Lifted Up

A sermon on John 3:13-17 and Numbers 21:4b-9

[an audio recording of this sermon is accessible here. Image by congerdesign from Pixabay.]

I’m curious to know, how many of you – when you saw the reference for today’s gospel passage being John chapter 3, verses 13-17 – did it consciously register for you that this reading would include John 3:16?

And what about when I was reading the passage, when I got to the words, “For God so loved the world…” did that light up the memory part of your brain of other times you’ve heard this verse recited?

I’m curious because, with the possible exception of Genesis 1:1, John 3:16 is probably be the most recognized Bible verse in American culture.

It is displayed in the stands at football games, and on the bottoms of Inn-n-out cups, and featured in children’s Bible verse memorization schedules. I’m pretty sure it was the first verse I memorized as a little girl.

This verse gets such prominent emphasis because it supposedly provides a summary of the gospel in just one, easy-to-learn statement.

“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.”

The problem, as New Testament professor Jennifer Garcia Bashaw points out, is that, “John 3:16 is the Bible verse that, in our contemporary context, is arguably the most misinterpreted verse in all of Scripture.”[1]

The very reason for its familiarity – the assumption that it can be separated from its context to present doctrinal clarity in a neat and memorable package – is the root of its misinterpretation.

Because this verse is not Jesus’s elevator-speech-mission-statement. It’s part of a conversation that it absolutely necessary to understand what he’s actually saying.

When we read the passage as a whole (starting from the beginning of the scene and not just the section that was selected for today’s lectionary) we can recognize two important clarifications about Jesus’s meaning.

First, Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus is about a transformed life that starts in the immediate moment.

The common interpretation of the promise in verse 16 about “eternal life” assumes that Jesus’s focus is on the afterlife: a promise of eternity in heaven.

But when Jesus talks to Nicodemus about being born again, of water and of the spirit, he’s talking about a renewal that happens in the present. He even clarifies in verse 12 that he is talking about “earthly things.”

So, the eternal life Jesus describes isn’t just a ticket to heaven. It’s about the fullness of life here and now.

Which, by the way, makes this a relevant story to read on the Sunday where we baptize a new child into the family of God.

Part of what God does for us in baptism is to welcome us into a life of hope and promise and abundance now!

As we will hear in the commitments Amaia’s parents and sponsors make in a few minutes, her journey of faith that begins at this font offers her support, and learning, and community, so that she can be equipped to live in this world as a messenger of justice and peace.

That’s what eternal, abundant life is all about.

The other problem with the common misinterpretation of John 3:16 as a summary of the plan of salvation, is that it does not actually offer a “plan.”

Quoting Professor Garcia Bashaw again, “while… John 3:16 gives information about the why of salvation (because God loved the world), the who of salvation (the Son), and the result of salvation (eternal—abundant!—life), it is 3:14–15 that gives us the how.”[2]

Not that I would expect those verses to make it onto a sports fan poster or fast-food packaging: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” Hmmmm.

That’s weird enough on its own, but when we read it alongside the story from Numbers that Jesus is referencing it is even more strange.

A snake on a pole as a cure for venomous bites? What kind of bizarre supersition is this?

Well, it’s one that requires us to recognize a difference in context! … if we try to drop this story into our cultural conditioning that preferences realism and facts over metaphor and storytelling… if we try to read it the same way that we have been taught to read John 3:16… of course it will seem bizarre.

But the message changes when we embrace the reality of what we have in scripture: ancient stories that invite us into a profoundly different way of seeking truth and transformation.

If we can embrace the interpretive process that finds wisdom in imagery and empathy, this ancient story actually can speak powerfully to us today… because it speaks directly to the question of how to communally and redemptively respond to threat and fear.

Think about it.

This is a story of a people in frightening circumstances, removed from the (hugely problematic, but familiar) way of life they had known before and travelling an unknown road through the wilderness to a promised future they cannot yet see.

Their first response to this anxiety is to complain and place blame, exaggerating their hardships and casting themselves as victims, rather than leaning into the responsibility that comes with freedom.

But when they next are faced with what really is an existential threat, they shift.

They move from blame to confession.

And in response God’s prophet gives them a means of deliverance: he instructs them to look full in the face of their fear. To stop deflecting and to own the truth of their vulnerability.

That willingness to face their fear with honesty was what would save them.

As a historical account… it’s weird. But as a metaphor it offers simple, clarifying truth.

As a metaphor it also makes perfect sense applied to the cross of Christ.

Professor Garcia Bashaw explains it really well, so I am going to quote her one more time:

“When people look at Jesus lifted up on the cross, they are looking at a mirrored representation of their own destruction—the evil of empire, the oppression they participate in, the violence that beats at the heart of society, the scapegoating tendencies of people who allow innocent people to suffer for sins that aren’t their own. When they truly see what Jesus’ death represents—humanity’s self-destructive nature that drives societies to fear and violence—that revelation, that recognition of the truth will be enough to help them start healing humanity. The cross is the symbol of misplaced blame and oppressive violence, and it is the means by which we repent of the cycle of blame and violence. We cannot be healed from a disease that remains hidden.^”[3]

We cannot be healed from a disease that remains hidden. It has to be lifted up. It has to be acknowledged and confessed.

It was true for the Israelites in the Wilderness

It was true for all who witnessed the crucifixion of Christ and those to whom they told the story, down through the centuries.

It is true for us.

That is why the life of faith, in our tradition, starts with baptism: a ritual that offers us two powerful metaphors:

The first is the metaphor of washing:

Acknowledging the reality of sin, the truth that we all fail, we all cause harm, we all are caught in the societal cycles of fear and violence from which we all also need healing.

And in that truth-telling, holding onto the hope that we can be washed clean for abundant life.

The second is the metaphor of dying and rising with Christ:

Accepting the reality that the world we live in is deeply broken and in one way of another we will all suffer the consequences of that brokenness.

But also confessing our faith that death does not have the last word, so we do not need to be captive to fear. We can live transformed lives in this broken world, telling the truth so that we can do the work of healing.

I don’t expect Amaia to understand all of that (or really any of that) when I pour water over her sweet head and mark her with the cross of Christ today.

Today is just the first day of her journey.

But it is a day that “lifts up” for her a story, and a metaphor, and a truth that is for her healing and for the healing of the world.

The reasons for fear, the reasons for violence, the reasons for blame, and scapegoating, and hiding will never be stronger than the reasons for hope.

And in living out that hope, we get to be part of healing the world.

Thanks be to God.

[1] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/holy-cross-sunday/commentary-on-john-313-17-2

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid. (emphasis added)