On Being Chosen

“You did not choose me. . . I chose you.” John 15:16

That single verse makes all the difference. During Jesus’ lifetime, those first disciples were drawn to Jesus, and then each one chose to follow him. But after the resurrection experience, Jesus was seen with new understanding. The disciples and then others saw that in Jesus they were seeing God. So John, writing sixty or seventy years later, has Jesus say to his disciples, “You did not choose me; I chose you.” John is writing to those “followers of the way” of his time, reminding them that God was really doing the choosing, even though at the time the disciples thought it was all their own choosing.
And so it is today. The good news is that God has chosen each one of us. God is life. Each newborn baby is God’s choosing. That’s what baptism celebrates. How thrilling it is to be alive – to be chosen by God.
Knowing that makes all the difference!

Loren Bullock
December 30, 2011