John 3: 14-21
March 21, 2012
The cross is unraveling.
This cross behind me is literally falling apart. Colin, along with Julia and Willem, worked really hard to get geometric origami cross together as our worship focus. We wanted to put it up without tape or clips—just a little fishing wire. How naive we were! After hoisting this cross up with fishing wire we realized that the cross was coming apart. There were places on this structure that could not hold the weight of the rest of the structure. So, we tried to hold it together with a little clear tape.
But when I came in on the first Sunday morning of lent the cross had slid down the fishing line, so I tried to hoist it back up, but when I did, the straining paper structure began to unravel. It seemed like every time I put tape on something, another piece would come apart.
So I finally stopped trying. Colin and I got it to a certain place a few weeks ago, and decided that we weren’t going to tape any more. If it unraveled, it unraveled.
This pastel cross—our Lenten focus--has become a metaphor for me. This cross, so lovingly handmade by people in the congregation is just coming apart, as are our ideas about what the cross means. Perhaps, as we delve into one of the most well known scriptures out there, we’ll see this cross completely unravel right in front of us.
These verses—particularly the famous John 3:16 have become mocked by society, especially because of the one guy at every football games that holds up the “John 3:16” sign. I still don’t understand how that helps to promote the gospel, that guy is pretty convinced that by holding the sign, he is saving souls—that when people see his sign, they’ll google this verse, and saying it out loud, their salvation procured—just like that.
This year, John 3:16, got some added press from football quarterback, Tim Tebow. He’s been known to write “John 3:16” on the black stuff football players put under their eyes. And this year, in a football game against the Steelers, the Bronco’s Quarterback ran 316 yards, and averaged 31.6 yards in completion. Now I don’t know what any of that means, but it meant something to Tebow and his fans. His football celebrity was a way to get the gospel out there.
This verse alone carries a lot of heaviness and guilt with it. For God so loved the world that God gave us Jesus, God’s only son, so that whoever might believe in Jesus will have eternal life. Implied in that verse for some is the suffering and death of Jesus, and the threat that not believing might make Jesus’ death a waste.
In fact, intrinsic in Mel Gibson’s recent movie, The Passion of the Christ, is this same message. Jesus did all this for you. You have to believe. Or else. Or else…darkness, death, hell.
In looking again this week at this famous verse, I looked for signs of God’s judgement and anger in this passage, and I couldn’t find it. All I could find was my own baggage around this verse, and perhaps some residual cultural baggage.
And to focus soley on John 3:16 misses some of the most beautiful, elegant and grace-filled parts of this John passage.
So, let’s look at John 3, Verses 16 and 17—together, they go like this: “God so loved the world as to give the only Begotten One, that whoever believes may not die, but have eternal life. God sent the Only Begotten into the world, not to condemn the world, but that through the Only Begotten the world might be saved.”
Martin Luther once said, “If I were the Lord...and these vile people as disobedient as they now be, I would knock the world into pieces.”
Thankfully God chose Love. And thankfully Martin Luther was not God. God loves humanity. God loves us in our imperfection, our destructive tendencies, our idiocy. God loves us enough to give up a piece of God’s self. God loves us enough to try to understand us better.
Notice here that it does not say, God loves us enough to kill Jesus. That’s not the sacrifice John is talking about here—instead God loves us enough to try to get closer to us, to try to relate to us more personally, to break down the barriers between us and God.
And God did this so we can have eternal life—this eternal life, according to language scholars, isn’t so much about duration. It’s about quality rather than quantity. It’s not about the length of one’s life, but the kind of life one chooses. It is both present and future. It is the reign of God, the here and not yet.
Essentially, God gave up a piece of God’s self for relationship. With us. And in return we have an opportunity to see God’s reign—God’s presence—in a new way.
The giving of God’s child—God’s Only Begotten—to humanity, was not an act of condemnation but of salvation. It is an opportunity to see God breaking into the world, not an opportunity for God to judge us and condemn us.
This text comes to us from the Gospel of John, a gospel that I’ve always found to be harsh and not so easy on the ears. But here, John’s Jesus speaks lovingly and truthfully about God’s relationship to humanity. This text has nothing to do with a punishing cross and a tortured Jesus, but about a loving God.
This week, I ran across a book in my library. There are very few words in this book—it is mostly images of the crucifixion throughout history. I was surprised to learn that the first depictions of the crucifixion scene in history did not appear until the early 5th century. We did not see images of Jesus on the cross until 400 years after his death. And these earliest images were of Jesus on the cross—eyes wide open. Alert and alive. Fully present. By the 7th and 8th century, the images change to mostly images of Jesus on the cross with eyes closed, presumably dead.
The first image in the book of the crucified Jesus, carved in ivory was the most shocking. Jesus is on the cross—eyes open and face strong—and surrounded by bewildered, distraught followers. Meanwhile Judas hangs in a nearby tree—eyes closed, body lifeless, 30 coins laying beneath him. This was not the gruesome scene of mideaval Christian art. This was a juxtaposition between eternal life—the life Jesus was living, even on the cross—and the death of Judas. This was an image of John 3.
This is the choice we have too. I hate to put it in such stark terms, but this is how the Gospel of John puts it, so I’m going to go with it. We have the choice to live the way of death and darkness, with our actions hidden from view. Or we can follow the way of Jesus, taking up our crosses, with our eyes wide open to the presence of God around us. Both sound rather terrifying to me at first glance. Do I really want to live my life in secrecy, concerned only about myself? If I am to be really truthful with myself and with you, I do answer “yes” to that some days.
But this week, in light of the unusually bright and warm weather, I have felt drawn to the light—both the light of the warm sunshine as I’ve discovered new paths in the Wissahickon park, and the light of eternal life, as I’ve longed to see the presence of God in this screwed up, broken world.
It is hard for us to imagine choosing the cross, choosing the way of eternal life. Each of us has known a bit of suffering in our lives, but relative to the rest of the world, we do not know suffering. So, we face the same struggles as Nichodemus, the rich religious scholar Jesus spoke with in our John text. It is hard for us to comprehend suffering, and terrifying to imagine that it is what we are asked to choose.
But it is the choice we are given. Choose the way of Jesus, and expect to see suffering, to experience pain, to have your eyes opened to the suffering of your neighbors, and be called to bear that pain with them. But choose the way the Jesus chose, and see God at work. See God make a way when there was no way. Feel the empowering presence of God. Watch as God breaks open our world, and reveals something new and beautiful.
The cross is unraveling. Here I thought this cross was a gruesome reminder of the suffering, death, and ultimate resurrection of Jesus. But, perhaps it is a symbol of the choice we must make. God sent Jesus to be in deeper relationship with us. Jesus asks us in the Gospel of John if we will choose to accept that relationship, if we will choose to see both the suffering of our neighbors and the reign of God. This choice—ironic as it is—is the eternal life God has promised us. AMEN.