When we think of the word verdict, I suspect most of us jump to the famous cases:
• Not guilty of attempting to assassinate President Reagan by reason of insanity.
• If the glove does not fit, you must acquit in the OJ Simpson trial.
• We find there is no probable cause to indict Darren Wilson for the death of Michael Brown.
We know those famous cases (or have read about them) that set the landscape for people’s experience of the judicial system. Most of us have opinions about how ‘good’ or how ‘bad’ a particular verdict was. But, for most of us, it is tempting to think of verdicts as things that happen ‘over there’, to that crowd, whoever and however you view that crowd. Jesus would have us paint that word with a broader brush.
Instead of limiting ‘verdict’ to “the formal finding of fact made by a jury on matters or questions submitted to the jury by a judge” Jesus expands that understanding. “This is the verdict: The light came into the world, but people preferred the darkness to the light, because their works were evil.” The light came into the world, but people preferred darkness.
We know that truth in so many arena’s, don’t we?
• there is the darkness that accepts abortion and now euthanasia as permissible choices
• there is the darkness that portrays pornography, prostitution and every ‘shade’ of sexual activity merely as forms of recreation.
• there is the darkness that sees men, women and children as chattel or pagan infidels, to be burned alive or beheaded as collateral damage in an unsanctioned war of terror.
• there is the darkness of the shooting of two police officers at the end of a night of protests against structures of injustice.
This is the verdict, folks – we have, as individuals, as members of our communities and our nation – chosen the darkness over the light. It does not take a rocket scientist to know that truth. Jesus was certainly confronted by people’s preference for darkness. Into that ‘verdict’ – that understanding of human nature – comes this appeal from Jesus: “Come to this light and live.” Come to the brightness and find that which brings meaning and love. Come and know a redeeming love that will set you free to walk in the daylight, even when it is dark around you. Come:
• know the light that discloses the value of all human life from the moment of conception to natural death.
• know the light that reveals that sexuality is meant to communicate love, commitment, warmth, tenderness and care for another person.
• know the light that discloses all people as God’s children whose hearts ache, whose eyes cry, and whose hands caress their loved ones.
• know the light that shows that those truly worth imitating are those who work non-violently to ease the suffering of the outcast, the poor, and the marginalized.
“This is THE verdict: The light came into the world, but people preferred the darkness to the light, because their works were evil.” Will you prefer the light or the darkness?
Here is the interesting twist to Jesus’ ‘verdict’. There is no jury involved. There is no solemn proclamation by the chief juror. Rather, the actions themselves contain the verdict. They either are bringing, however imperfectly, the world of the kingdom into this world, or they are not. The deeds that I do, the things that I choose, either help make this a world of light and goodness or they foster the darkness that we seem to have such a proclivity for.
For in the end, God SO loved the world that he gave us his only Son so we might know and live in the light. And the choices we make and the deeds we do – create within us the ‘verdict’. Our loving God, both now and at the end of our days, simply honors the choices we make.
So, what is your verdict looking like these days?