The Beginner's Gospel (John 3:14-22)

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

I have trouble with memorization. Give me a verbal grocery list, and I will ask you to write it down. (Kerry has offered to pin it to me.) When I was in community and university theatre, the other actors knew that I would have my lines down eventually, emphasis on “eventually”. Indeed, it was not until sometime in college that I knew my social security number by heart, and only then due to the university’s practice of tracking everything by a student’s social security number. (Now with the very real issue of identity theft, organizations do not use your SSN and give you a different set of numbers to identify your files. Worst of all, this means you now have yet another number to remember and forget and remember and forget.

Yet, here I stood before you and recited a verse of scripture. How? When all manner of things, including even other verses of scripture, seem to defy memory, I can recall this verse without pause. I suppose it has to do in part with repetition. I eventually got my SSN down. I eventually memorized my lines by opening night. Over the years, the verse known as “John 3:16” was impressed upon me by repetition, through children and youth education, sermons, music, church newsletters, you name it. It is a verse taken to heart by the congregations of my childhood. In turn, a verse that I carry with me throughout the journey of life. Indeed, this one verse of scripture speaks for so much of Christian beliefs, summing up the way Christians understand God and explains why we share the gospel of Jesus Christ with the world. These words are for everyone to know and take to heart.

The familiarity of this verse can run the risk, however, of becoming a bit over familiar. This morning as you heard the Gospel of John read, you knew this verse was coming up, but just before we get to verse 16, you probably thought, “Hey! What’s this bit doing here about Moses handling snakes?” Knowing John 3:16 letter perfect is wonderful, however, we tend to forget it is part of a bigger story, which, yes, does indeed involve a cameo by Charlton Heston.

The third chapter of John is home to the most famous of New Testament verses, yet despite all of the attention, John 3:16 appears in a story that is really low-key. Late at night, Nicodemus, a religious leader, comes to Jesus to engage him in questions of faith. Nicodemus takes religion seriously (no “pat” answers, please!), and he wants to know why Jesus’ teachings matter.

In his responses to Nicodemus, Jesus recalls the time in Moses’ day when the people of Israel, wandering out in the wilderness, are by snakes. The story from the Book of Numbers is a bit odd sounding; however, we need to remember these same people saw what happened to the Egyptians when Pharaoh did not “let the people go”. God made it rain frogs, turn the waters of the Nile to blood, and do that old showstopper of parting the Red Sea. You would think that the people would have realized with gratitude that God made the impossible possible (i.e. getting them out of bondage and off toward the Promised Land), but as a good reminder that humans are still human, they rebelled enough that forty years in the wilderness had to take place before they could get there. Add in the usual grumbling over manna, the desire to worship golden calves of their own making, and a distinct aversion to keeping the Ten Commandments, let alone the rest of the Law that was formed, and you can see why God sent along the snakes.

Jesus calls back to this old story of Moses to recall a time when God provided hope for those who dared to look for it. In the midst of the anxiety and terror, a people lost in a quagmire of sin made by their own choices, the bronze serpent seems an odd symbol, but looking upon it and keeping faith with God saved those who took Moses’ word. In like manner, the Gospel presents the world with this strange image of a man crucified upon a cross and claims belief in Christ crucified shall save the world.

Go back to the most famous verse of New Testament scripture and ponder these words carefully. The world God deeply loves is a place of great brokenness, fractured by human sin and great sorrow. God sends his one and only Son to be the salvation of the world, though some will not choose to take the Gospel at its word. According to John’s gospel, the world is a place where things are a bit grim, in need of a light to find its way out of the shadows that otherwise overwhelm. John’s prologue celebrates what God is bringing about in Jesus’ life and ministry, claiming, “the true light was coming into the world, meant for everyone” (John 1:9, paraphrased). The light was not hidden but put in full view, “yet the world did not know him” (John 1:10). Reading John 3, New Testament scholar and Anglican bishop N.T. (“Tom”) Wright puts it rather well:

But the point of the whole story is that you don’t have to be condemned. You don’t have to let the snake kill you. God’s action in the crucifixion of Jesus has planted a sign in the middle of history. And that sign says: "Believe and live.” (NT Wright, John for Everyone, Pt. 1, Westminster/John Knox Press, p. 34)

If you need a more concise way of understanding the Christian message, it is indeed simply “believe and live”. Christ is given freely to the world; indeed, he gives himself freely to us. Out of God’s love for the world, we are given so much: life when otherwise there is death, out of divine love whose abundance has no end, so that we have a way forward when all other paths end. Look at what God has raised before us. Believe and live.

Such a love for the world means that not one of us is beyond redemption and not one of us is without hope. Taking this to heart, we are free to see the world with new eyes, less jaded or resigned to “fate” and more empowered and liberated to love our neighbors and ourselves in more life-giving, abundant ways. It is a word that we help the wee ones learn in Sunday school, the word informing our proclamation, and the word driving our Missional endeavors as a congregation. By doing so, we bring God’s promise fully to the world.

The German theologian Jurgen Moltmann wisely observes,

For if God has raised the persecuted, forsaken, assailed Jesus, who was executed by the power-holders of this world, then he brings the future to the persecuted, forsaken, and damned of this earth. Christ’s resurrection is the promise of a new future for the godless and God-forsaken people, and not least for the dead. (A Broad Place, Fortress Press, 2008, p. 103) 

We should not err on presenting the gospel as “what will come to pass—eventually”. Keeping the faith behind John 3:16’s powerful words, we believe in the promise of “eternal life” not as some sort of passive waiting game for the sweet bye-and-bye to come to pass. This promise tells us where we are going, as well as summoning us to start living like God’s abundance, God’s love, and Christ’s gospel has everything to do with “believing and living” right now.

These words of Jesus, spoken at night to Nicodemus so long ago, are deep in my memory, as surely as they are in the memory of other Christians. They stir us with their power, summing up the gospel story, helping define us as children of the light, emboldened to step out of the shadows, and into God’s love. However, we also realize words can be memorized with great precision, yet forgotten so blithely in practice. Perhaps we should take the word of caution given us by Frederick Buechner, who tells us that love is powerful, but love needs our willingness to receive and give it powerfully as well. He writes,

Of all powers, love is the most powerful and the most powerless. It is the most powerful because it alone can conquer that final and most impregnable stronghold which is the human heart. It is the most powerless because it can do nothing except by consent. (Wishful Thinking, Harper, 1973, p. 53-4)

In too many places in the world are where the persecuted, forsaken, and damned live in fear, destitution, and marginalization. In too many churches are people taught these powerful words of Gospel and given too little encouragement to go out into the midst of the world, showing the sign of the crucified One through their words and actions. Thus, a Missional team teaching sewing, cooking, or household budget skill is not just “a nice idea”. It is the beginning of a little light cast out into the world, bringing hope, empowerment, and grace where there might otherwise be none. “John 3:16” goes from lips to heart to hands and feet. In doing so, the Crucified One is seen lifted up in the midst of the world.