March 14, 2021
/The Fourth Sunday of Lent
John 3:14-21
The Rev. Joann Saylors
If you were to ask a random stranger to quote a Bible verse, any verse in the Bible, you’d probably get the same kinds of goofy responses the hosts of the late night shows get when they ask questions of people on the streets. But if you instead asked them to name a Bible verse you’d have better luck. Lots of those random strangers would come up with John 3:16. We see it in all sorts of places. Mostly not as a quote of the text but as that citation of chapter and verse. Just the name “John” followed by the number “3,” a colon and the number “16.” It appears on signs people post on their front lawns, billboards, printed on the bottom of paper cups and shopping bags.
It’s really popular in sports. Fans hold up John 3:16 signs at sporting events. Heisman Trophy winning football player Tim Tebow printed the reference in his eye black, initially in the 2009 college football national championship.[i] Tebow later claimed that "John 3 16" was Googled 94 million times during the game.[ii] He wore it most famously in 2012 at what became known as “the 3:16 game,” where Tebow threw for 316 yards in a playoff upset against the Pittsburgh Steelers. [iii] Not just football. Professional wrestler "Stone Cold" Steve Austin's marquee catchphrase ("Austin 3:16") originated as a reference to John 3:16. [iv]
On Amazon.com today, you can find books with 3:16: The Numbers of Hope, by Max Lucado or The Other 3:16s, by Malinda Fugate. Shoppers in the know don’t even need to hear “John” to get the reference.
It’s a significant verse. Martin Luther once called it “The Gospel in Miniature,” saying that the very heart of Scripture and the message of Christ is found in the passage. Beyond the citation the words are also familiar. I suspect many of us memorized the King James version in Sunday School or confirmation class: “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.” The very heart of our faith – that God loves the world so much that God gave us Jesus. The phrase “John 3:16” is a hyper-summarized citation of the Good News that may be simple to cross-stitch, but is awfully complicated to live.
John 3:16 is in the middle of a conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, a prominent Pharisee who has sneaked out to meet Jesus at night, so as not to be seen. In verse 10, shortly before the passage that we heard this morning, Nicodemus has found Jesus’ teaching confusing because it demands that he let go of all that he has accomplished and understood. He will have to instead become like a newborn, ready to engage the world on completely new terms. And this new understanding then implies a need to change. Some things are hard to grasp, not because they have a lot of words or are conceptually subtle, but because they ask so much of us. We don’t really want to understand, because if we understand, we are called to be or do something different. We are called to believe.
God loved the world so much that God gave the Son so that we may believe and have eternal life. Is it something we really want to understand? What if it calls us to “believe” this Good News, that in Jesus “lifted up” – it can also be translated as “exalted” - God offers the world salvation rather than condemnation? We might say that believing simply requires us to agree intellectually that all of this happened in just the way the story describes. To believe in our minds that Jesus died and was raised to save us is easy to comprehend, and it requires almost nothing of us. But such an intellectual kind of belief isn’t really what God is asking from us, is it?
God is asking us to let ourselves be persuaded and then transformed by our belief. We tend to say “faith,” rather than “belief,” to mean that knowledge at the level of our souls, deeper than our minds. Faith changes us and how we live.
The people of God wandering in the desert with Moses sound whiny and ungrateful. “We detest this miserable food,” manna that God had provided. The psalmist also speaks unflatteringly of the people God has gathered. “Some were fools and took to rebellious ways; they were afflicted because of their sins. They abhorred all manner of food and drew near to death's door.”
They are us. And the God who loves us didn’t abandon them or smite them, and as far as we know, wasn’t even tempted.
Martin Luther once said, “If I were as our Lord God … and these vile people were as disobedient as they now are, I would knock the world in pieces.”[v] A very human response.
God, though, offered the means of healing. First, the serpent lifted on the pole to save the Israelites from poison and death from the serpents. And later, Jesus, lifted on the cross to save us from sin and death.
God loves us. And that is Good News for us, for all of Christianity, and for all of the world. God loves us. And God forgives us.
Our life as Christians is based on having faith in God’s love and forgiveness for each and every one of us. When we truly have faith in this deep and abiding truth, our lives begin to change. We strive to be the very image of God in which we are all created – by loving others as God loves us. We try to love as God loves – unreservedly and sacrificially. We take responsibility for our actions, and we seek healing for those against whom we have transgressed. We admit we have done wrong, and we work to do better.
The God who loves every single person and creature asks us to do the same. The God who forgives, makes reconciliation the priority, and repairs the world’s injuries invites us to do the same.
We hurt each other all the time. We hurt others by our words and actions, and we allow others to be hurt by unjust systems and structures. And we are hurt by the world as well.
The work of repair is the work of the Church and the work of each member of it. We are partners in that work with many others outside the church, and we are not unique in doing it. The voice of the Church can be indistinguishable from those others in the task of repair of those systems. We all want to avoid doing harm and we want to fix what we have broken or the systems that break others.
Where the Church’s voice stands out from the world’s is in understanding the need for repair of relationships, and for forgiveness and reconciliation.
As Christians, we are called to forgive because we have been forgiven. And we will continue to need forgiveness.
I’ve been praying through the devotional guide produced by Episcopal Relief and Development this Lent. In Friday’s offering, Bishop Phoebe Roaf of West Tennessee speaks of forgiveness: “One aspect of lament is recognizing that everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Both victim and perpetrator are equal at the foot of the cross. This is a hard truth to acknowledge for those who have been victimized. The goal of repentance is not to blame the victim but rather to accept that brokenness is part of the human condition….Perhaps that is why Jesus instructed his disciples to ask for forgiveness and to forgive those who injured them in the Lord’s Prayer. If we desire forgiveness when we have fallen short, we are called to forgive others. Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting the incident or waiving your right to restitution. Neither does it entail allowing yourself to be repeatedly abused. What forgiveness facilitates is a release from the anger and pain so that we can move on with our lives.”
Lent is a time to reflect on where we have fallen short, and we are good at recognizing where we need to repent. But when we focus on what we have done to others, we can overlook the harm we do by refusing to forgive. Healing the world includes healing ourselves.
Being hurt by someone, particularly someone you love and trust, can cause anger, sadness and confusion. Dwelling on hurtful events or situations allows grudges filled with resentment, vengeance and hostility to take root. And we lose valuable and enriching connectedness with others. If we aren’t careful, we carry anger and bitterness into every relationship and new experience.
We stop being able to love others in the way God loves us, maybe loving anybody in the way God loves us. And that, my sisters and brothers, is death. The death that God sent Jesus to overcome.
In your Lenten self-reflection, take time this week to consider. What do you need to let go of? Whom do you need to forgive? Where is God asking you to repair a tear in the world by bringing reconciliation into your own relationships?
“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.”
Let us live to make it so. Let us love. Let us heal others. And let us forgive. AMEN.
[i] “John 3:16,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_3:16, accessed March 12, 2021.
[ii] “Tim Tebow Shares John 3:16 Story,” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILz_9KRwzB8&t=18s, accessed March 12, 2021.
[iii] Wikipedia.
[iv] Ibid.
[v] Martin Luther, “Of God’s Works,” CXI Table Talk or Familiar Discourse. Tebow later claimed that "John 3 16" was Googled 94 million times during the game. He wore it most famously in 2012 at what became known as “the 3:16 game,” where Tebow threw for 316 yards in a playoff upset against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Not just football. Professional wrestler "Stone Cold" Steve Austin's marquee catchphrase ("Austin 3:16") originated as a reference to John 3:16.