JOHN 3:14-21
“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.”
This is the Word of the Lord.
What does it mean to believe? Is it a
simple process of mentally agreeing to a set of doctrinal statements,
does it involve training ourselves to think and act differently? Is
“belief” something more – or something wholly different?
Our passage this morning starts out
with Jesus making reference to a frankly troubling passage in the
Book of Numbers: the Children of Israel, making their journey to the
Promised Land, are complaining that there isn't anything to eat or
drink, and what there is to eat – manna – is terrible. God
responds to the complaints by sending a plague of poisonous snakes.
And even though one of the things the
Jewish people were never ever supposed to do was to make graven
images, when the people repent and ask Moses to ask God to save them,
what does God tell Moses to do?
Yep. A graven image. Of a snake, on a
pole. God doesn't take the snakes away, but when someone is bitten,
all they have to do is look at the snake on the pole, and they won't
die.
By the way, many years later, one of
the Kings of Israel, Hezekiah, destroyed the bronze snake that Moses
made, because people had started worshiping it – which was why God
had said not to make graven images in the first place. But I digress,
sort of.
Jesus is referring to this incident in
the life of the Jewish people to draw a parallel between the lifting
of the snake on the pole as a means of saving the people from death,
and his own lifting up on the cross as a means of salvation to the
world. We know this because the very next sentence Jesus utters in
today's passage is possibly the most well-known Bible passage in the
universe: John 3:16. “For God so loved the world – a
better translation might be “God loved the world in this way:” –
that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him
may not perish but may have eternal life.”
Now, I would argue first that we do a
disservice by quoting John 3:16 by itself. It is an incomplete
thought, made whole by the next verse: “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.”
And it's my inclination to stop there,
honestly. As uncomfortable as I am with the idea of God sending
poisonous snakes because a bunch of people are tired of eating manna
for every meal – manna sausage for breakfast, manna sandwiches for
lunch, manna pot roast for dinner, bamanna bread for dessert... I see
'way too much condemnation in popular Christianity today as it is, so
all the talk about nonbelievers being condemned in the next verses
feels like overkill. It frankly sounds a little like God sent Jesus
as a reason to condemn people... turn or burn, agree with my set of
doctrinal statements (because that's what the word “believe” has
come to mean) or go to Hell...
And I don't think it's that simple. I
don't think God can be distilled down to a choice between a
benevolent Grandparent or a heavenly vending machine or an angry,
vengeful deity with his hand poised over the “smite” button.
And I do not think we are using the
word “believe” in the right way. Yes, “believe” does mean “to
have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of
something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing
so,” that is technically correct... but I do not think it is
theologically correct.
As I understand it, the Greek word
group pistos tends to be shaded less as “belief” and more
as “faithfulness” and “trust” – because in doing so, it
denotes more of a relationship than a state of thinking – so why,
when we see its verb form, pisteuo, should we satisfied with
the word “believe?” Is faith in the risen Christ, the One who was
lifted up for us, a simple matter of intellectual assent? Is
Christianity a mental exercise, is it just a way of thinking?
What does it mean to “believe?” It
means to trust.
And while we're on the subject of
Greek... I am not a Greek scholar, but more than one scholar and
commentator that I have read this week brings up a very important
point about krino and krisis, the words translated
“condemn” and “condemned,” respectively. Both Gil Bailie and
Mark Davis, for example, make a very compelling argument for krino
and krisis to be translated rather as “judge” and
“judgment,” respectively.
And make no mistake, this is not a
matter of rewriting Scripture, but of making a choice in translating
Scripture – it's a question of, if I may quote Paul from the
epistle to Timothy, “rightly dividing the Word of Truth.”
The word “krino” doesn't, in
and of itself, have a negative connotation. It's more ambiguous, like
our English word “judge.” We can judge things in positive and
negative ways, but the word “condemn” just means “condemn.”
So here's the way the verses might
read: “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever trusts in him may
have the life of God's new age. For God loved the world in this way:
he gave his only Son, so that everyone who trusts in him may not
perish but may have the life of God's new age. Indeed, God did not
send the Son into the world to judge the world, but in order that the
world might be saved through him. Those who trust in him are not
judged; but those who do not trust are judged already, because they
have not trusted 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.”
Do you see the difference? To say God
condemns isn't wrong, necessarily. God condemns a lot of things –
idolatry and injustice, for example. But is God in the business of
condemnation? Is there a divine game of whack-a-mole going on, with
you and I playing the moles?
It's interesting to note that, when the
snakes came on the Hebrews in the wilderness, they didn't go to Moses
talking about the evil that God had visited upon them, they said, “We
have sinned...” Whoever sent the serpents, they understood
them to be the product of their own actions, their own choice to
complain. Theirs was the active role, not God's.
“Those who trust in him are not
judged; but those who do not trust are judged already, because they
have not trusted 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.”
Who or what we trust has consequences,
doesn't it? If we trust in money, or power, or politicians, or drugs,
or alcohol, or food, or fame, or security, what are we in fact
placing our faith in? One more dollar, one more rich old man who
might vote our way this time, one more buzz, one more bite, one more
FaceBook like, one more lock on the door? Because in the end, when
they close the lid and lower the casket, what are any of those things
worth?
Putting our trust in the risen Christ
saves us from the cesspool of self-absorption, rescues us from the
idolatry of things, and releases us from the certainty that this
life, this existence, this here-and-now is all that there is and ever
will be. When we put our trust in Christ, we enter into relationship
with the eternal.
Make no mistake about it: following
Jesus is not a program for self-improvement; it's an invitation to a
relationship; it is inclusion in a community. It's dislocation from a
worldview that perpetuates injustice, death, and alienation, knitting
us into a network of relationships that bring healing,
reconciliation, and abundant life rooted in the eternal.
Think about how many things are set by
our birth in this world: We are born in a geographical location that
can accustom one person to unjust privilege and prevent another
person from access to clean water, education, the chance to live to
adulthood. One person is born to a family that instills a sense that
he or she is loved, while another person's family leaves them with a
sense that he or she is deeply inadequate. We are born with a skin
color that will also condition our sense of who we are, what we
deserve, whom we may love or fear. This world is set up in ways that
try to lock us into patterns of relationship based on our birth --
patterns that separate us from one another and from God.
How might the world be different if
those patterns were disrupted, if you and I could be sisters and
brothers in healthy relationship? ... Let me put it this way:
What would our relationships look like
if we shared one birth and were raised in one loving, supportive
family? What would the economy look like if we took seriously the
fact that we live and work in a world that is our common inheritance,
instead of a set of disconnected chunks of land and resources to be
conquered like a board game? What would the world look like if we saw
every child as our own little sister or brother, if "family
first" included them all as our own flesh and blood?
That's what it means to put our trust
in Jesus. Jesus offers us freedom from relationships that ensnare,
and the choice to relate to one another as beloved children of one
loving God. It's a choice not just for a new name, it's a new world
of new relationships, of new and abundant life.
“And just as Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that
whoever trusts in him may have eternal life.”
The serpent in the wilderness
represented more than just a poisonous snake. The Hebrew people had
become poisoned with doubt, with fear, they had become disgusted by
the gift that God sent them every morning with the dew – manna.
Looking at the serpent meant looking directly at the worst of
themselves, it meant facing what they were and trusting enough to
turn away from it.
God did not nail Jesus to the cross. We
did. Think about it: it was the rage of the scribes and Pharisees
against a man challenging the religious status quo, it was the greed
of Judas, it was the fear that the chief priests and the Sanhedrin
had of upsetting the Roman occupiers, it was the fear of the crowd
that turned Pilate's resolve to capitulation, and it was the
bloodlust of that crowd shrieking “Crucify him!” that killed
Jesus.
When Jesus is lifted up on the cross,
we see what happens when we put our trust in our pedigree, our won
wealth, our own theological and doctrinal purity, like the scribes
and Pharisees. We see what happens when we put our trust in cold hard
cash, like Judas. We see what happens when we put our trust in
political systems and corporate power structures, like the chief
priests and the Sanhedrin. We see what happens when we bow to the
whim of popular opinion, like Pilate. We see what happens when we
give ourselves over to sensationalism and the thrill of immediate
gratification, like the crowd.
This is the Good News: God's love is so
complete, so irrevocable, so egregiously immense that it survived the
worst that we could do to God's only begotten son! We look at the
cross, and we see the worst in ourselves, the product of the idols
and the temporal things we put our trust in, but we do not see our
end in those things. Rather, in moving our trust from the temporary,
the self-serving, the idolatrous, to the risen and living Christ, we
find the light of God's eternal love, and the truth that indeed sets
us free.
This is what it means to believe.
