Christ Lutheran Church

1701 Arroyo Chamiso

Santa Fe, NM 87505-4775

(505) 983-9461

church@clcsantafe.com

  

 

March 22, 2009: Fourth Sunday in Lent

 

Gospel: John 3:14-21

 

[Note:  The following translation is from The New Testament by Professor Norman A. Beck of Texas Lutheran University.  It is “A new translation and redaction that dares to be sensitive to anti-Jewish polemic and to sexism, and dares to be innovative for our time by moving back into the past of early church development and forward into the future of the church that is still to come.”]

 

14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desolate place, thus also it is necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up, 15 in order that everyone who believes in him may have life eternally. 16 “For God has loved the world so much that God has given God’s unique, special Son, in order that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have life eternally 17 For God did not send God’s Son into the world in order that the Son might condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 The one who believes in the Son is not con­demned. The one who does not believe has been condemned already, because this one has not believed in the name of the unique, special Son of God. 19 And this is the reason for the judgment. It is because the Light has come into the world and most people have loved the darkness more than they have loved the Light, because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does foul things hates the Light and does not come to the Light, in order that this person’s foul activities might not be revealed. 21 But the person who does the truth comes to the Light, in order that this person’s works may be revealed, that they have been done in accordance with the will of God.’

 

John 3.16?!

 

+ In nomine Domini.  Amen.

It happens at televised baseball games, football games, golf matches … sometimes it appears at marches, rallies, and wherever large amounts of people are assembled … I’ve seen it written as graffiti in restrooms, appearing as a giant image on Interstate billboards, and the occasional license plate.

“John 3.16”

As the camera follows the foul ball heading toward the stands, or pans the crowd going wild at the touchdown, or goes to a wide-lens shot of the final putt … there it is, someone holding up a hand-made sign that says “John 3.16”.

It’s a pervasive image.  And what it’s supposed to do is to remind everyone of that verse in today’s Gospel portion that has come to be a kind of shortcut bible verse to all of salvation.

At its best, it is usually a gentle reminder of God’s love for the world … at its worse I’ve seen the sign become an angry fist … as in “Believe this or else!”

When I see this verse, I often think: Why not John 3.19b? … why not tell the whole story in John’s Gospel (“… Light has come into the world and most people have loved the darkness more than they have loved the Light…”); or why not Psalm 24.1? (“The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and they who dwell therein”) … a favourite reading of my 3^rd and 4^th grade teacher, Mrs. Bergstrom, who read that Psalm most mornings of the week, just before opening Strange Adventures in Dickey Bird Land, stories told by mother birds to amuse their chicks and overheard by R. Kearton, written in the early 1900s; or why not Deuteronomy 6.4 (which I saw last Sunday on a license plate … “Hear O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is One.”)

As I mused about this during the last week, I saw three bumper stickers in rapid succession:

• Everyone has enough … when … everyone has enough.

• "The Peace Symbol" (which you can type on your computer keyboard by holding down the Alternate key and simultaneously hitting the numbers 0 9 7 4 4) The Peace Symbol followed by: Back by Popular Demand.

• God is too big for just one religion.

I liked all three of them a lot better than John 3.16 … because they seemed to flesh out God’s love and not limit it to 8 characters written on a sign.

It’s the whole problem with singling out Bible Verses … they’re good, for a start, but they are so limiting.

For instance, how many people looking at that sign that says John 3.16 would know that this verse is part of a larger story, it’s from the conversation Jesus has one night with one of the religious leaders called Nicodemus.

It’s not a verse from the Bible disconnected to everything else, it’s part of a whole story, and to understand even that one verse, you have to hear, read, understand the whole story.

And how many take the time to do that?  How many take the time to look at a single verse within its context?

In fact, you really have to begin at the beginning of the Gospel of John.  And you have to understand that this piece of literature, is an interpretation of the life and meaning of the life of Jesus that is written sometime near the end of the 1^st Century … that is, some 70 years after the death and crucifixion of Jesus … and, we might add, some 25-30 years after the Gospel of Mark, and we might further add, some 50 years after the writings of Paul. 

It is not a literal history of the life of Jesus.  It is an interpretation of his life and what it means to the community who gathered around this telling of the story (finally in written form) toward the end of the 1^st Century, in a time when followers of Jesus were still facing persecution.

So when you know that, and begin at the very start of John (In the beginning was the word …) and read the interpretive stories of Jesus and John the Baptizer, and (you will remember from one of the Sundays after the Epiphany back in January) the calling of Peter and Andrew, the two brothers, and the story of Philip and Nathanael … all of that in Chapter 1.  And then in Chapter 2 the story of Jesus at a Wedding in Galilee at a village called Cana, and last week’s story of Jesus going to the Temple before Passover and driving out the money-changers and sellers of birds and animals for the sacrifice right in the Temple Courtyard.  And then comes our Chapter 3 which begins with this encounter one evening of Jesus and Nicodemus, the after hours visitor who wants to know more, wants to understand, wants to learn.  And in the middle of that conversation comes today’s Gospel portion.

Jesus has just talked with Nicodemus about spiritual things, the breath of God blowing wherever God wishes for it to blow, not just upon some people, and some places but rather over all creation … and from this breath of God, comes truth and light.

And Nicodemus doesn’t quite understand this, can’t immediately comprehend all of it and Jesus says to him, in this story, “If I have talked with you about earthly matters and you do not believe me, how will you be able to believe me if I talk with you about heavenly matters?  No one has gone up into heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.  (and here we go) And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desolate place, thus also it is necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up, in order that everyone who believes in him may have life eternally.  For God has loved the world so much …”

You see, it’s not just a single verse, like a Bible Bullet which you can load into a religious carbine and fire at someone giving them salvation.  It’s a story … a whole story, and to remove one verse is to kill the whole story … that’s the problem with John 3.16.

But when you put it back into the whole story, the whole interpretation of the life of Jesus and the meaning of Jesus … then that’s something else.

Who is this Jesus?

The evidence that God does not hate what God has made.  It is light come into a world of darkness … that’s the whole story that the Good News According to John wants to tell.  It’s all about light … and yes, most have loved the darkness rather than the light.  Tell that story in a world that finds salvation in imbalance … whether it is housing, or health care, or bonuses, or the horrible imbalance of war and violence … Tell that story, and tell it around the life of Jesus, a life of light shining in the darkness, and then you will have moved away from a picture of God who wants to punish people forever, towards a picture of God who wants life for people.

John’s Gospel, like most of my sermons, is an unfinished work.  It starts with God’s light and God’s desire for love and the evidence of light and love that is seen in Jesus.  But these themes are incomplete, they are unfinished.  It would seem that they extend out into the future, perhaps our future; it would seem that they reach out beyond the words of the Gospel Story into our story, into our lives … for it is in us that they are brought to completion, make complete, brought to fruition, made to bear fruit.

May it be so.

Next Sunday, we will have the final reading from John’s Gospel before we return again to Mark for the Account of the Passion of Our Lord on Passion/Palm Sunday.  Next week, we will hear Jesus talk more about being lifted up … stay tuned!

+ Deo Gratia.  Amen.

The Rev. Benjamin Larzelere III, Pastor