GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD “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.” (John 3:16)
Genesis 12:1-4a; Psalm 121; Romans 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17
Genesis 12:1-4a; Psalm 121; Romans 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17
There are many things around the world in our thoughts and prayers.
The people of Japan are dealing with the aftermath of their worst recorded earthquake, and then a tsunami, and the ongoing crisis with the damaged nuclear power plant. We pray for those trying to find solutions, for those hurt and killed and those trying to help.
There are all the changes – earthquakes in society – in the middle east, and the unfolding situation in Libya. We pray for peace, for freedom, for democracy.
In the midst of the world, the church is called to speak the word that God so loved the world,
all the world, all the people in the world, everyone, not one left out of God's love, of God's intention of loving --
God so loved the world that God gave his only Son. So every one might see in him God’s love, and trust that love, believe in that love, and have life. Nicodemus
Those words come at the end of today’s story, of a man called Nicodemus coming to see Jesus. Nicodemus is described as a Pharisee, a leader of the Jewish people. In our Lenten Gospel stories Jesus will reach out to a variety of people, crossing all sorts of human dividing lines. Next week he will encounter of woman of Samaria, sometimes definitely from the other side of the tracks in that culture and society. The week after Jesus will encounter the blind beggar – an outsider also.
Nicodemus was not an outsider. He was an educated leader. A few years later, another person appears in the story – just after the first Easter, in the Book of Acts – a young Pharisee named Saul of Tarsus. What great use God made of Saul, calling him to be, turning him into Paul.
Jesus did not send Nicodemus away. Jesus listened to him. Nicodemus paid him a compliment, an intelligent compliment. No one could do the signs Jesus did, apart from the presence of God. An intelligent compliment indeed, because that is exactly what the writer of John calls the extraordinary actions Jesus does – the seven miracles, but the writer doesn’t use the word miracle, the writer says signs. Feeding the great crowd with the few loaves and fish, healing the blind beggar in two weeks, and then the great seventh – calling Lazarus out of death. So may Jesus one day call each one of us.
Nicodemus says to Jesus that no one could do these signs apart from the presence of God. So Nicodemus goes straight to the heart of who Jesus was and is – God with us, Emanuel, the presence of God with us.
Jesus seems to change the subject – something that happens in John’s Gospel. His mother came to him with the news they had run out of wine at the wedding reception and Jesus said his hour had not yet come. He wasn’t changing the subject at all – he was stating very clearly what lay ahead. Drawing all our attention to the moment when he will say, the hour has come – and that will be the hour when we see him lay down his life for us in love – for there we see fully revealed how much God so loved the world, so loves the world.
Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be born from above, born of water and Spirit. “Born of water” most probably meaning that Nicodemus should be baptized, as Jesus was baptized – the great sign of entering the new life in him.
The Holy Spirit
And born of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the name for God who is present with us and within us, dwelling with us – did you not know your body is a Temple of the Holy Spirit? Paul would write. The Holy Spirit dwelling in us gives us the strength and courage and wisdom to love with the love of Jesus. Not always, not in everything. Until the day we die a necessary part of our prayer is to ask forgiveness for the mistakes we make. And we do make mistakes. But we are forgiven and go on. We are people who are forgiven, and who are given the Spirit
-- who gives us the love of Jesus to give, if we can just forget self for a moment and give what is given us to give.
-- So abundantly and richly gives.
-- So that we may give to a child, a friend, a lover, someone we forgive, someone we try to help.
-- So that we may love God here in worship, love God in prayer.
I believe the Holy Spirit guides our conscience, if we listen, learn to listen, in making choices. I believe the Holy Spirit gives light – I love the Quaker image of the Inner Light – as we wrestle out what to do. I believe the Spirit gives light as we read the Bible – oh, again, not in everything, not always. But pay attention when something speaks to you, spend time with it – or when something especially perplexes or challenges. Ask God what God is saying by means of the words or the image.
I think images speak quite as strongly as words – so Jesus at the Last Supper took the bread and wine as signs of God’s presence with us in him and we still do that today, a simple action people do around the world.
For me this spending time listening to the word of God in the Scriptures, in the stories of Jesus, is meditation.
And if God calls you to just be there silent, as two friends, two lovers might just be together sometimes – then trust’s the Holy Spirit’s guidance, and just be still. “Teach us to be still” wrote Eliot in Four Quartets. To be still and be loved and offer our love in silence and quiet and the dark, not seeing anything in the love which is the Light.
Always good to be honest with God
Nicodemus honestly expressed his perplexity. "How can these things be?” Always good to be honest with God – one of the best kinds of prayer. Authentically who we are. Remembering Jesus in the garden that night after the Last Supper when he said exactly what was in his heart – please take what is coming away – and then said, not my will but your be done. Not that God’s will was or ever is that God’s innocent Child suffer, that is never the will of God – but God’s will for Jesus and for those who would follow him is that we not run away but face what comes in his love.
“How can these things be?” This story closes with Jesus giving a brief set of statements that are among the most beautiful in John’s Gospel – the Sermon to Nicodemus. Jesus will do the same thing, on the larger scale, at the end of the much longer story of Jesus and the blind beggar, when the final words of that story are followed by the great statement by Jesus “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”
The Son of Man must be lifted up
In today’s story, Jesus says that the Son of Man – he, Jesus – must be lifted up. A double meaning to lifted up. Jesus would be exalted in glory – but the hour of glory would be the hour when we see him love with nothing held back, and that hour was the hour when he would be lifted up on a hill outside the city walls on the cross.
“ so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”
John 3:16
Then come the words I opened with today, the great words Martin Luther called “the gospel in miniature.”
If you see someone holding up a sign at Wrigley Field saying “John 3:16” this is the verse referred to! I remember many years ago, on an el in New York, coming back with the kids from the Bronx Zoo, rattling by, looking down from the train on a huge Pentecostal church called just this, John 3:16 – great name for a church, may it be the message of the church in the city and world today, the message to the world, what we have to say:
"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.” (John 3:16)
God so loved the world, the whole world, all the people in the world, everyone one – that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him – trusts in his love – may have life.
"Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world,”
Not to condemn. No. Not to condemn the world. Never. God sent the Son into the world
“ in order that the world might be saved through him."
(This sermon was preached by the Rev. Raymond Webster, Rector, in St. Chrysostom’s Church, Chicago, Illinois, on Sunday, March 20, 2011, the Third Sunday in Lent.)
The texts of the Gospel lesson is from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.
