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.
“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.
“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. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.” (New Revised Standard Version)
Let’s unpack this passage a bit this morning. Let’s begin with the first sentence and work our way through.
Sentence 1: The snake has long been a symbol of healing - we see it in every medical association logo and in every ancient culture. The story behind the first sentence of this passage can be found in the book of Numbers, chapter 21, if you have a hankering to read of cures for snake bite, God’s supposed role in the waging and outcome of war for the ancients, and just how steeped the stories of Jesus are in the stories of his own people, I recommend it.
The point of its inclusion here is to make a parallel between the healing power of God to overcome death due to snake venom and the healing power of God to overcome death due to well, death. The take away is the healing.
Sentence 2: The greatest stumbling block to living and loving out of the good news brought us in Jesus is one word in one verse. The verse is 3:16 and the word is ‘only.’
It was long held in Christianity that one was excluded ab initio from eternal life if one did not believe in the exclusivity of Jesus as the only way to God, the only way to be ‘saved.’ And there are those who believe this today. And I want to say with a great, long sigh of relief - this is wrong. Not wrong to find your way to God, your way to faith, your way to love, through Jesus. No, that is glorious! But it is not the only way. It is my firm conviction that Jesus would agree.
"John 3:16 is not a call to personal salvation or revivalist fervour. Instead, it offers a glimpse of Christianity’s central cosmology. The emphasis is on the first line, and the verse essentially says, 'God so loved the universe that God entered into the Cosmos in the form of a gift, the gift of Jesus, that we might trust in this divine presence and experience abundance.’…it is the Christian way of saying that God dwells in the universe we also inhabit that we might experience the life of heaven here and now.” (Janet Butler Bass, Grounded)
The rest: For the balance of this passage, Jesus speaks of light and darkness. Try if you will, to read this passage as if Christianity did not exist, as if there were no written scripture, no doctrine, no intervening centuries. Because that is indeed when and how it is written. Truth and untruth, good and evil are human constructed words for actions and thoughts that move us, in our minds at least, toward or further away from another human constructed word for a deep, present, reality - God.
And finally, prayer:
God of all truth,
you are truth itself and therefore truth is not an idea or a concept but first of all a life, an energy, a love, a relationship with everything.
Teach us to love truth and to truthfully love,
then we always know we will be loving you.
Amen.
(R. Rohr)
- Karen
