This pastoral passage was first written for LRBC on July 19 2015.

A few weeks ago all over Twitter and Facebook was the hashtag “Love Wins”. This was the victory catchcry of same-sex-marriage supporters after the US supreme court’s ruling. As a response to “Love Wins”, I wish it could be heard that ‘love has already won’ over 2000 years ago and that was by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ when he hung from the cross between two bandits. Love has already won – arms stretched out, beaten, battered and bruised, dead and afterwards resurrected. Christ on the cross was God’s love for the world, and it achieved everything it set out to achieve. That is the love that has won.

In terms of humanity’s rebellion against God, it’s Game Over. Rejection of the Creator will certainly receive its just punishment, but God’s true victory is in redemption – he has and continues to call people out of their rebellion and draw them to himself.  What remains to be seen is who will share in that victory of the cross. Christian faith is the victory of God’s love over the world that we can experienced now (1John 5:4) – if it is a genuine faith characterised by loyalty to the Apostles’ teaching, by obedience to God’s commands, and love for our brothers and sisters in the faith.

Let the scenes of celebration in Revelation encourage you (Rev. 5:9-14; 7:9-17; 11:15-18; 15:1-4). Life in the present may be characterised by conflict, but our eyes and our hope are set on Christ and his coming. We taste it now in our victory over the world, and will have our desire for holiness in ourselves and our world satisfied on the day when the fruits of Christ’s victory are enjoyed in the Kingdom of God.