Lifted Up (John 3:1-21)

Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 14, 2021

watch here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8lEop4wGho

 

            I thought about comparing the death of Jesus on the cross with the COVID-19 Vaccines now available.  The vaccines give us hope that we can beat this disease that has killed so many people worldwide.  When we commit to Jesus, is that being vaccinated against sin? 

Wanting to get the analogy right, I went to the source of all-knowing, Google, and typed in “What do vaccines do?”  Up popped the answer.  “Vaccines train our immune systems to create proteins that fight disease, known as ‘antibodies’, just as would happen when we are exposed to a disease but – crucially – vaccines work without making us sick.”[i]  The vaccine doesn’t protect us against COVID-19.  The vaccine readies our own bodies to protect us. 

            I could see immediately that there is no analogy there.  The vaccines help our own bodies fight off disease.  There’s no vaccine for the disease of sin.  There’s no spiritual program to which we can commit or ritual we can undergo that will ward off sin or its effects.  We all sin.  Sin kills and there’s nothing anyone can do it about it, not even God.  Instead, what God does, something only God can do, is take the inevitable death sin brings on himself.  Jesus’ death on the cross is God’s son, the Second Person of the Trinity inhabiting human form, dying the death brought about by the sins we all commit.  There’s no vaccine for sin. 

            Instead, there is salvation from God.  As we see in John 3, this salvation is as radical we could imagine.  The story is told through the eyes of a religious leader, a Pharisees named Nicodemus who comes to see Jesus.  Pharisees were often antagonistic to Jesus.  Maybe Nicodemus visited at night so his Pharisee peers wouldn’t know he was genuinely seeking God’s truth and he thought Jesus had it.  “Rabbi, we know you … have come from God” Nicodemus says.  Jesus responds by explaining that he, Nicodemus, and all people must be born again. The Pharisee does not understand.  So, Jesus sets the story in within the flow of Israel’s grand narrative. 

            The original readers of John’s Gospel would have read with Israel’s story in mind.  The very first community to read John as scripture was probably a group of Christ-followers in Ephesus between 80 and 100 A.D.  They knew all the Old Testament stories.  They also believed Jesus was the son of God, God in the flesh, crucified, and resurrected.  They believed he had fulfilled the promises of the Old testament.  From the preaching of the disciples, they knew of the resurrection.  The original readers of the Gospel read as informed insiders.  Depending on his age, Nicodemus himself may have been a member of the Ephesian church and present the first time the Gospel of John was read publicly.

            In the story, Jesus tries to help Nicodemus understand the idea of ‘born again’ by tying it to a story Nicodemus would have recalled without even thinking about it.  Jesus said, “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” (3:14-15).  Nicodemus, and decades later, John’s readers, knew what “lifted up” meant.  Do we?

            Jesus is referring to the Torah, specifically, Numbers 21:4-9.  Moses is leading Israel out of Egypt on the march to the Promised Land.

⁴ From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea,^[b^] to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. ⁵ The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” ⁶ Then the Lord sent poisonous^[c^] serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. ⁷ The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. ⁸ And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous^[d^] serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” ⁹ So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

 

Are we horrified to hear that the Lord sent poisonous snakes that bit and killed complaining Israelites?  Are we just as horrified that this people God rescued from slavery and sustained in the wilderness, and called to be his holy people, then complained?  How often do we humans shrug our shoulders at sin and then become indignant with God when sin brings consequences?  How could God let this happen, we ask. Less frequently do we say, How could we insult God and reject His rule as we have?  For healing, those bitten had to look upon their sin, a bronze serpent lifted up. There is no escaping sin.  We must face it, repent, and accept God’s forgiveness.  Only God can remove sin, and out of His love for us, He does. 

Nicodemus would immediately recognize the story, as would John’s readers.  But what did Jesus mean by “the Son of Man must be lifted up?”  He hints at what’s coming. Instead of saving a few Israelites in the desert, God would save all people for all time with the death of his son, Jesus. 

The death was very specific – crucifixion; lifted up for all to see.  New Testament scholar Alicia Myers writes, “Jesus’ body, the very location of God’s glory, is the most staggering revelation of the gospel.”[ii] In explaining his death on the cross by illustrating it with Moses’ elevated serpent, Jesus draws together the double entendre.  Nicodemus and John’s readers would know ‘lifted up’ means to be hanged, as in a lynching or crucifixion.  Both the Pharisee and the late first century church would also know ‘lifted up’ means to glorify, as in ‘they lifted up God’s name.’ 

In Jesus, the two meanings coalesce.  The shame of the cross glorifies God as an expression of His love; the cross also takes care of all our sin; and, the cross gives us the hope of eternal life.  This story involving Moses, Nicodemus, Jesus, and the late first century church also involves us.   How we respond to the story determines our part in it.  We cannot just read John 3, close the book, and move on as if it doesn’t matter.  It does. We are actors in this play that is played out in real life – our lives. 

We have two options for response – to believe or not believe in Jesus as Son of God, God incarnate, and as our Savior and Lord.  In recent weeks, you have heard me say that Jesus was not interested in believers but in disciples.  According to the late theologian Walter Wink of Auburn Theological Seminary, the author of John’s Gospel used the idea of “believe” in a specific way.  It’s something much more involved than intellectual assent or commitment that doesn’t cost us anything to make.

Wink writes, “This idea [of belief] seems to be that one must commit oneself to Jesus.”[iii]  Jesus mentions “believe” in John 3, verses12, 15, & 16, and this just after trying to help Nicodemus understand being born again as well as grasping his own need to be born again. Wink concludes both “born again” and “believe” connote the same idea.  “To believe … is to throw one’s whole life on the side of Jesus.”[iv]  To believe is to commit, for the rest of one’s life, to Jesus as Lord, master of all of life.  When we say we believe, in terms of John’s gospel, it costs us everything because we submit everything in our lives to Jesus’ lordship.  We are in bondage to Him forever.  Paradoxically, this gives us the greatest freedom we’ll ever know.

Who is it that is freed from sin by believing when Jesus is “lifted up?”  For Nicodemus and the rest of the very first followers of Jesus in decade immediately following the resurrection, this was a first century Jewish story that reached its climax in the revelation that the crucified one was the long-anticipated Jewish Messiah.  All four gospels strongly imply and the book of Acts explicitly asserts that Gentiles – non-Jews – are also in this story when they repent and declare that Jesus is Lord.  In fact, the “in-group” shifts.  Believers, both Jew and Gentile are brothers and sisters in Christ.  Non-believers, Jews and Gentiles who reject Jesus, are not.

When we say submission to Christ brings us freedom, who is the “us” being talked about?  The answer to this question comes from a startling revelation found throughout John’s gospel and especially in John 3. 

Who does Jesus save from sin and death?  John 3:16 says, “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 live.”  Twentieth century Baptist scholar George Beasley-Murray calls this verse “the fundamental summary of the message of [John’s] Gospel and … the canvas on which the rest of the Gospel is painted.”[v] 

Most of the time the idea of ‘the world’ is set in contrast to the Kingdom of God.  The world is rebellious and is perishing.  John 3:16 reminds us that as hell-bound as the world might seem, it’s made up of people.  God calls out the sins of society, but God loves the world.  How much?  God allowed his beloved son to be crucified that the world might have the chance to look upon him hanging on the cross, and believe.  The world rejects God.  God loves the world so much; he’ll give up everything for it.

The cross is uncomfortably public.  Christianity is public.  We live our discipleship in the world, in the public eye.  People need to see their need for salvation, and they need to see from where salvation comes.  They need to see so they can believe in Jesus, Jesus lifted up.  This is how God saves not just Israel or not just the church, but the entire world.

AMEN

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[i]https://www.google.com/search?q=what+does+a+vaccine+do%3F&oq=what+does+a+vaccine+do%3F&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l2j0i10j0i390.5314j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

[ii] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fourth-sunday-in-lent-2/commentary-on-john-314-21-5

[iii] Wink, Walter (2001), “’The Son of Man’ in the Gospel of John” in Jesus in the Johannine Tradition, Robert Fortna, Tom Thatcher, editors, Westminster John Knox Press (Louisville), p.120.

[iv] Wink, p.123.

[v] George Beasley-Murray (1987), Word Bible Commentary: John vol.36, Word Books, Publisher (Waco), p.51.

"Animated by the Spirit" (John 3:1-10)

Trinity Sunday, May 31, 2015

        “We know that you are a teacher who has come from God.”  Nicodemus said that to Jesus.  He called him ‘rabbi,’ and not just any rabbi.  Nicodemus felt Jesus was unlike any other. 

Moreover, John writes, Nicodemus was a Pharisee.  He was an expert in the scriptures, one devoted to study.  He was the other people would come to if they had questions about the laws of God.  And he comes to Jesus. 

John also writes that he came “by night.”  Why?  Was Nicodemus up late, studying the scriptures by candlelight.  Some scholars think so.  Or was he afraid?  Jesus had an antagonistic relationship with the Pharisees.  Was Nicodemus trying to avoid being seen by his colleagues?

        John frequently writes that Jesus’ problems were from “the Jews,” but he did not specify which Jews.  All Jesus’ disciples were Jews.  Some Pharisees, like Nicodemus, were Jews who respected Jesus.  So too were there council members who followed him, like Joseph of Arimathea.  So when we read John’s Gospel and see Jesus in conflict with “the Jews,” we have to realize John meant something he thought his first century readers would understand.  But we are removed from the context and do not see the entire picture.  Jesus did not oppose Jewish people.  He was Jewish.  He gladly received the Pharisee Nicodemus. 

        Why did Nicodemus come under the dark of night?  We cannot be sure.  We know this man revered Jesus, but when Jesus spoke, Nicodemus was taken aback.  “No one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above” (3:3).  What does that mean?  Nicodemus didn’t like it. 

        Jesus did not soften his message to accommodate Nicodemus’ reservations.  Jesus continued, “No one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and of spirit.”  Baptism had already been introduced in John 1.  And the community that would receive John’s gospel was already a baptizing community.  To be born of water was clear enough; Jesus meant baptism.  But he also said that being born of the Spirit was necessary. 

        The word can mean either wind or spirit and it is used both ways in this passage.  Furthermore, this word has layers of meaning both in its Hebrew rendering, ‘ruah,’ and in Greek, ‘pnumatos’.  In the book of Genesis, chapter 1, verse 2, creation has not yet begun.  God is there and so is chaos, a raging, water, an ocean of blackness.  Genesis 1:2 says a wind from God “swept over the face of the waters.”  Throughout the Old Testament the Holy Spirit shows up with this as the first example. 

        In Genesis 2:7, at the apex of creation, “the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.”  “Wind,” “Spirit,” “Breath;” it is all the same word.  Before anything exists, there is the Holy Spirit.  The muscles, bones, ligaments, and skin do not become a human in God’s image until that creature is filled with the Holy Spirit. 

        We see it in Ezekiel 37.  The Lord sets the prophet down in a valley of bones.  At the Lord’s command, Ezekiel prophesies, and the bones rattle and shake and come together.  Flesh covers the skeletons until the piles of bones are replaced by an army.  The valley is filled with people – but they are not yet people.  These bones do not truly live until Ezekiel, at the Lord’s instruction, prophesies to the breath and the breath fills them.  And then a multitude of humans made in God’s image stand before him. 

        Nicodemus would know these stories.  He was familiar with God’s Spirit hovering over the pre-creation chaos.  He knew of God’s breath animating the first humans in the Garden of Eden.  He knew of the Spirit’s activity in Ezekiel’s vision.  Yet when he talked to Jesus he got confused.  “How can these things be?”  Nocodemus asked. 

        If a teacher of his stature had trouble, how can we hope to understand God?  How can we relate to one who is three?  What does trinity even mean?  It seems mystical, like something that cannot be explained.  How is the idea of God as three-in-one in any way helpful in the struggles we face in daily life? 

        We are challenged to live holy lives in a secular culture.  Some among us find it difficult to make ends meet.  Financial stress eats away at our emotions.  Others battle physical health and the limitations that sickness brings.  Others face mental health problems, which sometimes come with stigma attached.  Some among us are burdened to serve in ministry for the poor, but the reality of debilitating poverty is so massive it seems our efforts to alleviate it are futile.  In these and a thousand other struggles, what help is there in a discussion of trinity and new birth?

        Jesus says we must be born from above, and Nicodemus counters with “How can these things be?”  Jesus responds, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand?” 

        In the Greek, verse 10 includes a definite article.  Jesus does not say, “Are you a teacher of Israel?”  He asks, “Are you the teacher of Israel.”  This entire story is bracketed by acknowledgments – Jesus acknowledges that Nicodemus is a ‘didaskalos,’ a teacher.  He is the teacher.  Nicodemus represents the education establishment, the fount of knowledge in Israel.  Yet, he comes up short.  He does not understand a crucial point. 

        Nicodemus also acknowledges Jesus as a teacher.  He is not just any teacher.  He is a rabbi from God.  Nicodemus will lay his own credentials aside and submit to Jesus’ instruction, but when he does, he sees just how much he does not know.  He knows about ‘ruah,’ and ‘pnematos;’ he knows about Spirit and wind and breath of God.  He knows the creation story.  What Nicodemus does not know is that it needs to happen again.

        The fall – Adam’s sin and the sin of every generation thereafter – has corrupted and decayed God’s good creation to the point that death reigns.  Nicodemus is bound for death.  We all are and it is because of generations of rebellion against God.  That is what sin is and it is the source for all pain in the world. 

A moment ago, I cited struggles many of us face as I wondered how a discussion about trinity or new birth could help us face these struggles.  The problems exist because we are in a fallen world.  Every one of us sins – everyone.  Sin always leads to pain and death. 

        When Jesus came, the progression of sin in the world had gotten to a point and is still at that point where death is inevitable.  The old bromide the “only things that are certain are death and taxes” holds true.  But it should not be this way.  When God created the world, he created life.  God is the God of the living Jesus says in Luke 20:38.  That death is our greatest certainty is the complete opposite of God’s creation plan.  It is so because of the fall and sin.  God will not tolerate such a state of affairs.

        So God the Father came and walked among us as one of us, God the Son – Jesus.  God inhabited human flesh and went to cross to die so we would not face eternal death.  Our bodies will die but as Jesus was raised so too will resurrection come for us.  We enter the kingdom of God by being born of water and spirit.

        The water, the baptism, represents what God has done for us.  We are immersed, buried, dead in sin, never to live again.  But as Jesus rose, we rise, this time born of the Spirit, filled with the Spirit, and in resurrection, death is defeated forever. 

        There is no such thing as a Christian who has not been born again.  All Christians are born-again Christians.  “Born-again” has, in some circles in our country, come to be some kind of identifier. 

Oh, she is one of the born-agains. 

Really?  Are you also a born-again?

Oh, no, no, no.  I am an Episcopalian.  No, I am not one of them.  I am a Methodist.  A born-again?  No, not me, I am a good Baptist.

It is like being born again is some kind of condition and if you just calm down and live in a sensible, sedate religion you can in time be cured of it.  But Jesus said “No one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.”  He said this to the teacher of Israel because he wanted Nicodemus to take this truth and pass it on to all who would sit under his instruction.  Jesus said it because sin abounds and is destroying the creation God declared good.  Jesus said it because he had come to declare the end of sin’s time.  Death was done with Jesus on the scene.

A sensible, sedate religion?  No, when we turn to Jesus and receive His Holy Spirit into our lives the change we go through is as dramatic the change a baby experiences when passing from the dark warmth of the womb into the invasive light outside.  That is a picture of how radically different life is for one who is in Christ from one who is not in Christ. 

Any who would say becoming a Christian is no big thing has not heard a word Jesus has said.  He sees us and breathes and his Spirit animates us to the point that we are completely different than we were before meeting him.  This is why the idea of being made new is so important in our church’s expression of faith.  Someone says, “I don’t see what the fuss is all about.  I decided to become a Christian.  OK.  I am still me.”  Jesus says, “You have read the Bible and sung the songs and heard the preaching, and still you do not understand.”  You are the teacher of Israel and do not understand?

Last week in Acts 2, we saw what happens when the Holy Spirit comes and animates the church.  People become prophets.  Everyone hears the Gospel in his own language.  Disciples come out of hiding and tell their stories even when doing so gets them arrested and executed. 

What does it look like when God animates the church today?  We learn and re-learn this each generation.  What we can depend is God’s generosity.  The Spirit did not pour out on a select few in Acts 2.  All in the church were blessed and filled.  And it is so today.  As Paul writes in 1Corinthians 12, we are all given the Holy Spirit. 

In a sense this is how we relate to God and to each other.  As born-again people, we are born into love.  More important than identifying specific spiritual gifts, we remember that the greatest fruit of the Spirit is God’s love which passes through us from one person to the next.  This love holds us together.

And the generous God who fills all of us also is a patient giver.  Nicodemus was not ready in that nighttime conference to receive the Spirit.  By the end of John’s Gospel, Nicodemus has forgotten that he was afraid to be seen with Jesus.  He is out in the open as a follower.  He is a disciple and he will receive the Spirit, he didn’t know he needed.  He will undergo the new birth he did not understand. 

This patient, generous Spirit is patient and generous with each of us as individuals and with us as a gathered body.  Together we are and will be animated and filled.  Sin abounds around us, but, born again, we are already living into eternity.  Even as we live our daily lives, we do so as new creations ready to draw others to Jesus and to life.   We don’t understand it all yet, but He meets us where we are and guides us each step of the way; it is the way of life, life everlasting.

AMEN