I have often said that there should be a warning on the cover of every Bible: Danger – read with care. The Bible, some have said, is like a two-edged sword; in the right community it is the skilled surgeon’s knife that brings healing. In the wrong community, the Bible is a blunt axe that wounds relentlessly. When Moses raised the bronze serpent in the wilderness, the people were offered a mirror to see themselves as they truly were (see John 3.14). The Bible is a hall of mirrors, reflecting back your true motives and shining a light into the further reaches of your soul. If you come at the Bible with hate and division in your heart, the bible as a hall of mirrors reflects this back and the distortion can destroy you. If you come to Scripture through the character of the Christ, healing unity is possible. Nowhere is this more apparent that what is done with John ‘s Gospel in chapter 3. Some would use John 3.16 to condemn the world who do not believe (as they do): Any who do not accept Jesus as saviour and Lord are condemned to hell. Others hold that being on the way of love with the Christ has little to do with belief, that God did not send Jesus to condemn the world (John .17). For this reason, they celebrate the democracy of God’s love that embraces all. It is into the bliss of this unconditional love that we are invited to surrender, as Denise Levertov’s poem seduces:

As swimmers dare

to lie face to the sky

and water bears them,

as hawks rest upon air

and air sustains them,

so would I learn to attain

freefall, and float

into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,

knowing no effort earns

that all-surrounding grace.

(The Avowal 1983 –The Stream and the Sapphire)