyes and we have to look away.
The light on the French Riviera this week was like that.
The light lets us see every detail, perfect and imperfect. This is judgment - the exposure of what is.
You may remember those make-up mirrors that were popular in the 80s (not sure whether they are still around) where you could adjust the light -- daytime, office, evening... so we could see what we would look like depending where we were going to be, and we could apply makeup accordingly. I think sometimes we live our lives this way. Putting on a different face, depending on who we are trying to please. Or turning down the light so we couldn't see all the imperfections.
Jesus is the light of the world. Go back to the beginning of John's Gospel: "What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people." (John 1:3b-4) It is Jesus, the light of the world, who judges, not us. Jesus shows us what is. Our encounter with that light, every day, is how we know whether we are living into the fullness of life that God dreams for us.
Sometimes we don't like what we see in the bright light, and so we turn the makeup mirror to a more forgiving setting. Like the stained-glass lit Cathédrale St. Pierre in Montpellier.
We may feel like we look better in different light, but ultimately we know that this is an illusion. No matter how much makeup we wear or how much we fiddle with the setting on the makeup mirror, we are who we are.
The good news is that Jesus, the light of the world, loves us just as we are. And wants us to turn our faces towards his light, so that we might absorb it and grow towards its perfection. No makeup required.