“Beyond the
Slogans and Simple Formulas”
A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent
Preached by the
Rev. Jean Niven Lenk
Sunday, March 18, 2012
First Congregational Church of Stoughton, United
Church of Christ
Text: Numbers
21:4-9; John 3:14-21
Good news, everyone – we have
just passed the half-way point of Lent, and today is
known in some Christian traditions as “Refreshment Sunday” (my kind of day)! Going back to the Middle Ages, this has been
the Sunday on which the disciplines of penitence and denial are relaxed a
little. So if you gave up chocolate or
some other goodie for Lent -- and if your resolve hasn’t already crumbled over
this St. Patrick’s weekend -- today is the perfect day to let go and indulge a
little.
And in
keeping with this little break from Lent, our scripture lessons for today offer
us a foretaste, just a glimpse, of what awaits us at the end of our Lenten
journey – the resurrection and its meaning for us.
“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 is arguably the most
recognizable verse in all the gospels, perhaps in all of scripture, and in many
cases, it has entered people’s consciousness not through religion, but through
the culture. The verse started coming into
pop culture view in the 1970s when signs with “John 3:16” seemingly appeared in
every end zone, along every highway, and in every crowd. In every place that a television camera was
pointing, it seemed as though you would find someone holding up a placard
reading “John 3:16.”
More recently, quarterback Tim
Tebow, an evangelical Christian, wore the verse on his eye paint during the
2009 BCS championship game when he was playing for the Florida Gators. As a result, “John 3:16” becoming the
highest-ranked Google search term over the next 24 hours with over 90 million
searches. Fascination with the verse
only grew this past January when, playing for the Denver Broncos against the
Pittsburgh Steelers in the first round of the NFL playoffs, Tebow threw for a career high 316 yards, setting an
NFL record for yards per completion (31.6) in a playoff game. Many people wondered if Tebow had a divine
connection. But that notion was quickly put
to rest when the following week, the Broncos were trounced 45-10 by the
Patriots and knocked out of the playoffs.
But it’s not just in football culture that the verse is evident. The trendy clothing store Forever 21 prints
“John 3:16” on the bottom of its bags.
And in Plano, Texas, Kwik Kar Lube & Service gives customers
who recite the Bible verse an oil change for $19.99.[i] A lawyer who got involved noted that as a
private business, Kwik Kar’s Bible-based discount seems to be within the law,
though he added, “The study of the Bible has many rewards. I’m not sure that God intended a lube discount
to be among its many riches.”
But the point is clear: John 3:16
has become much more than a bible verse; it has become a cultural slogan.
It is also perhaps one of the most
misused, misunderstood texts in all of Scripture. Taken literally, John 3:16 suggests that
those who do not believe in Christ will perish, and this one single verse has
provided motivation for some decidedly unchristian actions, to include drawing
bold lines of inclusion and exclusion in this life and the next.
The irony is that John is the least
literal of the four Gospel writers.
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all take great liberty with the actual
events of Jesus’ life and the things he said.
The Gospel writers were not historians; what they were seeking to do in
their gospels was to communicate a faith to particular audiences. And John is the one who exercises the
greatest freedom in reworking and retelling the story of Jesus in order to express
who Jesus was – and continues to be – for all who read his gospel.
“For God so loved the world…”
That is how the majority of English translations, including the New
Revised Standard Version in our pews, interpret that phrase from the original
Greek. And when we hear these words, I
think most of us think that the “so” in “God so loved” means “how much”; we
hear it as “For God loved the world so much…”
But a more accurate translation from the Greek is “For God loved the
world in this way.” If this kind of bible study jazzes you, you
can read more on page 2 of Notes and Notices.[ii]
And
in talking about the way God loved the world, St. John is pointing back
to verses 14 and 15: “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” And to understand those verses, we must go
back to this morning’s Old Testament lesson, and the Exodus story.
The Exodus story is about a people
who knew they were loved by God, and who trusted God enough to follow Moses out
of Egyptian bondage and into the wilderness.
But on their long journey, the Israelites grew tired of wandering, and
their irritation quickly dissolved into quarreling and complaining. In this morning’s passage from Numbers, God
has grown impatient with their whining and sends poisonous serpents to punish
them. With all those serpents around to
bite them, the Hebrews gain some perspective; they stop complaining about the quality
of the food, and start praying for God to contain the serpents. God then instructs Moses to put a bronze
serpent, or snake, on a pole. The serpent
that Moses puts on the pole symbolizes the disconnection between God and
humanity, and when the Israelites look upon it, God heals them, turning their
fear and doubt into faith and assurance.
And
that is what John 3:16 refers back to: just as Moses lifted up a bronze serpent
to cure people bitten by the snakes, so God lifted up Jesus “that everyone who
believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
In ancient mythology, the snake
symbolized healing and transformation.
Because it sheds its skin, the snake was thought to be a creature that
was reborn, and it thus came to represent eternal life. The medical profession picks up on the
healing motif in its emblem, which includes a winged staff surrounded by two
entwined snakes. And in Native American
spirituality, the snake god, Feathered Serpent, is symbolic of the power that
overcomes death – the power of resurrection.
We read later in the Old Testament
[2 Kings 18:4] that King Hezekiah “broke in pieces the bronze serpent that
Moses had made’ because “the people of Israel had made offerings to it.” In other words, the serpent that Moses had
lifted up in the wilderness to remind the Israelites to trust God, and to look
to God for healing and salvation – by Hezekiah’s time that same bronze serpent
had become an idol, an end in itself. God
had been replaced by a formula: if you wanted to be healed, you just had to go
visit the bronze snake in the Temple instead of worshipping the God to whom it
pointed.
And in many ways,
this is what has happened to John 3:16. Some
have called the verse “the Gospel in a nutshell” – the perfect and pithy
summation of Christian faith. And
certainly, the themes of healing, eternal life, and the power that overcomes
death are central to what we believe.
But like the bronze serpent, the verse John 3:16 can itself reduce God
and faith to a formula: read this verse
and you’re saved. And while it is one of
the best-known and best-loved verses in the bible, John 3:16 alone is insufficient
in offering the full expression of the joy-filled, abundant life Jesus offers
to each one of us, for it puts the focus on his death, without holding up his
life as an example to follow. And at the
heart of that life is his commandment to love one another and he loves us.
“For God so loved the world...”
And how do we
respond to God’s love, shown to us in Jesus?
We are to be the hands and feet and body of Christ, a community of love,
helping to heal and transform the lives of those within and beyond our walls. We do this in a variety of ways – by
worshiping together, singing together, and by praying with and for each
other. We do it by caring for each other
in times of need, showing compassion in times of sorrow, and celebrating with
each other in our joys. We do it by knitting
prayers shawls, and making health kits and ditty bags, and serving dinner at
MainSpring House, and donating food to the Stoughton Food Pantry.
And today we do it
by giving to One Great Hour of Sharing which reaches people near and far in a
variety of ways – to include rebuilding the homes and communities and lives of
people in parts of the United States devastated by recent hurricanes. In these ways and more, we respond to the love
of the One who first loves us by loving one another.
“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.”
And what
is eternal life? It is the experience of
healing, transformation, and resurrection in each of our lives through the
abiding presence and love of the living Christ.
John describes eternal life not as
something we will experience in the next life, but as a gift we are offered in
the here and now: “Whoever believes in the Son” has – not will have, but “has eternal life” [3:36]. It
is not a quantity but a quality of life; not just unending human existence, but
life lived in the presence of God.[iii]
May each
of us experience eternal life – the abiding presence of the risen Christ, the
One who heals our spirits, transforms our lives, and makes all things new. And, journeying together through this season
of Lent, may each of us move beyond the slogans and simple formulas to worship and
love the God who so loves us and the world.
Amen.
[ii] Alternative translations of John 3:16:
GOD’S
WORD Translation (GW):
16God
loved the world this way: He gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in
him will not die but will have eternal life.
Lexham
English Bible (LEB):
16
For in this way God loved the world, so that he gave his one and only Son, in
order that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but will have eternal
life.
New
English Translation (NET):
16
For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so
that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
New
Jerusalem Bible (NJB):
16
For this is how God loved the world: he gave his only Son, so
that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
Holman Christian
Standard Bible (HCSB):
16
“For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that
everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.
Why
are these translations different from the traditional “For God so loved the
world…”?
The Greek word houtos,
commonly translated in John 3:16 as “so” or “so much” occurs over 200 times in
the NT. Almost without exception, it is
an adverb of manner, not degree (Matthew 1:18: “Now the birth of Jesus the
Messiah took place in this way.”).
It only means “so much” when modifying an adjective (Galatians 3:3: “Are
you so foolish?”; Revelation 16:18: “...so violent was that
earthquake.”). Manner seems primarily in
view in John 3:16, which explains the above renderings.
[iii] W. Huitt Gloer, “Homiletical Perspective on
John 3:14-21, Feasting on the Word:
Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B, Volume 2 (Louisville, KY:
Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), Kindle version.
