Lent 4 B: 3 Overlooked Elements of John 3:16
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.
Dear Partner in Preaching,
We have before us this Sunday one of the most – perhaps the most – iconic verses in Scripture: John 3:16. Similar to approaching the Christmas Eve gospel, the question inevitably becomes, “How do I preach this in a fresh way?” or even, “Is there anything new I can possibly say?” Perhaps one way to approach this question is to not preach on it directly, allowing some of the surrounding verses to take center stage for a change. Or, more importantly, perhaps by paying closer attention to the surrounding verses, we might hear and understand John 3:16 more fully and deeply. So in that spirit, here are three things I’ve found it easy to overlook about the larger passage that help us hear the gospel more fully in “the world’s most famous verse.”
1. It’s about the cross…but not the cross as we usually think of it.
If you wonder why we’ve got John 3:16 among the panoply of Johannine texts that fill out Lent in the Year of Mark, it’s v. 14: “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so also must the Son of Man be lifted up…”. This somewhat semantic reference to the cross qualifies the rest of the passage for our Lenten consideration. All well and good, perhaps, except that it’s very easy to read John’s testimony through everything else we know – or at least think we know – about the cross, rather than let it speak for itself.
This in two ways. First, note that the reference moves both forward and backward. Not only does the “lifting up” anticipate Jesus’ crucifixion (forward), but also references the story shared in the appointed first lesson from Numbers (21:4-9). In that passage, God, weary beyond belief at the grumbling of the thankless Israelites, sends an Exodus-like plague of venomous snakes to chastise them. It is, to say the least, effective, and when the people repent, the Lord commands Moses to make a bronze snake and lift it up on a pole, so that whenever someone is bitten he or she can look to the snake and be healed. To look ahead to Jesus’ “lifting up” through the lens of this story, the cross is not about punishment or payment but healing….and only healing. As the venomous snakes make the deadly consequences of sin manifest and the bronze snake offers only life, we might similarly conclude that the consequences of sin abound in our daily lives while the cross itself is the agent of our salvation and healing.
Second, “lifting up” in John has a double meaning. It is indeed the physical elevating of Jesus on the cross, but it is also a metaphorical elevating of just what is happening on the cross. That is, the cross in John is not Jesus’ moment of humiliation or defeat or abandonment, as in Mark and Matthew in particular, but rather is the moment of Jesus’ greatest glory, his elevation as he achieves the mission for which he was commissioned and sent (think “it is finished/accomplished” in Jn. 19:30). Jesus is elevated, both physically and metaphorically, so that the whole world can see God’s great act of redemption and healing, the moment when the “giving of the Son” spoken of in 3:16 is made manifest. Again, no mention of punishment or payment for sin, as the cross is not a mechanism that effects salvation but the sign that reveals God’s love for the wayward world (kosmos in John) most concretely.
2. Nicodemus doesn’t get it… until he does.
Both parts of that statement are crucial to hear. Nicodemus, teacher of the law, religious authority, and curious and open-minded enough to seek out this young rabbi, Jesus, just doesn’t get it. Confused about what it means to be “born anew/again/from above” (3:4ff.), he eventually fades from the scene, returning to his official role and life. In fact, were we to judge Nicodemus at this point in the story, our verdict would likely not be positive. He meets Jesus, talks with him, gets to hear “the gospel in a nutshell,” and yet can’t seem to shake his old ideas or practices and so does not come to faith. What a sharp contrast to the next chapter when a character as polar opposite as we can imagine – the Samaritan woman at the well, who changes her whole life and immediately brings others to Jesus.
At this point Nicodemus is no shining example of the power of the Gospel. But if we read further, Nicodemus appears again, this time in the light of day, to claim Jesus’ dead body and, along with Joseph or Arimathea, give him a proper burial. Which might remind us that there is no single timeline of how people respond to the good news. Further, it might caution us against judging persons for their lack of response to the Gospel, for to do so is perhaps not simply to judge others but, indeed, to judge God’s ability to continue to be at work in the life of those God has called. Our job is to testify, to “bear witness to the light” (1:8), and place the responsibility for salvation on the broad shoulders of the Holy Spirit.
3. Judgment, as it turns out, is about telling the truth.
The Greek word “krisis” translated here as “judgment” refers less to the rendering of a sentence than it does a separating and revealing. “Verdict” or “decisive moment” might be closer, even “uncover” or “disclose.” That emphasis might help us hear the verses after 3:16 as more descriptive than accusatory. Those who believe that God is love are saved; they look to the One lifted up for healing. Those who cannot imagine that God comes bringing love rather than punishment are lost, lost to their despair, sin, and confusion. The verdict, conclusion, revelation is indeed that we love darkness more than light. That it’s hard to imagine God being different than we are. That we do not want to admit our need and receive God’s grace and forgiveness. That there is something in us that fears being exposed and, perhaps we assume, rejected or, for that matter, transformed.
“Krisis” is the root of our word crisis in the sense of a decisive turning point. God’s mercy made manifest in the lifting up of the Son, the visible sign of God’s grace poured out for the world, creates for us a crisis, a turning point, a decisive moment that we might perceive and receive God’s redemptive, life changing love.
With those three elements in mind, hear – and proclaim – this word of Gospel once again: 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.
Thank you, Dear Partner for your proclamation. It is, quite simply, crucial.
Yours in Christ,
David
David,
Should I be suspicious. Monday! Wow!Gives me more time to let your sharing simmer. Thanks it is a pleasure to engage with you most weeks. I grow and go and glow better.
David, thank you so much for a powerful and truly wonderful set of thoughts to work on. I tend to highlight bits that I think are particularly helpful, but this week, most of your commentary is bright yellow!
I have always loved the interplay of the Numbers and John texts, even before I was officially a preacher. The only pushback I would give is that it is not the cross that is parallel in sign to the Nehushtan, but rather Jesus on the cross. The cross is not the agent but the mechanism, as you later clarify.
John offers nice balance here to the substitutionary notions of atonement that his “Lamb of God” language does allude to. It is a necessary rounding to a full sense of what Jesus has done for us on the cross and why our faith is vital, even if the sacrificed lamb has already taken away the sin of the world. Believing the prevenient promise of God is what allows us to look to the sign and be healed. It’s an astounding reminder that grace, both created and uncreated, is always ahead of us. It’s also a call to the Church to move before a dying world and raise the pole, lift high the cross.
I look forward to reading your thoughts each week.
During our Bible study of the Gospel text, at my suggestion we consider the light of the cross, one of our members, a very Bible literate student ‘crowd is she was challenged by considering the light of the cross.
Thank you, Jesus.
You insight about Nicodemus has blown my mind. Thank you so much for making a narrative connection that I have missed for decades. But, more importantly, thanks for sharing an insight that will be so helpful for parishioners this Sunday.