And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.

For many of us, failure is the greatest of our fears. It happens more than any of us care to admit. We all know about it. We experience failure in our work, failure in our relationships, failure in school, failure to live up to others' expectations of us. We don't like it, but it happens. Faced with the shame that accompanies failure, so often we try to hide. We avoid facing it. We avoid talking about it, pretending it'll go away.

The last thing that we want to do is admit our failures: to confess to our boss or co-workers, our loved ones or ourselves, that we are anything less than perfect. That is, to confess that we fail. We love the dark because it lets us be imperfect - or at least we think it does. Jesus tells otherwise. The comfort and safety in the anonymity of the darkness is only in our minds. We are fully known - and loved - by God. God has sent the Son into the world to bring us back into the light - that we may confess our failures and know God's love that continues to forgive us and ever pulls us back to live in the light.