(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “The Text and The Pretext”, originally shared on March 6, 2024. It was the 301st video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
Many people, and most Christians, know John
3:16 by heart. They know the text. But they often don’t know its context so
they look for a pretext, an excuse. Today, we’re going to find out why a Lenten
focus makes that totally unnecessary.
You might remember Derek Fisher of the Los
Angeles Lakers during the era of Kobe and Shaq.
Derek Fisher was my favorite Laker. He
wasn’t flashy. He wasn’t a superstar. His name wasn’t synonymous with the
franchise. He was just the guy you called in when you wanted to get the job
done. In other words, he was the most Lutheran of all the Lakers. 😊
I once shared that observation in a sermon .
A man who had been coming to worship with his wife, but who wasn’t a member of
the congregation, later attended our pre-membership classes and became a
member. He became a part of a stewardship effort and gave a stewardship talk
during worship. He said, “I used to come to worship regularly with my wife, but
I wasn’t a member. One Sunday I heard the pastor talk about Derek Fisher and I
realized that I have been a Lutheran all my life and didn’t know it!” 😊
The name “Nicodemus” may be somewhat
familiar to most Christians, but he’s not at the center of any of the Gospels.
He’s not flashy. He’s not a superstar in the history of Salvation. But his
encounter with Jesus includes such a powerful presentation of the Gospel that,
over 1500 years later, Church reformer Martin Luther would call it the Gospel
in miniature.
This Sunday, the Gospel text being read in
the vast majority of churches in the world will be John 3:14-21, and it
will contain that verse. It’s the one that, if you know one Bible verse by
heart, that’s probably the one you know. And you probably know its chapter and
verse too, John 3:16. But what you may not know is its context, or the
reason it was said by Jesus.
The reading starts in the middle of a conversation.
The preceding verses tell us that Nicodemus was “a Pharisee” and “a
leader of the Jews.” He appears only in the Gospel of John and just two more
times outside of these verses, once to appeal for due pro process for Jesus,
and again to help prepare Jesus’ body for burial.
Nicodemus was a distinguished and respected religious leader, while
Jesus was a poor itinerant teacher, a miracle worker who some were saying was
the One, the Messiah who the Jews had been waiting for for 1,000 years.
Nicodemus was drawn to Him, but Nicodemus also had a reputation to
protect.
So, he came to talk with Jesus at night (yes, Nic at night! 😊) because he had questions.
There has been heavy snow in the mountains and foothills. Some places in
the Sierras got 10 feet last week! We got snow in the foothills near us, too,
and the snow level is supposed to come down even further with more snow today.
We’re looking forward to when these clouds lift and we can see the spectacular
mountain views that have been hidden.
There are times in life, too, when the clouds lift, and we see things as
they are.
Nicodemus had that experience.
Have you ever seen any of the “Back to the
Future” movies?
O’Reilly Auto Parts sells, well, auto parts.
If you go to their website (oreillyauto.com) and search for “121g” you’ll be
taken to a page with a picture of a flux capacitor and this:
Detailed
Description
- Time Travel at your own RISK!
- Plutonium is required to properly operate
the flux capacitor
- Plutonium is used by the onboard nuclear
reactor which then powers the flux capacitor to provide the needed 1.21
gigawatts of electrical power.
- Plutonium not available at O'Reilly Auto
Parts. Please contact your local plutonium supplier.
- Flux capacitor requires the stainless
steel body of a 1981-1983 DeLorean DMC-12 to properly function.
- Once the time machine travels at 88 mph
(142 km/h), light coming from the flux capacitor pulses until it becomes
a steady stream of light at which point time travel begins!
Oh, the page also says, at the top, “This
item is not available for purchase.”
It’s kind of funny because we know it’s not real.
That’s what Nicodemus wanted to know about Jesus. Is Jesus the Messiah
or some kind of joke? Is he real, is he the One?
But he’s not sure, so he starts by paying Jesus a complement without
going too far. This is his pretext, or excuse, for being there.
He
addresses Jesus as “Rabbi”, which means “teacher” He recognizes Jesus as “a
teacher who comes from God” because of the signs he has done, which require the
power of God.
Jesus’ miracles are often referred to as “signs”. Do you know what a
sign is? It’s something that points to something else. In this case, Nicodemus
thinks, it is to God. But Nicodemus bases his respect for Jesus on what Jesus
has done, not on who He is, fully God and fully human being.
Jesus rejects that explanation and takes the conversation in a totally
different direction.
He
tells Nicodemus that no one can “see” the circumstances in which God reigns
without being “born from above” or, in some translations, “born again,” or
“born anew”.
Nicodemus asks how anyone can be born after
growing old with an image that I think must be a horror show to any mother
(“Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”)
Jesus describes the necessity of birth, but
in terms of the transformational relationship with the one true living God for
which we were created that comes from the gift of faith.
Being born from above, or born again, or
born anew is being born of the Spirit. It is the new birth that comes from God.
Confused? So was Nicodemus.
Jesus now gets to his main point. The people
of Israel, who had been wandering in the wilderness after their liberation by
God from Egypt, had been experiencing a plague of poisonous snakes and were
being bitten, and many died as a consequence of their rebellion against God,
and then they repented.
God told Moses to make a serpent out of
bronze and fasten it to the top of a poll. The serpent was lifted up on the
poll and everyone who looked at it was healed (Numbers 21:4-9, the First
Reading for this coming Sunday).
And that’s the context of this coming
Sunday’s Gospel text. It starts like this, with Jesus continuing his
conversation with Nicodemus, in John 3:14-16,
14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have
eternal life. 16 “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.
“In the same way”, Jesus said, he,
the Son of Man, must be lifted up.
Healing hadn’t come to the children of
Israel because they had been good. Healing came because the people had repented
and trusted God, and God was merciful to his rebellious people.
Jesus would be lifted up in the same way
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. Keeping the
Law now becomes God’s gift of grace on the cross. A symbol of death now becomes
a symbol of our ultimate healing.
Why? Because our sin broke us, it separated
us from the living relationship with the one true living God for which we were
created, and which God came to die for us on a cross to restore.
John 3:16 is printed on the bottom
rim of In-N-Out drink cups. You can sometimes see John 3:16 on posters held up by fans at sports events
and on the faces of athletes. Or just “3:16”.
Fun
fact: if you read the 3rd Chapter, the 16th verse of
every book of the Bible, you get a pretty deep expression of the good news of
Jesus Christ.
John
3:16 is the Gospel, the good news in miniature, but the focus of John
3:16 is on the “what” God did. The “why” part is given in the next verse, John 3:17,
17 “Indeed, God did not send the Son into
the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved
through him.
They
say that guilt is the gift that keeps on giving. But the Gospel reminds us that
Jesus did not come to condemn the world. Jesus came so that the world might be
saved from the Sin that separates it from God.
Our
sin condemns us. Jesus saves us.
The
text concludes in John 3:18-21,
18 Those who believe in him are not
condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they
have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment, that the light
has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because
their deeds were evil. 20 For all who do evil hate the light and
do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21 But those who do what is true come to
the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in
God.”
Light
overcomes darkness, you can’t shine darkness into something. That’s why we
don’t hide our sins, we bring them to Jesus.
One
of the guys in a congregation I served who owned a business told me about a
little old lady who came in one day. She mentioned that she had a refrigerator
she didn’t need and had had someone move it out to the curb with a sign on it
that said “Free Refrigerator” where it had sat for days.
One
of the man’s employees was going to deliver some samples to the woman’s home
and he said that he’d take care of it.
When
he got to the house, he posted a new sign that said, “Refrigerator, $100.”
That
night, somebody stole it!
That’s the evil of the human heart.
God’s desire is that the world might be saved anyway, through Jesus.
Why don’t more people see God at work in their lives and listen to him?
I’m reminded
of the guy who was sitting in his home one day when a Red Cross worker pounded
on his door, yelling “The dam has broken. Get out! Get out now! We’ll help
you.”
The man
replied, “Oh, thank you very much but I’m a Christian. I know that God will
take care of me. I’ll be fine.” And the Red cross worker finally left and went
on to the next house.
The waters
came and flooded the first floor of his house, so that he had to move up to the
second floor. A guy in a rowboat came by and said, “Hop in, buddy. I’ll get you
out of here.”
“Oh, thank
you,” the man said. “But I’m a Christian. I know that God won’t let anything
harm me.” The man in the rowboat finally went on to other houses.
The waters
continued to rise, and the man had to crawl out onto his roof. A helicopter
flew over and the crew spotted the man. They dropped a rope ladder and shouted,
“Climb up and we’ll get you out of here. The waters are rising. This is your
last chance!”.
“Thanks for
coming, but I’ll be fine. My faith is strong. I know God will take care of me,”
the man shouted.
The waters
kept rising and pretty soon they rose over the house and over the man, and he
drowned.
When he
arrived at the gates of heaven, dripping wet, he immediately demanded to be
taken to the throne of Grace. “That’s kind of an unusual request but, OK.” St.
Peter said.
The man
stomped through the throne room into God’s presence and whined, “You promised
me! You said that you’d always be with me, no matter what. What happened?”
“What do you
mean,” God said. “I sent you a Red Cross worker, a rowboat and a helicopter.”
Maybe you
are struggling with belief, or you want to believe but are not sure, or you
know someone who is.
Nicodemus was
searching for Jesus. He had questions. He came to Jesus in the darkness and the
Light of the World was revealed to him.
He learned the
essential meaning of the Gospel, that God comes to us. He doesn’t wait for us
to get our lives together. He doesn’t wait for us to understand anything. He
comes to save us. He comes in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the answer.
Everything in the
Bible points to Jesus, it is filled by the Holy Spirit. And when we read the
Bible, it’s the same Holy Spirit that reveals Him in a personal, living
encounter with God.
He has come in the
most unexpected way possible, to save us by suffering and dying on a cross. And
he is present for us today.
We just open our
hearts to receive Him.
We have the Bible’s
text, we don’t need any pretext, any excuse. We have been given an encounter
with the living God.
We don’t need any
excuse, and we have none anyway.
We don’t need any
excuse, because we have a Savior.
We have been died
for. We die to sin and rise to new life every day.
We don’t need to
justify ourselves. We just live naturally in response to the grace that has
given us a new birth.
Let that be our
focus this Lent.
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