Bible Text: John 3:14-21 | Preacher: Rev. Jenn Geddes
Believe it or not I was once a huge wrestling fan and I don’t mean the sport. I mean the terribly dramatic, often controversial, ever choreographed, World Wrestling Entertainment. I was such a fan that I have attended Wrestlemanias and Monday night Raw events live. I know, your estimation of me has plummeted. However, it is important that you know who I really am. Now back when I was following this wrestling entertainment it was called the world wrestling federation and there was one particular wrestler who held the belt for a long time, Stone Cold Steve Austin. His signature moves included the piledriver and the spinebuster but his finisher move was the stone cold stunner. And I never thought I would open a sermon talking about him. However, it was this stone cold stunner that won him the King of the Ring title in 1996 when he won against Jake “the Snake” Roberts. At the time Jake’s character was portrayed as a born-again Christian. Upon winning the match Austin turned to Jake and said, “You sit there and you thump your Bible, and you say your prayers, and it didn’t get you anywhere! Talk about your Psalms, talk about John 3:16, Austin 3:16 says I just whipped your” I think you get the point. After that the words Austin 3:16 became the most popular catchphrase in wrestling history and the slogan Austin 3:16 became one of the best-selling T-shirts in the franchise’s merchandising history. It also inspired numerous spin off slogans, always finishing with the numbers 3:16. I can vividly remember one of my peers talking about the slogan and I was able to explain to him where it came from. In my own little way I was able to evangelize while equally shouting at a live event at the Skydome in Toronto. In an attempt to mock, criticize, demean and ridicule, the Bible’s best known Scripture passage, this character actually spread it and reached a demographic that the church has struggled to reach and speak to for decades, teenage boys.
John 3:16 has become a kind of trademark for many Christians. In one sense, that’s perfectly fine, we all need a little snippet of something that helps us get through a tough time. Or a mantra or motto that we can turn to as a reminder of who we are and why we do what we do. However, it has also become a way to reduce and simplify one aspect of the Gospel to a quick sound bite. Yes, it is true this one simple passage was Jesus’ way of providing a kind of summation of God’s good purposes for the world. But at its deepest level there really isn’t anything simple about it.
Although we tend to treat this passage as a slogan it really needs to be taken in context. And the context suggests that the truth about God’s purposes in Christ is confusing and troubling. Even Nicodemus, a learned man, a scholar and leader within the Jewish community finds it confusing, In part because it demands that he let go of all that he has accomplished and understood, let go and become like a newborn, ready to receive the world on completely new terms.
What makes this passage extra specially difficult is that Jesus chooses to describe himself using the troubling passage from Numbers. He says that he is like the serpent that Moses lifted up in the wilderness. In the story from Numbers, God sent the poisonous snakes into the Israelite camp as punishment for the people who were complaining against God. When the people repented God told Moses to fashion a serpent out of bronze and lift it up on a pole. Jesus says, “so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” In Greek the word is “hypsoo” which literally means not just to be lifted up but “to exalt”. This is one of these contrasts that I was talking about in the introduction. It points to both a physical lifting up of Jesus on the cross and a lifting up in exaltation of Jesus by God. The cross is a moment of complete suffering, total humiliation and utter defeat. But also in John the death, resurrection, and ascension create one divine moment of God fulfilling a promise in Jesus Christ. This is similar to the paradox required by the Israelites when they had to look upon the very thing that brought death in order to receive life. The cross for us is a symbol of hope but also great suffering. We are smack in the middle of our lenten journey and we too are asked to look upon Jesus who was humiliated in a crucifixion but also acknowledge with joy what we receive as a result.
Part of the lesson this morning is humility as we are humbled by what we learn in the passage and struggle to understand. When we attempt to understand this Gospel passage as more than just a catchphrase we must be prepared to ask questions about a world with which we may not be familiar. This difficulty is confirmed by the centuries of controversy that grew out of John’s Gospel. Along with humility of understanding we must also come away with encouragement. This passage from John provides an excellent model for Christian faith and practice. It demonstrates that it is difficult, dynamic and life changing. It is not just an attempt to memorize a few traditional verses and statements. This is a passage that should be lived more than anything else. What better way to live it than to come to this table in communion.
We are asked to believe in this love, suffering, sacrifice and miracle. But what does it mean to believe? Homiletics scholar Lance Pape says that “To believe this Good News in a way that brings salvation requires more than “believing” it requires “trusting in”. To trust in Jesus is not simply to believe something about what happened long ago, but also to let our own lives be transformed by the Jesus we encounter in this story.” This trust is threefold. One, placing our trust in Jesus means withholding our ultimate loyalty and trust from other things that ask us to pledge our allegiance. Two, placing our trust means noticing that the new life Jesus offered was especially difficult for those bound by their religious traditions, and three, placing our trust in Jesus means confronting the uncomfortable truth that God’s purposes for those God loves are not synonymous with our own values of happiness. Pape goes on to say, “The trail of faith that Jesus blazed reveals that while, there is nothing in this world worth killing for, there are things worth dying for. The lifting up of Jesus reminds us that the true life God has promised us is not the life that we can secure for ourselves through self-interest and caution.”
To also say we believe in Jesus so that we are not condemn to hell is, well rather, a cheap form of faith. If that is the only reason we are here and say we believe than we aren’t really following Jesus. The Greek work for eternal, perisson, actually means abundant or full. As a result it is as much about a quality of being as it is about time. What that means is that we need to emphasize not just a slogan but a lifestyle, that it is not just about belief but about experience, experiencing abundant life by following the way and teachings of Jesus. That is why we are here this morning, to experience life giving bread and drink.
We come to the table today, a table which Jesus has prepared, and we come hoping that we can trust enough to surrender ourselves to Jesus’ love and suffering. This is a paradox we see even today as people attempt to manipulate, ridicule and use Scripture to serve there own means. Even it is coming from an entertainment wrestler. We all wrestle with our belief. We all wrestle with the challenging texts that confront us in the Bible. We all wrestle with our ability to trust in God. We all wrestle with our experiences of God. But that is also precisely why we come to this table. It is not a meal for those who completely understand, or believe or experience but rather for those who love God a little and want to love God more. Amen