March 22, 2009

John 3:16-21

4^th Sunday in Lent

God has something for you to do 

            When I was a little boy, my momma and my church would have me memorize scriptures. That was the really old days, wasn’t it? John 3:16 was one of the first that I memorized. From the KJV it read, “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.”  It really seemed like a great accomplishment. I could be playing outside or taking a bath and recite it perfectly every time.  

As I got a little older, I began to wonder about this “whosoever believeth.”  What if sometimes I believeth and sometimes I don’t believeth? I could keep quiet about it, but God would know. Would God stop loving me if I had doubts? I didn’t want to go to … that other place. How come God puts such strings on His love? What’s a boy to do?  Well I sweated because I was a big sinner. I not only sometimes had doubts, but I also had done some bad things – some really bad things. Maybe just before I died I would have a second or two to say to God, “I believe! I believe!”  

And as I got a little older, I began to wonder in just what parts of the Christian faith I had to believe and what was not important. Were Adam and Eve important? Was Jonah swallowed by a whale important? Was the Virgin birth important? After all, John 3:16 just says believe in Jesus. I had people tell me yes and others tell me no.

As I got old I began to better understand John 3:16. In the first place, it is not about me, it is about God. There are lots of words that John could have used here like rule, judge, condemn, protect; but he chose the verb love that best expressed what God does. Behind all that beats a heart of love. And what God loves is the world. This is quite a breathtaking revelation. God loves the rocks and trees and the bright lights and the not so good people – the scoundrels, people who mess up their lives, the self-righteous, you and me, and even that Austrian father who so abused his daughter for over 20 years. God requires nothing from you to love you.  

God so loved the world that He became fully present in the person of Jesus so that His children could know His love. The Word became flesh and God’s love became known to all who would look upon it. And what would we do with such a love among us? Because of our fear we would, of course, despise, abuse and crucify it. What did God do?  He raised Jesus from the dead so that we could know that this Jesus was God’s love incarnate. And no matter how much we abused him, He loved us and forgave us. Even while dying on the cross he said, “Forgive them for they know not what they do.”  

In the second place I came to understand that belief had nothing to do with the acceptance of a set of doctrinal statements. Our English word “belief” implies an intellectual acceptance of an idea or doctrine. We use belief as meaning to accept something as true. This causes the problem I had as a little boy –sometimes I accept and sometimes I may doubt. You mean my everlasting life depends on my whimsical intellectual assent? No,. God is not toying with me and does not give me any magical incantations to say that opens the door of heaven to me. In the original Greek writing, every time John uses the Greek word “believe” it is followed by the preposition “into.”  John says that we “believe into” Jesus. We immerse ourselves in Jesus. We trust unconditionally God’s way for us. We follow his way, we follow his truth, and we live a life responding to God’s love.  

When God’s love shines on us, we respond by repenting of our sins, accepting God’s forgiveness, and letting God’s love transform us from being controlled by selfish desires into responding and growing in the spirit and putting on the mind of Christ. We are born from above. It is so much more than simply saying, “I believe.”  Mother Teresa embodied the conviction that believing in Jesus is following him and being his light in the world even when you are possessed with painful doubts.  

And in the third place, what exactly is “eternal life”?  John uses “eternal life” in the same way of Matthew’s Kingdom of Heaven and Mark and Luke’s Kingdom of God.  It is a description of a future reality that impinges upon the present. The theological term is realized eschatology. The purpose of God coming in Jesus Christ into the world was salvation. We tend to understand salvation to do with just the end of times. Jesus uses it to also mean that eternal life begins now when you accept him and his way of life. He says in John 10:10, “I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly.” Believing into the way of Jesus is a future promise and an enhanced quality of life in Jesus now. It begins when we believe into Jesus and does not wait for our biological death. It begins when we start trusting the light rather than the darkness. Jesus is bringing God’s way into the world – “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.” For his love to transform us, we must give ourselves to it in complete trust. We are then held in God’s love forever.  

Quite simply, we are to live in a love relationship with God and each other. In this way, we become part of God’s purposes. This is the light that he shines in our lives. We either come to know and live in His love and light or we don’t, and we choose to live in brokenness and darkness. “For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.”  We are not to function as a church to proscribe cultural morality or to judge and condemn others. God’s light in the world is responsible for that. We are to tell and live God’s story openly as God’s children who are reborn and remade in God’s love. This is our way of life 

The bottom line? How would anybody know of God’s love if he had not come in the person of Jesus? No one would. This is the reason for the Incarnation. How does anybody know today of God’s love for them? It is only because of you and you and you. Today God so loves the world so much that he gives you and me to love the world and to be His love to others. God has saved a wretched little boy like me for this. God has chosen to give you and me an abundant life and the faith that He holds you in his loving arms now and forever. You have been transformed and born from above. God is not through with you. He has something for you to do in His kingdom.  

“You go nowhere by accident. Wherever you go God is sending you. Wherever you are, God has put you there. Christ who indwells in you has something he wants to do through you where you are.” Halverson Benediction

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