A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. Now this is a continuation from the readings we've been having of the encounter between Nicodemus who was a Pharisee and who came to Jesus at night. This, of course, is before the his passion and death and of their discourse and Jesus remark about having to be reborn again. And then Nicodemus says, well, how can that be? How can I go back into my mother's womb and be born again?
So this is con this dialogue is being continued. So Jesus said to Nicodemus, yes. God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him may not die but may have eternal life. God did not send the son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him avoids condemnation, but whoever does not believe is already condemned for not believing in the name of god's only son.
Now keep this in mind, you know, when we talk about the benevolent Christ and the magnanimous god and the forgiving and all this, remember text like this, that if you don't believe, you're condemned. These these are Christ's words. Listen. Whoever believes in him avoids condemnation, but whoever does not believe is already condemned for not believing in the name of god's only son. Notice nothing what you did to your neighbor, nothing what you did to yourself, but because you didn't believe in the son, you're condemned, Christ says.
I mean, that takes a lot of explanation, but just notice what we just read. The judgment in question is this. This is our lord still speaking. The light came into the world, but men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were wicked. Everyone who practices evil hates the light.
He does not come near it for fear his deeds will be exposed. But he who acts in truth comes into the light to make clear that his deeds are done in god, and this is the gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. In the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. You can't re notice this is Saint John, and you can't can't read this, at least I can't read this, without vividly recalling Plato's simile or metaphor of the or allegory of the cave, which is one of the most famous allegories in in classical Greek literature or in Western culture.
The picture is the Plato draws as human beings anchored chained to a bench looking at the end of a cave, and back of them is a tremendously bright light, the sun. And then between the sun and the and the people chained to this bench looking at the far end of the cave, looking at a screen, as we would say, you have puppets being maneuvered. And of course, the sun shining upon the puppets carrying on to the screen at the end of the cave, you get the images, the shadows, shadows of the puppets up on the end of the cave. All that the people down here know to a chain to the bench are the puppets. Shadows of puppets.
Not the puppets, but the shadows of puppets. But they're comfortable. They're happy. That's all they know. And then Plato says, this is in his republic.
Then he says, take some of them. Turn them around. Let them face the light. And the light, they wanna go back into the cave, most of them. Only a few are willing to face the light and to pay the price.
It's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable. And who wants to be uncomfortable? It's much better being chained to benches looking at shadows. Of course, it is.
This is a tremendous statement of Saint John. There is so much here. Notice the connection that our lord makes between physical action and belief. I have yet, really, to find an honest to god sinner who didn't justify what he was doing or she was doing with such expressions as, well, god will understand. God knows that I mean for the I intend this for nothing but the best.
I feel comfortable with this. Oh, that's the phrase. Make your decision. Are you comfortable with your decision? Fine.
That means it's right. Well, it may be absolutely the best evidence that it's totally wrong if you have the guts to get off your bench where you're chained and face the light. Now Plato doesn't call that light god, but that it's easy to see that that's something that he has in mind. This is a powerful allegory, and I don't we have no evidence that Saint John ever read Plato, but this certainly does reflect it. And it and our blessed lord, it certainly does reflect that whole concept of the cave.
But you see, this allegory of the light is not something special to any one person. So but our blessed lord here, you see, is using tremendously strong language, tremendously strong language, and he's telling us the truths of life. It's uncomfortable to face the truth in many instances. It's downright painful to break our change where we've been enjoying the shadows and turn around into the full glow of the sun. Have you ever come out of, let us say well, let take well, I don't know.
Come out of a cave, out of, let us say, the Catacombs in Rome, out of a theater, a a movie picture theater on a bright summer day, and you you you were very comfortable in there, completely comfortable. Then you come out and you walk on F Street and wham. You have to shut your eyes till you say, I get used to this light. Some people don't wanna get used to it. They wanna go back to the shadows.
And as Plato says, it's only a few who will stay there and face the light, and they will be the leaders of your people. That's another story. But, anyway, this is a tremendous statement of our lord. Really, it is. Let us face it.
The most important thing in life isn't what you do. It's truth. How do you know whether what you're doing is right or wrong unless you know what right or wrong is? I know that knowing isn't the answer to the problem. Everybody knows that.
Plato was wrong there. But the thing is, unless you know, how can you do what is right? And, certainly, whether you're comfortable with it, whether you feel good about it, whether God will understand as you think God ought to understand, he's our loving father, you know, and he will forgive me. Sure he will. He's he's the, you know, prodigal son, the woman taken in adultery, adultery, all of these things, you see.
God will understand. He won't be mean with me. He's a very loving and affectionate father. And after all, he talks about peace a lot too. You know?
Sure. You can accumulate all this kind of business, but you're facing the shadows. You are not looking at the son of god, and that's not merely a play on words. In the name of the father, of the son, holy spirit. Amen.