Standing in the Darkness to See the Light

John 3:1-17

Lent 2A

A few years back, there was a astronomical event that happened in the skies in the early part of winter—a once out of every so many tens of thousands of years happening that demanded that everyone stop what they were doing and look up into the darkened, yet divine firmament. An event that astronomers had dubbed the “Christmas Star” because of its proximity to the annual celebration of the birth of the savior. In this case, it was not the star that passed before the magi evidently stopping in midair over the house where Jesus and his earthly parentage were living in Bethlehem but, rather, the appearance of two planets—Jupiter and Saturn—which from our vantage point on Earth appeared to fuse together into a single incredibly bright heavenly preparing those of us with faith for the arrival of the Christ child while leaving everyone else with a beautiful natural occurrence. And I mentioned this because while for most of growing up years cared little for peering into the blackness of the night sky save for a couple times we would drive out to the country, which turns out was only like 2 or 3 minutes from my house, and try and see the Perseid or Leonid meteor shower events which rarely lived up to their billing, having kids changes ones own perspective on such things dramatically. For ushering the next generation of would-be world and cosmic explorers into their little lives opens up a whole new door of magic. One in which the looks of amazement that pass over their countenances the first time they see a shooting star or comet or even the International Space Station zip across the sky enlivens a parent’s dormant or hibernating sense of adventure and wanderlust. We (or at least I) tried to replicate those feelings of awe that seemed to permeate my young life and offer it to those who come after us. So it was that we drove out to my church office, a building that was built into the side of a hill in which the gathering darkness of the western sky was on full display, and we got all the children out of the car and taking a few minutes to acclimate ourselves to the early winter darkness and find our position in the sky we soon found the large “star” sitting just in front of us and watched as all three Earles-McLeod children sat in stunned and reverent silence just looking at this thing that before had not existed in their little world but which felt so close now that you could almost reach out and pluck it from the sky. They had stood in the darkness and from half a billion miles away the holiness of God’s seemed alive and vibrant and present and they saw the light.

We are told that soon after the commencement of Jesus’s earthly ministry that he is approached in the dark of night by Nicodemus—a Jewish leader and scholar—who sought to have a better understanding of the message that Jesus was offering his followers. And immediately you have to know that the author of John is trying to tell us something of the surreptitious nature of Nicodemus’s calling of Jesus. There would seem to be little other reason to point out the time of day in which this clandestine meeting takes place unless it is because Nicodemus is a Pharisee and the idea that he would come to this Hebrew peasant and ask him for advice on anything would have been an anathema to he and his friends. So immediately you get the sense that something is slightly askew about this conversation. “Rabbi,” Nicodemus says, “we know you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with that person.” To which Jesus quickly offers a response that doesn’t seem to be based on the words that Nicodemus has just spoken to him. “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Now, I don’t have to tell you that these has been some of the most hotly debated words that Jesus intones throughout the whole of his ministry—this idea of being “born from above.” And Nicodemus shares in the uncertainty of Jesus’s meaning by almost comically suggesting that he cannot enter into his mother’s womb a second time. Jesus undeterred continues, “no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.” And Jesus then describes, somewhat the process by which this rebirth occurs. “The Spirit blows where She will and you don’t know from whence it has come and you don’t know to where it is going. So it is once you have experienced this rebirth. Your life will forever be driven by the movement of the Spirit to places and experiences that you can scarcely even imagine.” Nicodemus, now thoroughly perplexed, stammers out, “How can these things be?” And here, you have to have just a little bit of historical context. Here you have to know that Nicodemus is a Pharisee, one of the sects of Judaism. The one that is locked in a battle of sorts with Sadducees and Essenes and Zealots and a smattering of other smaller sects for control of the faith. And the Pharisees, more than any of the others are looking to return to the glory days of the tradition. They are trying to restore the importance of the letter of the law of the Torah. They are, in short, trying to knock the kind of stuff that Jesus is describing off. They don’t want the Spirit to blow where she will. And so, when he says, “how can these things be?” What he is really asking is, “is it possible that I have gotten this whole thing wrong?” And following a brief comment in which Jesus alludes to his crucifixion, he gets to what has to be both the most well-known passages in all of scripture and the worst case of separating out a text of which I am aware. For it is John 3:16 that one sees on bumper stickers and on bracelets. It is John 3:16 that we asked generations of school-aged children to memorize. It is John 3:16 that that guy who wore the rainbow wig and seemed to for years and years and year always have a seat behind one of the sets of field goal uprights at the Super Bowl with a sign in sharpie that simply said John 3:16. But, my friends, I am here to tell you that John 3:16 makes exactly no sense unless it is coupled with John 3:17. For 16 tells you have individuals can begin to experience the eternity of each moment, the everlasting life that is found in God, the loss of the fear of individual death. But, it is 17 that reassures you that this gift is not just for the select few, those who pray a certain prayer, or find themselves in the elect but rather, it confirms that this gift is for all the world because Jesus didn’t come to condemn the world but rather to save the world, all of it, every last person from the greatest to the least, from the worst sinner to the greatest saint, from me to you and everyone you know and everyone you don’t know. Jesus came not to condemn the world to whatever happens when you don’t have God but rather to save the world. For generations, largely American Christians have focused on the first half of that statement, the one in which the responsibility, the onus, the power to be saved is placed in the hand of each individual so that if you live a life in which you don’t accept Jesus as your personal Lord and savior, if you don’t pray the sinner’s prayer, if you don’t have that mountaintop experience, the road to Damascus experience, if you’ve never heard the name of Jesus and you end up in hell for all eternity, that is on you and not on God because “for whosever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life” while plainly ignoring the second half of that thought which is that Jesus came to save the whole of the world, to not condemn anyone. We have sentenced scores of people, some in our own families, to the fiery pits of hell because we have been told by too many religious leaders that heaven is for a select few, those who have “proper belief,” whatever that means, and the rest can be cast out into the outer darkness in which there is wailing and gnashing of teeth wholly unable to see the light.

During this Lenten season, I want to invite all of us to leave that sort of thinking behind—to relieve ourselves of any remnant of that kind of faith. To leave behind any notion of belief that conceives of a God whose love is only doled out in limited amounts to a small number of persons. Whose care and concern is relegated to just the folks who are in the club and everyone else can remain on the outside looking in. Because the minute, the second, the moment that you do that, the whole of the world begins to look infinitely brighter, blazingly bright, blisteringly bright. The whole of humanity begins to glow with the light of Christ which is in all of us. The whole of the cosmos is teeming with energy and spirit and love and goodness and peace and unity. And the Holy Realm of God will erupt all around you and you will know and in knowing, believe and in believing, live and in living you will see that you are simply part of a line, an circle unbroken that stretches from eternity and to eternity, a movement from God and back to God, and at that moment, all fear subsides, all concern, all trepidation, and you begin to live the abundant life that Christ desires for all people right here, right now.

This church stands and has stood as a beacon for all those who feel like the water is just a little too high, like the waves are about to crest over the bough, that the squalls are about to sweep them away and we have made ourselves a shelter from the storm. We have thrown our doors wide open and said all those who are weary and heavy laden come into our midst and find rest. Stay for a minute, an hour, a day, a lifetime and let us love you and let you love us in return. Let us walk with you and you walk with us in return. Let us give you a space to figure what, if anything, you actually believe and we will share our questions, our struggles, our journey with you. Let us feed you with the body of Christ, with the essence of the messiah and you can feed us just with your presence in return. During this Lenten journey together, as we have chosen to cast off spending time meandering through the meaning of death and loss and figuring out what must die in us, what is wrong with us, let us talk of how we might better shine our light in a world that needs to know of God’s love in real and powerful ways. Let us consider how we might better offer the message to the town, the community, to all those we have in our lives who we know are lacking the peace of Christ and who could find just a measure of it by dwelling in the love and light of a community of the faithful that only asks that you be with us in faith, hope, and love. Faith, hope, and love, always and forever remain these three. And the greatest of these is love. Amen.