Max Lucado - The 3: 16 Promise: He Loves. He Gives. We Believe. We Live.

P luto got bumped, cut from the first team, demoted from the top nine. According to a committee of scientists meeting in Prague, this outpost planet fails to meet solar-system standards. They downgraded the globe to asteroid #134340. Believe me, Pluto was not happy. I caught up with the dissed sky traveler at a popular constellation hangout, The Night Sky Lounge.

MAX: Tell me, Pluto, how do you feel about the decision of the committee?

PLUTO: You mean those planet-pickers from Prague?

MAX: Yes.

PLUTO: I say no planet is perfect. Mars looks like a tanning bed addict. Saturn has rings around the collar, and Jupiter moons everyone who passes.

MAX: So you dont approve of the decision?

PLUTO: (Snarling and whipping out a newspaper) Who comes up with these rules? Too small. Wrong size moon. Not enough impact. Do they know how hard it is to hang on at the edge of the solar system? They think Im spacey let them duck meteors at thousands of miles per hour for a few millennia, and then see who they call a planet. Im outta here. I can take the hint. I know when Im not wanted. Walt Disney named a dog after me. Teachers always put me last on the science quiz. Darth Vader gives me more respect. Im joining up with a meteor shower. Tell that committee to keep an eye on the night sky. I know where they live.

Cant fault Pluto for being ticked. One day hes in, the next hes out; one day on the squad, the next off. We can understand his frustration. Some of us understand it all too well. We know what its like to be voted out. Wrong size. Wrong color. Wrong address.

Plutoed.

To the demoted and demeaned, Jesus directs his leadoff verb. For God so loved the world... Love. Weve all but worn out the word. This morning I used love to describe my feelings toward my wife and toward peanut butter. Far from identical emotions. Ive never proposed to a jar of peanut butter (though I have let one sit on my lap during a television show). Overuse has defused the word, leaving it with the punch of a butterfly wing.

Compare our love with Gods? Look at the round belly of the pregnant peasant girl in Bethlehem. Gods in there; the same God who can balance the universe on the tip of his finger floats in Marys womb. Why? Love.

Peek through the Nazareth workshop window. See the lanky lad sweeping the sawdust from the floor? He once blew stardust into the night sky. Why swap the heavens for a carpentry shop? One answer: love.

Love explains why he came.

Love explains how he endured.

His hometown kicked him out. A so-called friend turned him in. Hucksters called God a hypocrite. Sinners called God guilty. Do termites mock an eagle, tapeworms decry the beauty of a swan? How did Jesus endure such derision? For God so loved...