June 11, 2006
Text: John 3:1-17
The
Gospel by Candlelight
It’s a little like starting a joke that everybody already knows. In a way, it’s fun to hear again. After all, it’s a good joke. But it’s also kind of awkward and more than a little flat. Someone may chuckle politely, but everyone already knows the punch line. Telling it again is just one more shovel full out of a hole that’s deep enough.
That’s
how I feel about preaching on this text.
What do you say about something everyone already knows? It’s for good reason that William Barclay
calls this “everyone’s text,” because surely everyone has heard it – and has
had at least a verse of it memorized since childhood. “For God so loved the world that He gave His
only son, that whosoever believed in him should not perish but have eternal
life.” Everyone’s text – simple,
concise, and containing the heart of the Christian faith.
Which
may very well be another reason why it “belongs” to everyone – and reason enough
for hearing those words afresh.
Fundamentals are always fundamental.
Just as a basketball player never gets finished practicing free-throws;
just as a golfer never gets finished practicing putts, we never get so familiar
with the building blocks of our faith that we no longer need give them our
attention. Everything decays with time
and inattention – even our spirits, even our faith; the healthiest muscles
weaken and turn flabby when exercise is forgotten or strength is taken for
granted. Like any good journalist, we
must never get finished asking who, what, when, where, and why. And precisely those basics, if we can wipe away
enough of the sedimentation to see them, is what this passage seeks to
reinforce. Basics. Fundamental truths. That which seems elementary, but after which
everything else is simply detail.
Here, then, distilled from all of the stories told about Jesus; from all the lessons taught by Jesus; from all the miracles performed and truths revealed by Jesus; from all the shared experience is, according to John, to finally get down to the heart of the matter. What is the essence of our faith? Who is this Jesus, and why is he here?
They were apparently some of the same questions that were on the mind of Nicodemus, a Pharisee and leader among the Jews. That is a provocative identifier, because readers of the New Testament aren’t accustomed to seeing Pharisees in very favorable light. But, then, according to John’s account, there wasn’t much light by which to see this unexpected visitor. He came to Jesus, says John, under cover of darkness – by night – and says, “We know that you are a teacher who has come from God…” As a Pharisee, the “we” to which Nicodemus presumably refers are the other Pharisees, which again comes as something of a surprise, because neither are we accustomed to the Pharisees giving Jesus credit for anything.
So
had Nicodemus come representing that “we” or only himself? Is he, in other
words, a messenger/representative, or is he a seeker, following his own
spiritual discernment?
Perhaps
Jesus, too, was unsure. His response
seems enigmatic – “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the
If Nicodemus was confused by that
idea, we have some familiarity with such things. Just last Sunday, in fact, we experienced
concretely two things about which Jesus here names abstractly. He talks about being born again – the kind of
thing we watched and affirmed as two young women descended into baptismal waters
and emerged into newness of life. Jesus
speaks of being born from above, and we read about the Holy Spirit of God,
descending like flames of fire upon Jesus’ disciples, giving birth to something
entirely new in their lives, their witness, and their proclamation. And perhaps while we were hearing the story,
the tops of our own heads became a little warmer, as well, with the fire of
that same spirit.
Well,
if all this was different from what he expected, Nicodemus nonetheless follows
in this conversational direction that leads us directly up the ramp to this
most familiar and most basic promise of the Christian faith:
‘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.’
Basics. Fundamental truths. The essence of our faith. This Jesus, to say it as plainly as possible, is the very Son of God – the only son that is part and parcel of God. This Jesus is uniquely that representative of our creator who enables us to see and touch God’s face and hands and heart. This Jesus, John asserts, is that specially designated and blessed one for whom all of God’s people have been waiting and searching. This is the one that was promised, who puts flesh and blood around the inseparable love of God. The presence of Jesus is all about being touched, healed and saved.
So
why should such seemingly esoteric matters matter? Why should we care whether or not we are
saved? Why does it matter if we are
healed? Jesus came to communicate that
in whatever other way it matters, it matters to God. God loves us, and wants us well and at God’s
own side. “For God so loved the world
that he sent his only son.” That’s the
real reason, according to John; that’s why Jesus is here: because of God’s seeking and abiding love.
And
while not everyone accepts it – while some inexplicably prefer the darkness
over the light – that is, nonetheless the core of it: that God loves us, despite all the reasons –
not simply historic, but also ongoing reasons – not to, God loves us, and
embraces us and holds us to God’s own self.
I
suppose we can emphasize that too often.
I suppose it’s possible to focus so intently on God’s love for us that
we forget to examine the manifold ways we fail and forsake that love and take
it cheaply for granted. But as I look
around town and read the papers about the world; as I listen in on
congressional debates and coffee shop conversations, and watch the myriad ways,
both interpersonal and international, that we put each other down – demean and
degrade, deny and ignore the divinity woven throughout our humanity, I choose
to believe that perhaps we haven’t heard it enough: the truth about who we are, at least as far
as God is concerned. I keep thinking
that if we had a better understanding of and appreciation for God’s love of us,
it would have to change our understanding of and appreciation for each
other.
Poet
Billy Collins has gotten me thinking about the ferocity and profundity of that
love from a slightly different angle. In
a poem published last year, he writes:
The other day I was ricocheting slowly
Off the blue walls of this room,
Moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
From bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
When I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
Where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.
No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
Could send one into the past more suddenly –
A past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
By a deep
Learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
Into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.
I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
Or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
But that did not keep me from crossing
Strand over strand again and again
Until I had made a boxy
Red and white lanyard for my mother.
She gave me life and milk from her breast,
And I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
Lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
Laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
And then led me out into the airy light
And taught me to walk and swim,
And I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
And here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
Which I made with a little help from a counselor.
Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
Strong legs, bones and teeth,
And two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
And here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
Is a smaller gift – not the worn truth
That you can never repay your mother,
But the rueful admission that when she took
The two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
That this useless, worthless thing I wove
Out of boredom would be enough to make us even.[1]
“God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.” It makes me wonder what kind of lanyards we might weave as a way of saying “thanks.”
[1] Billy
Collins, “The Lanyard” from The Trouble
With Poetry and Other Poems, (