The World Is Not What It Was Meant to Be

Homily for Tuesday in the Fifth week of Lent

Today we read one of the passages of argument and debate so characteristic of St. John’s Gospel and so difficult to elucidate and to understand. In it various strands of argument are all woven together. Scripture scholars also agree that one verse in this particular passage is more difficult to translate than any other.

Rather than try to unravel this argument and debate, let us focus on what Jesus means when he says that his opponents belong to the world but that he does not belong to the world. John uses the Greek word: “kosmos” when he speaks of the world. He uses this word throughout the Gospel beginning in the very first chapter.

First, we note that the kosmos is the opposite of heaven. Yet the kosmos is not separated from God as it is God’s creation. More than that, the kosmos is the object of God’s love. God so loved the world that he sent his son.

At the same time, it is evident that there is something wrong with the kosmos. There is a blindness in it, a blindness that keeps the inhabitants from recognizing Jesus for who he truly is. The world cannot receive the spirit of truth because it does not know God. There is, as well, an hostility to God in the kosmos and to his people. The world hates Christ and hates his followers. In its hostility Christ’s followers can look only for trouble and tribulation.

G.K. Chesterton once said that there was only one thing certain about humankind – we are not what we were meant to be. By the same token, there is only one thing certain about the kosmos - it is not what what it was meant to be. Something has gone wrong. That’s something is sin. It is sin which separated the world from God; it is sin which blinds it to God; it is sin which is fundamentally hostile to God. However, though that may sound dire, let us remember that Christ has come into the world bringing with him forgiveness, cleansing, strength, and grace, making it possible for us to live as we were meant to live. Only recognition of Jesus Christ as the son of God, obedience to his perfect wisdom and acceptance of him as Savior and Lord can cure the individual soul and cure the world.

We are only too well aware of the disease which haunts and wrecks the world; the cure lies before us. The responsibility is ours if we refuse to accept it. It is for this reason that Jesus tells the Pharisees that they will die in their sin.