The Lutheran Hour

"God Loved the World"

#72-23
Presented on The Lutheran Hour on February 20, 2005
Speaker: Rev. Ken Klaus
Copyright 2025 Lutheran Hour Ministries

Text: John 3: 16a

Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Because the sacrificing Savior has conquered sin, death, and devil, all who believe on Him know they will not perish, but by God’s grace they are the recipients of everlasting life.

The time was World War II, and the Jewish man found himself in a Nazi extermination camp. He had been separated from the rest of his family, and he imagined some of them were, in all probability, dead. Only after the war did he find out that 89 of his relatives had died in the death camps. One day a guard pulled the Jewish man away from his work and took him, through the back door, into the hospital. They entered a dark room, and the man was told to have a seat at the bedside of the room’s sole occupant – a wounded German soldier. The soldier, his name was Karl, with a gravely voice, gasped out his confession. Sent to the Russian front as part of an S.S. unit, he had had a part in any number of atrocities directed against the Jews. Although he had seen and done much, the great horror that seemed to most occupy his thoughts was when his unit had rounded up all of a community’s Jewish residents, locked them in a large wooden building, and then burned it down around them.

The soldier’s inhuman litany was terrible for the Jewish man to hear. Several times he tried to exit the room. Each time he tried, the bandaged soldier would ask that he stay. Finally, after two hours of confession, the soldier told the Jewish prisoner why he had been called. The soldier said that the doctors had told him he was going to die. Before he breathed his last, he wanted to clear his conscience. That’s why he had asked the nurses to bring him a Jew, if indeed there were any Jews left in the world. Then the soldier said something like, “I do not wish to die with guilt. I don’t know you. I only knew that you are a Jew, and I want you to forgive me for all of the Jews I have killed. Without your forgiveness, I cannot die in peace.”

The Jewish man sat. He stared at the face of the dying man. He tried to imagine the many faces of those this man had killed. Finally, and without speaking a sound, the Jewish man got up and went back to his work detail. He left the soldier to die alone, words of forgiveness unspoken. Years later, after he had been released, after the war was over, he wondered did he do the right thing? It was not a thought that raced through his mind once and then was forgotten. He wanted to know if he had done the right thing in withholding his forgiveness. He asked his friends. He visited the dead soldier’s mother. He spoke to rabbis, Christian scholars, a wide range of philosophers, always asking their opinion on the question: “Would you have offered forgiveness?” Of the 32 people the Jewish man asked, only six disagreed with him. Only six said he should have said that which would have given peace to the dying soldier.

Now I would like to ask you, “What would you have done?” My Christian listeners already know the right answer: we should forgive. But I’m not asking about the right answer. I’m asking, “What would you have done?” I’ve thought about what I would do. The Lord has given Pam and myself, three children, all different. All blessings. The Lord has given us three grandchildren. If you allow for a little grandfatherly prejudice, they are all beautiful, all brilliant, and all beloved. How would I feel if someone systematically, deliberately, methodically killed those grandchildren, those children, our brothers, sisters? How would I feel? How would I react if the murderer enjoyed killing those people who are closest, dearest, and most beloved? If that person asked for forgiveness so he might feel all right about what he had done, would I give it? Could I say those words? If I did say them, would I mean them? Would you?

It is possible, I suppose, that you might be a super saint, a Mother Theresa. You might be the kind of person who, no matter what crime is committed against you, remains magnanimous, generous, and gracious. In the course of my life I have met a few people who were like that, but not many. Will Rogers said that he had never met a man he didn’t like. That’s a wonderful gift. But I’m not that way, and most of you aren’t, either.

Thankfully, what you would do, and what I would do, is not the subject of this message. The subject of this message is what God would do. During the first part of this message, I have asked you to think about what you would do if you were innocent and someone committed some terrible crime against you. It’s easy for us to think of ourselves in that way. Each of us, if we were asked, could come up with a life’s list of things where we have been sinned against. It would be easy. We carry that list with us. We can speak in detail about the times we have been shortchanged and the moments when we were wronged. We can spend hours relating how life has been unfair to us and how we have been the victims of prejudice, injustice, and inequity. Playing the part of the underappreciated, undervalued underdog who has nobly endured the unendurable, is a role that we like to play.

But it is not a role for which we are entirely suited. The truth is, if we in the story above were to be given a part to play, ours would be the role of the dying soldier while God would be the One who has been the Victim of countless atrocities. Now I know that you don’t want to be identified with such a terrible individual as that soldier. Most of us are uncomfortable with the comparison. Still, more often than not we are the offenders, not the offended; we are the ones who have done the sinning. We are, as far as God is concerned, the criminals; we are not the victims.

Look at humanity’s track record. God set us up in a perfect world with perfect everything. Forget pains and problems, sins and shortcomings, hurts and hatreds. They didn’t exist. Our first ancestors had everything they could have wanted. And what did they do? They wanted more, much more. And their ungrateful hearts turned away from God’s gifts; His garden, His beauty; His bounty, and they did the one thing that He had asked them not do. In response to that first sin, the Lord promised to send His Son to save humanity. Now you would think with God’s promise in their pockets, that our ancestors would start to behave. You would think it, but you would be wrong. In the second generation of humans, Scripture records an older brother killing his younger brother. As the years went by, humanity became so disgusting, so despicable, so damnable that God, with the exception of eight people who had remained faithful, decided to start again.

Now with a fresh beginning, you might think that people had learned their lesson. You might think it, but you would be wrong. You can read just how wrong in the pages of the Old Testament. God picked leaders, heroes of faith to be the recipients of His blessings and promises. Most of those heroes messed up. Abraham received promises from God, and then, to make those promises a reality, Abraham took matters into his own hands. Abraham’s son Isaac, stole from his brother; Jacob showed favoritism among his children; his sons sold their brother into slavery. God appointed a leader, Moses, to rescue His people from bondage in Egypt, and all the free people could do was moan, complain, and stage a series of petty revolts.

When God finally brought His people into the promised land, they quickly grew ungrateful. God would punish them, they would repent, be forgiven, be delivered, and then before you could blink twice, they would reject God and return to their worship of idols. God sent kings to rule the people and the kings grew power mad, became murderers, adulterers, and idolaters. God sent prophets, and the people rejected the prophets. Idolatry, blasphemy, murder, incest, hatred, gossip, lies, greed, covetousness – those are humanity’s qualities as shown in the Bible. We are the sinners; God is the One who is sinned against.

Now, I know you might say, “Not me. I’m not an idolater, a blasphemer, a murderer, someone who is guilty of any of those other sins. I’m a pretty good guy. And I’m sure you are, compared to the rest of humanity. But, compared to God, you’re not so nice; you’re not so good. You are in truth, a sinner. And if you doubt it and deny it, you’re just not being honest with yourself. You’ve done nasty things; bad things to others, too; and you’ve done nasty things, bad things, sinful things to God. And often you have declined to do that which was good. The Bible is quite right when it says, “There is not a just man on the earth who does good and never sins” (Ecclesiastes 7:20.)

Now, if God was going to be fair about all the things that we’ve done wrong in our thoughts, in our words, in our actions, He would punish us. He would damn us to the fires of hell without a second thought. He would walk away from us without regret, without a single glance back over His shoulder. But that is not what God did. In the Old Testament, when people sinned, God kept promising a Savior who would take away those sins. Then, after thousands of years of promises, some 2,000 years ago God kept His promises. The Bible says it this way: “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son.” God, who had been sinned against by every man, woman, and child, sent His Son into this world to save every man, woman, and child.

You might think that people would be appreciative that God had kept His promises. You might think that, but–that’s right, you would be wrong. Jesus, God’s Son, true God and man, was born in the town of Bethlehem to take our place. Was He appreciated? His king tried to kill Him. As an adult, He came to speak to the members of the town where He had been raised; they tried to throw Him off a cliff. He healed the blind, and He was accused of being a devil. He went to the homes of sinners, and He was charged with being a shameless, self-indulgent sinner. When He raised a friend from the dead, the religious leaders of His church decided to kill Him. Read the New Testament, and you will see Jesus’ story. Almost every act of His helping is met with hatred; His love is continuously countered with loathing; His miracles are maligned; His divinity is denied; His peace is unwelcome. In spite of that, He kept helping; He kept loving; He kept caring. Jesus said that He had come to seek and save the lost. He did. Jesus said that He had come to give His life as a ransom. He did that, too. When He was arrested, He did not strike down His jailers. When He was unjustly accused, He did not make the liars dumb. When He was condemned, He did not rant about life’s injustice. When He was nailed to the cross, He forgave those who put Him there. And then, His work finished, He died. Jesus died for you.

What would you do if someone had lied about you or someone near to you? What would you do if someone murdered someone dear to you? I can tell you what God did. God allowed His Son to carry our sins. God allowed His Son to be unjustly accused. God allowed His Son to be crucified. You could not do it; I would not do it; but God allowed His innocent Son to take the punishment for us all. Then, to show to all the world that His gracious gift was not an impossible dream, an imaginary, once-upon-a-time-fairy tale, God raised His Son from the dead. God raised His Son from the dead so that I might know, and you might be sure that we can be saved. Because Christ has risen, all who come to Jesus with Spirit-given faith, all who say, “Lord, be merciful to me a sinner!” find there is forgiveness, there is hope, there is healing, there is happiness, there is heaven. God so loved the world that He gave His One and Only Son.

Not so long ago, I heard about a father who was teaching his son this, the most precious of Gospel verses. The father would say, “God so loved the world,” and the boy would repeat, “God so loved the world.” “That He gave His One and Only Son.” “That He gave His One and Only Son.” Eventually Dad thought his son had the verse down pat. He said it once more, and his son, watching his dad’s lips, was an eighth of a beat behind, “God so loved … the world … that He gave His One and Only Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish.” And then Dad stopped, waiting for his son to finish. The boy did: “shall not perish, but have everlasting … FUN!” The boy wasn’t far off. Having Jesus, God’s Son, as your Substitute, as your Savior from sin, is the best thing that can ever happen to you. Jesus is the greatest gift you will ever receive.

I began this message with a story of World War II. Let me end with a story from that same conflict. Now, I know that many of you have stayed in a hotel or a motel. If you have, you know that in many rooms, along with the phone book, you can usually find a copy of God’s book, the Bible. Those Bibles are paid for and placed there, by a group of people who call themselves the Gideons. The Gideons are not a new organization. Indeed, just a few months before Japan’s 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the Gideons were able to have 50,000 copies of the New Testament given out and distributed among the ships in the Pacific fleet. After the raid, many of those Bibles were found, well worn and read. On the last page of those New Testaments, there was a place for the owner to sign his name, thereby showing that the Holy Spirit had led him to faith in the Savior. Many of those New Testaments had those places filled with the signature of the deceased owner.

After the attack, a Honolulu nurse volunteered to help the Navy in any way she could be used. Although she hadn’t heard from him in years, her son was in the Navy and she wanted to do what she could. She was given the unpleasant task of helping identify the many dead. One by one, she uncovered the boys to get their service identification tags. When that was done, the military could notify the sailor’s next-of-kin. With a heavy heart, she looked at one face after another. She did her job well until she found herself looking into the face of her own son. The nurse fainted and was taken to a place where she could recover.

Later her son’s personal belongings were delivered to her. Among his possessions was a small white Gideon-given New Testament. It was water-soaked and quite unreadable. Nevertheless, she could still see her son’s signature on the last page of his New Testament. The mother was surprised. She had never gone to church, nor had she ever studied Scripture. Nevertheless, somewhere, somehow, sometime her son had started to read, and been brought to that point where he could say that Jesus was his Savior. Moved, the mother asked the chaplain if he could get her a New Testament, just like the one her son had owned. He could and did. For the first time in her life, the mother read, like you can read, of God’s great love and grace. She learned, as you can learn, that she was a sinner. She also found out, as you can find, that God loved her so much that He gave His only Son to die on the cross, to rise on the third day, so that she would not perish but have everlasting life. Then, on the back page, the woman saw the empty line, the place where she could sign her name. No, she didn’t sign her Bible. She signed her son’s Bible. Her name under his. She had been led to believe, as I pray you believe: “God so loved the world that He gave His One and only Son, that whoever believes on Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” Believe. God wants it. He doesn’t want you to die like the soldier in that opening story, unforgiven. Amen.

LUTHERAN HOUR MAILBOX (Questions & Answers) for February 20, 2005
Topic: Escape the Past

ANNOUNCER: And now Pastor Ken Klaus answers questions from listeners. I’m Mark Eischer. You know, you’ve heard this old saying, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”; well, we’ve heard from a listener who belongs to a small church in a small town. You know, the kind of place where everyone knows everything about everyone else, or at least they think they do. He feels like he’s being kept a prisoner to his family’s history.

KLAUS: Mark, I think that’s probably one of the most interesting topics we’ve encountered. It is most certainly, a painfully honest letter.

ANNOUNCER: I agree.

KLAUS: You know, I was born in Chicago, but I’ve lived in a few small towns. Our children were raised in Lakefield, Minn., and I don’t think we could have asked for a better community. There’s no question that people know you better in a small town than they do in a big one. They also care about you. They go out of their way to be of assistance whenever they can. I can remember when one of our members got sick around harvest time; the rest of the congregation and community got together and brought in his crops. In one day. Imagine the sight of 10 giant combines moving across the field and a fleet of trucks lining up to take the grain to the elevator. It really was quite a thing to see.

ANNOUNCER: Well, that’s all good.

KLAUS: What I’ve just described is the upside of things. There can also be a downside to small town life, or anyplace where people really think they’ve got you all figured out. I’m talking about any place where people think they know you well enough to put you into a box and then no matter what happens, no matter what you do, no matter how much you change, they still keep you in that box. That’s hard. It’s even harder when people keep you in a box because of something a parent or a grandparent did. That can lead to all kinds of loneliness and frustration, and a feeling of being unloved.

ANNOUNCER: And so the question is, what do you do about it?

KLAUS: The first thing is to remind ourselves that Jesus came into this world to save us, and to change us.

ANNOUNCER: But I’m not sure I’ve ever heard that mentioned in a Bible passage.

KLAUS: Possibly, but there are many that imply it, and there are just as many that show it. The Lord changed the disciples. When the Holy Spirit came on them they were moved from being cringing cowards to powerful preachers. An appearance by the resurrected Lord Jesus changed a man named Saul from a persecuting murderer into an apostle. Tax collectors were turned into good news tellers. A suicidal jailer was transformed by God’s power, always by God’s power, into being the spiritual head of his household, leading them to baptism and faith in Christ. Changing us is what God does. Saint Paul says change happens when we’re in Christ. Listen to Ephesians 5:8, “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth).”

ANNOUNCER: And I’m also reminded of the passage that says, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

KLAUS: Absolutely. The Holy Spirit works through God’s gifts of Word and Sacrament, and people are changed. Every church needs to know that, and every church needs to practice it–especially when it comes to the family of faith. If the angels in heaven rejoice over a sinner who repents, shouldn’t Christians do the same?

ANNOUNCER: But what about that part about the apple not falling far from the tree? Are you saying something different?

KLAUS: The apple will fall near the tree, but what I’m saying is, the apple can be carried away from the tree. On our own, we can’t make these changes. But through the power of the Holy Spirit, we will not be tomorrow the same person we are today.

ANNOUNCER: Anything else you’d like to say to our listener?

KLAUS: Two things, Mark, and I know time’s short so I’ll try to be brief. First, remember that there are times when you may feel that people are against you, don’t like you, don’t know you’re there. You may be right. Far more often, I think, is that they may not be interacting with you because you may have sent out signals that say you don’t want to be bothered. If that’s the case, then try to make some changes. Open up; get involved. Look for ways in which you can serve others.

ANNOUNCER: And the other thing?

KLAUS: If you really are unloved by people, if you are an outcast, then know that God still loves you. I can’t think of anybody in the Gospel stories that Jesus didn’t love. There were people with whom He became angry, who disappointed Him, but He loved every one of them, and He loves you. That’s what we tried to say in our message today. The Lord loves you. Believe that; hold onto that; and believe, no matter what you think or feel, there are Christians, and a lot of them, who believe any friend of Jesus, is a friend of theirs.

ANNOUNCER: Thank you, Pastor Klaus. This has been a presentation of Lutheran Hour Ministries.