Fourth Sunday in Lent
- Year B March
15, 2015
Numbers 21:
4‑9; Ephesians 2:1‑10; Psalm 107:1‑3, 17‑22; John 3:14‑21
I’m teaching a bible study at PWOC this semester called Read
the Bible for Life by George Guthrie.
Its 10-week mission is to help students read the bible in a new way.
Each week we look at a different part of the bible and see how it is different
from other parts of the bible. Whether it’s the books of the Law, the history ,
the prophets, Old Testament wisdom literature, the gospels, the letters or
apocalyptic writings from the both the Old and New Testaments, each was written
with a certain audience and purpose in mind. Understanding those intentions,
along with the historical and cultural contexts of scripture, can make reading
the bible and putting it into action in our lives even more possible.
The problem with this is that understanding how complicated
scripture is will challenge the way we read or hear the most familiar stories
of faith. Gone are the days of opening the bible, pointing to a verse and
saying, “This is how I’m going to live out my faith today.” Scripture was certainly divinely inspired and
penned by human hands, but it was not written one verse at a time. It was
written at a particular time and place, in stories to teach history, as poems
and hymns for worship or devotion, or as letters meant to encourage and clear
up theological confusions or crises and to address pastoral needs.
Understanding those starting positions helps us get more
meaning from a group of verses. It can also challenge the way that we have
previously understood what those verses mean to us on our faith journeys. I
think that today’s gospel lesson is a great example of this predicament.
In John’s gospel, the coming of Christ into the world is at
the same time judgment and grace. The reference
to the lifting up of Christ, as the serpent was lifted before the people of
Israel, was a prelude to his being lifted up on the cross, and a looking
forward to the lifting of Christ to his rightful place at the side of the
Father, tying together the old and new covenants. Clearly, John's gospel deals with the very
meaning of Christ coming into the world, not just historically, but
theologically as well.
John uses the themes of light and darkness to talk about
Christ's presence in the world. Light is
used as a metaphor for grace & salvation, while darkness is used to
describe our tendency toward self interest and our hiding from God. John reminds us that the light is there to
help everyone to see. Some rejoice in
it, some hide from it. Implicit is the
question, “Which do we choose?”
These gospel verses are the end of an encounter between
Nicodemus and Jesus, including what is probably one of the best known verses of
scripture: "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" (John 3:16). This is quite powerful
as a stand-alone idea – God gave the world Jesus out of love. But Jesus did not
stop teaching there, because if he had, then the main actor in the story would
be us and our belief, not God and his gift.
The verses that follow tell us of our need to come into the
light of Christ so that we might be fulfilled through him. God is the main
actor here, not me or you. Believing in Jesus is just one of the many steps in
our faith journeys. It’s almost as if I
can hear God saying, “I believed in you long before you believed in me.” And it is in our belief and realizing our
need for him that we begin to ask questions about how we are living our
lives. Like: Why do we hide from the
light? What is the light exposing that we would rather forget and ignore? And
maybe, to what lengths will we go to cover up, hide, or run away from the
darkness in ourselves and others and, in the process, turn away from God?
Last week we talked about what it takes to believe:
faith. This week we are talking about
what comes after belief and faith: action.
John's Gospel and Paul's letter to the Ephesians each remind us that it
is not enough to just believe. Belief
and faith are anchored in our need to act, to participate in a life of
faith.
Paul writes, “For by
grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is
the gift of God‑ not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in
Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of
life” (Ephesians 2:8‑10).
The Ephesians passage shows the interlocking nature of faith
and action. Faith leads to action, which
leads to faith, which leads to action, and the cycle goes on and on. I’m always
amazed at how choosing faith has totally changed my life. I’ll bet the same is
true for you. It’s a great explanation for how we end up in places totally
different from where we expected to be.
Earlier I asked some hard questions. The one that keeps coming back to me is, “Why do we hide from the light?” The love of God has the power to total change everything – maybe that’s the point. Maybe we hide from the light because we don’t want to change. Or maybe we are just afraid. Writer David Lose says it this way:
The kind of self-sacrificing love Jesus offers is frightening to such a world. No wonder some run and hide, as it requires us to trust nothing other than God. And most of us find it impossible to embrace Jesus’ example…except when we ourselves have been brought low by illness, or loss, or a broken relationship, or disappointed hopes or some other way by which the world taught us that no matter how hard we try, no matter what position we may achieve, no matter how much money we may save, yet we cannot secure our destiny or save our lives. Only God can do that. Only love can do that. And it’s frightening to be so utterly dependent on God.[i]
But God continues to work with us, even through our fear and stubbornness. I'll bet you know the words to this hymn... but what do you know about its author?
“Amazing Grace… How sweet the sound,
that saves a wretch like me. I once was
lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.”
John Newton, writer of the hymn “Amazing Grace”, spent part of
his life as a trader and ship captain transporting slaves from Africa to the
Caribbean and the Colonies. The
capturing, selling and transporting of black slaves to the West Indies and
America was a cruel and vicious way of life.
Ships would make the first leg of their voyage from England nearly empty
until they anchored off the African coast.
There, tribal chiefs would deliver to the Europeans ships men and women,
captured in raids and wars against other tribes. Buyers would select the finest specimens,
which would be bartered for weapons, ammunition, metal, liquor, trinkets, and
cloth. Then the captives would be loaded
aboard, packed for sailing. They were
chained below decks to prevent suicides, laid side by side to save space, row
after row, one after another, until the vessel was laden with as many as 600
units of human cargo.
This hymn is John Newton’s own song of salvation. On the 10th of March 1748, returning to
England his ship was in a terrible storm.
He feared for his life, believing the ship would sink. He said without really meaning it, as we
often do, "The Lord have mercy on us'. But God must have taken him at his
word.
This was a turning point in his life. He remained a slave ship captain for several
years and tried to justify his position by improving the conditions for the
slaves. He even held services for his
ship's crew each Sunday. But eventually he
became a strong and effective crusader against slavery. He realized that he was lost in sin and was
blind to the truth of the Gospel. He
knew that even in a prayer that he had prayed in desperation, God in grace had
answered his prayer and forgiven his sins.
His epitaph in
part reads:
JOHN NEWTON, Clerk Once an infidel and
libertine,
A servant of slaves in Africa Was
by the rich mercy of our Lord and
Saviour JESUS CHRIST
Preserved, restored, pardoned
And appointed to preach the faith He
had long laboured to destroy…
For centuries, the biblical word has been used to justify
slavery, the objectification of women, and the maltreatment or shunning of
those who are not believers in Jesus Christ. Last week, Jackson and I talked
during the children’s sermon about the two greatest commandments – love God and
love your neighbor, and how simple and hard they are, all at the same time.
John Newton was compelled to totally reject his previous life because he came
to an understanding that the people he was delivering into slavery were human
beings worthy of his love and compassion. Not only did he leave the slave
trade, but he became an Anglican priest, was a leader in the 19th
evangelical revival in England, wrote over 200 hymns, and became a mentor and
inspiration to William Wilberforce, who eventually led a successful campaign to
abolish slavery in Great Britain.[ii]
For each of us there will be the time and place where we will
know without a doubt that we have to leave behind our past expectations and jump into the middle of the fray, to start depending on God more than ourselves. It will be a time when we say,
“Because I believe in Jesus, I am different.” Despite what we hear from those
who use the good news of Jesus as a weapon to bring people into line, the grace
and love of Jesus Christ is given as a gift, a frightening and wonderful gift. And
we are called to use it as a way to bring people into the family of God, not
turn them away.
Nicodemus came to Jesus in the middle of the night because he
was afraid of what other people would think. But Jesus invited him to come into
the light. The good news for him, and for us today and every day is this:
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.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.
In the name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
