John 3:16-17
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him.
I am not much of a sports fan (except for the Giants, of course) so I don’t know if this is still a ‘thing’ but in the fairly recent past you could not watch a football or basketball game or the Rose Bowl parade – or any mass gathering of people -- without someone leaping up and flashing a large “John 3:16” sign – especially wherever TV cameras were to be seen.
This was an evangelizing tool, in theory anyway, because people would presumably see the sign and be curious and seek out a church to learn more.
This idea lost much of its glamour when the man most associated with this movement – its most public face -- “Rainbow Man,” so-called because of the multi-colored clown-wig he always wore – when he suffered an apparent psychological breakdown, ending up in a armed hostage-situation with the police, and landed in prison serving a life sentence.
That’s a strange story, I freely admit, but I’m not bringing it up here just to be provocative or ironic, but to remind us that stories about our faith journeys are not just rainbows and light. They are often peopled by broken, lost, or angry people who are also on a journey. This story it’s not particularly any stranger than some that took place in the first centuries after the life and death of Jesus.
There were, from the beginning, two primary schools of thought as to just who (or what) Jesus had been. The first, known as Adoptionism, believed that Jesus was a man born fully human who became God’s Son by adoption.
The second school of thought believed that Jesus was a preexistent divine figure who became human for a while here on earth, and then later, returned to God.
It wasn’t until the 5th century or so that a church council settled this by officially declaring that Jesus was “fully human and fully divine” — not one or the other, but both.
Most of us today, if we are honest, tend to waffle back and forth between the two poles. As Disciples, we remain non-doctrinal on many major questions, and this is one of those. We do not reject a Trinitarian approach which claims Jesus as God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, but neither do we demand adherence to this particular belief – only a belief that “Jesus is Lord.” As I said, we waffle.
Until this council decision, back in the 5th century, opposing viewpoints were labeled as heresies, and riots and small wars broke out between the opposing groups—sometimes coming to physical (and occasionally fatal) blows with one another—all of this while purporting to follow the Way of Jesus.
I’m giving you all this extremely compacted history now because this difference in point of view is exactly what makes John’s Gospel different from the three Synoptics. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all three read as if they begin their stories, at least, with an Adoptionist point of view, and then slowly begin to at least lean toward the divine origin belief.
In these three gospels Jesus often appears unsure of his own calling and certain particulars seem to indicate that he grew into his role as teacher and savior—such as the case of the Syrophoenician woman whom Jesus initially refused when she asked him to heal her daughter, but then changed his mind after hearing her counter-argument.
The writer of John’s Gospel, on the other hand, depicts a Jesus who, from the very first word, knows his origin and his calling here among humans. He knows his Father’s will because it is his will as well: “God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” says v. 17 of our reading.
John was a firm believer in the pre-existing divinity of Jesus and this gospel should always be read with that awareness. And that assurance. Jesus lived among us, not to save us from some pre-ordained damnation – not to judge us for our failings – but to show us God’s love.
If we are looking for the love in our Lenten readings, we don’t have to look any too hard this week. In a reflection piece written for the Stillspeaking Writers Group’s Lenten Meditation booklet, Promises, Promises, UCC Pastor Matt Laney says, “John 3:16 is often used as a litmus test -- used and abused as a pretext for condemning people to hell. But the writer of John says quite clearly in the following verse: 'God did not send their Child into the world to condemn the world.' "
So it is up to us to police our own urges toward judgment, and resolve instead to follow Jesus' way of love, forgiveness, nonviolence, doing justice, showing mercy, walking humbly. In short, loving the world as God loves it.
Love is the reason for the whole experience of Christ living among us – not to placate an angry God, but to show us, in human flesh, the deep, deep love of God. Let us always love as God loves.
Amen
This was an evangelizing tool, in theory anyway, because people would presumably see the sign and be curious and seek out a church to learn more.
This idea lost much of its glamour when the man most associated with this movement – its most public face -- “Rainbow Man,” so-called because of the multi-colored clown-wig he always wore – when he suffered an apparent psychological breakdown, ending up in a armed hostage-situation with the police, and landed in prison serving a life sentence.
That’s a strange story, I freely admit, but I’m not bringing it up here just to be provocative or ironic, but to remind us that stories about our faith journeys are not just rainbows and light. They are often peopled by broken, lost, or angry people who are also on a journey. This story it’s not particularly any stranger than some that took place in the first centuries after the life and death of Jesus.
There were, from the beginning, two primary schools of thought as to just who (or what) Jesus had been. The first, known as Adoptionism, believed that Jesus was a man born fully human who became God’s Son by adoption.
The second school of thought believed that Jesus was a preexistent divine figure who became human for a while here on earth, and then later, returned to God.
It wasn’t until the 5th century or so that a church council settled this by officially declaring that Jesus was “fully human and fully divine” — not one or the other, but both.
Most of us today, if we are honest, tend to waffle back and forth between the two poles. As Disciples, we remain non-doctrinal on many major questions, and this is one of those. We do not reject a Trinitarian approach which claims Jesus as God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, but neither do we demand adherence to this particular belief – only a belief that “Jesus is Lord.” As I said, we waffle.
Until this council decision, back in the 5th century, opposing viewpoints were labeled as heresies, and riots and small wars broke out between the opposing groups—sometimes coming to physical (and occasionally fatal) blows with one another—all of this while purporting to follow the Way of Jesus.
I’m giving you all this extremely compacted history now because this difference in point of view is exactly what makes John’s Gospel different from the three Synoptics. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all three read as if they begin their stories, at least, with an Adoptionist point of view, and then slowly begin to at least lean toward the divine origin belief.
In these three gospels Jesus often appears unsure of his own calling and certain particulars seem to indicate that he grew into his role as teacher and savior—such as the case of the Syrophoenician woman whom Jesus initially refused when she asked him to heal her daughter, but then changed his mind after hearing her counter-argument.
The writer of John’s Gospel, on the other hand, depicts a Jesus who, from the very first word, knows his origin and his calling here among humans. He knows his Father’s will because it is his will as well: “God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” says v. 17 of our reading.
John was a firm believer in the pre-existing divinity of Jesus and this gospel should always be read with that awareness. And that assurance. Jesus lived among us, not to save us from some pre-ordained damnation – not to judge us for our failings – but to show us God’s love.
If we are looking for the love in our Lenten readings, we don’t have to look any too hard this week. In a reflection piece written for the Stillspeaking Writers Group’s Lenten Meditation booklet, Promises, Promises, UCC Pastor Matt Laney says, “John 3:16 is often used as a litmus test -- used and abused as a pretext for condemning people to hell. But the writer of John says quite clearly in the following verse: 'God did not send their Child into the world to condemn the world.' "
So it is up to us to police our own urges toward judgment, and resolve instead to follow Jesus' way of love, forgiveness, nonviolence, doing justice, showing mercy, walking humbly. In short, loving the world as God loves it.
Love is the reason for the whole experience of Christ living among us – not to placate an angry God, but to show us, in human flesh, the deep, deep love of God. Let us always love as God loves.
Amen
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