May 5, 2024 Text: 1 John 5:1-8
Dear Friends in Christ,
In our English language we have words that can have two opposite meanings. One of those words is “overwhelm.” On the news this week, we saw towns “overwhelmed” by tornadoes. A city can be “overwhelmed” by an invading army. We can be “overwhelmed” with grief at the death of a loved one. In all these examples, “overwhelmed” is negative. But it can also be used in a positive way. I was “overwhelmed” with joy at the outpouring of support.
The disciples saw it played out in their lives. They were called to work alongside the Savior of the world and their world was turned upside down. They were “overwhelmed” by the miracles and the healings and the way this man spoke. Positive. They also had times of being “overwhelmed” by the waves at sea or the soldiers marching into the garden or the trial and horrible crucifixion. Peter’s denial and Judas’ betrayal “overwhelmed” them with sin and guilt. Negative.
John knew the feeling. John writes today to the Christian congregations so that they would not be “overwhelmed” by the world. Which way is it going to be . . .
“OVERWHELMED OR OVERCOMING?”
False claims were rampant when John writes this. The virgin birth was denied, Jesus and the Christ were divided, and Jesus was buried but had not risen. People had been conquered by the world.
People are still conquered by the world. The virgin birth is still denied. God becoming man is denied. Jesus rising from the dead is denied. All we have are new faces being put on the same heresies.
We do not want to be “overwhelmed” by these deniers. We don’t want to become complacent, or compromise our faith. We do not want to stand in fear of rejection or conflict. The world is powerful. The voices of the world are powerful. The devil is working. How do we know all this? Because there are pews in this sanctuary this morning that were formerly occupied by every Sunday worshippers and leaders in our church. They now sit in silence because their hearts and minds have been “overwhelmed” by the world. It is probably about the saddest thing a Pastor and congregation can experience.
John’s encouragement is that we “overcome” the world. “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.” (v. 1). We overcome as we love and live out the command of God in our lives with one another. Christ sacrificed on the cross our sins of doubt and complacency and compromise and silence.
This faith in Jesus as the Law-keeping, sin-bearing Redeemer of the world is the “victory that has overcome the world.” (v. 4). The world’s desires pass away and the one who “does the will of God abides forever.” (1 John 2:17)
The object of our faith is Jesus the Christ. He secured the victory for us by “the Spirit and the water and the blood.” The life-giving Holy Spirit, by the life-cleansing water of Baptism, connects us to the life-redeeming blood of Jesus, who has overcome the world. Jesus is God enfleshed coming to us yet today in his body and blood here in the sacrament of the Altar. The church is nourished and overcomes the world.
In Christ we have overcome the world. Without him the world would “overwhelm” us. Victory in Christ. That is the theme by which Sat. John lived and with which St. John died. Christ breathed that divine theme into the Revelation of John, his last testimony to the churches John so loved. In the New King James version of the Bible John uses the word “overcomes” seven different times. Here are just two of those verses. Revelation 2:7 – “To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life.” Revelation 3:5 – “He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.”
We are not “overwhelmed” by the world – or by whatever may happen to us in it – because we are, as St. John says, those who, in Jesus Christ, are overcoming the world.
Amen.