Well, you’ve seen it emblazoned on placards held up behind the goalposts at football games.
Maybe you’ve seen it on billboards and bumper stickers. And I’m willing to bet that if Americans
were asked to quote just one scripture verse from the Bible, a pretty hefty percentage would quote
John 3:16.
Unfortunately, a fairly hefty percentage would also reveal modern society’s failure to teach biblical
literacy by quoting some things that are a bit more dubious. Things like, “To thine own self be true.”
Can you name chapter and verse? Good. Because that’s actually Shakespeare. Another one is,
“God helps those who help themselves”, which most assuredly is not in the canon of scripture. It’s
tempting to attribute that one to Bernard Madoff. He certainly helped himself. He needs our
prayers. But I digress.
John 3:16 says, “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.” I can’t think of a verse more deserving of
the attention it gets, because it captures beautifully the essence of the gospel message in around
two dozen words. This morning I’d like to spend a few minutes with you taking a close look at this
verse and the verses that immediately follow it in St. John’s Gospel.
You may know that the traditional emblem associated with St. John is the eagle. It’s been said that
one of the reasons for this is that the eagle is the only known animal able to look directly into the
sun without being blinded. As one who was arguably Jesus’ best friend on earth, I trust you can see
the appropriateness of the image. William Barclay writes this about John: “John has the most
penetrating gaze of all the New Testament writers into the eternal mysteries and the eternal truths
and the very mind of God. Many people find themselves closer to God and to Jesus Christ in John
than in any other book in the world.”
The opening phrase of John 3:16 wastes no time in establishing the character of God from the one
who saw Him so clearly. “For God so loved the world.” These six words speak volumes. They get
right to the point that the core of God’s being is love. We’ve talked before about how natural it is for
us to project onto God our own deficient perceptions. When we hear of God being our Father, it’s
all too easy to project onto Him the weaknesses and shortcomings of many earthly fathers. It’s all
too easy to see God as a stern disciplinarian, or a father who expresses his love with the character
defects present in this fallen world’s experience of fatherhood.
But in his Gospel John joyfully exclaims to the world that the love of our heavenly Father is in a
different category. In John 16:27 John recalls Jesus saying that very soon believers would be able
to go directly to the Father with requests, without even having to go through Jesus. Jesus says this
is because “the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I
came from God.” It’s the personal love of the Creator for the created and a father for is children. It’
s not a distant, impersonal desire for our wellbeing, but a deep, divine yearning for a close
relationship with us.
This love isn’t just a responsive love, but a proactive love. It’s a love in which God takes the
initiative for our salvation. “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes
in him will not perish, but will have eternal life.” God offered His Son. No one made Him do this. He
did it because He loves us. And if that doesn’t convince you of the specialness of God’s love,
consider this. The Father didn’t send his Son just for the good people, or for a particular nation, or
for the “elect”, or just for those who love him, but for the whole world. He loves every one of us that
much.
St. Paul writes to his protégé, Timothy, that God our Savior “desires everyone to be saved and to
come to a knowledge of the truth.” St. Augustine said, “God loves each one of us as if there was
only one of us to love.” That gets my gray matter smoking. Jesus is a gift, and He’s a gift offered
equally to every human being on earth.
So, now we’re all automatically in, right? Just by virtue of being born a human being from birth to
death we’re home free. Well, not exactly. There’s a danger in taking one verse out of context. The
belief I just cited is called universalism. It’s the idea that salvation is universal. It’s inevitable, from
Mother Teresa to Mussolini. But if we look at the verses right after John 3:16 we find that this isn’t
exactly an accurate way of perceiving God’s gift to us. Because, interestingly, John then proceeds
to tell us about a thing called condemnation.
It starts off nicely enough—Jesus goes on to say, “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.” At this point any well-
meaning universalist can shout a hearty “Hear, hear!” But then smiles freeze on universalist faces
as Jesus continues, “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.”
Now this is where many people in our time slam the door. The green light turns red. You get the
dismissive wave and the complaint that a loving God is suddenly turning nasty, or the charge that
someone later edited the text so that the church could hang the hammer over our heads. But let’s
look closely at this. First, I hope we can all take Jesus at his word when he says, “God did not send
the Son into the world to condemn the world.”
But if he didn’t send Jesus to condemn the world, where does this condemnation in verse 18 come
from? I think it needs to be said at this point that it’s very possible for a person to be offered nothing
but love and joy, and have that very experience turn into a condemnation. How? By refusing the
gift. Or worse yet, by rejecting the giver of the gift. Think of it this way. If a person goes and hears
the Vienna Philharmonic perform a stunning rendition of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and walks
away shaking his head and calling it trash, who do you think is more fitted for condemnation,
Beethoven, the Vienna Philharmonic or the concertgoer? I’m inclined to think that most people
would agree that Beethoven and the Vienna Philharmonic have established their credentials
sufficiently enough that trashing their work is much more likely to reflect badly on their critic.
And this is only a pale comparison with Jesus. The sinless one who lived his life as the perfect
personification of truth and love elicits different things from different people. From some he elicits
love and adoration. But from others he elicits only disdain. Jesus says that such a person stands
condemned. And really this is more a self-condemnation than anything else.
The passage continues with an assessment of just such a person. John writes, “This is the
judgment: that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness, rather than the light.” It’
s like one who cowers in the darkness of the cellar, hearing the skittering of the rats of his sinfulness
and the spiders of his addictions, and someone flings open the cellar door to the spring sunlight,
offering forgiveness and freedom. And the cellar dweller turns from the light and says, “Shut that
door, you’re blinding me!” “The people loved darkness rather than the light.”
Why do some people love the darkness rather than the light? Well, I’m sure that most of us can give
some good guesses. Fully receiving the benefits of the light, for instance, requires that we trust the
light-giver enough to let go of our self-will. For most of us this isn’t an easy thing to do. See,
believing in Jesus isn’t just a matter of giving our intellectual assent to His existence, or for that
matter, His resurrection. The guy in the cellar can believe that Jesus rose from the dead, and still
choose not to receive the light.
Jesus says all who believe in him will not perish, but have eternal life. Here’s what the Greek-English
Lexicon says about the Greek verb used here for “believe”: The definition is, “to entrust oneself to
an entity (someone or something) with complete confidence.” So when Jesus talks about “whoever
believes in him” it’s more than just knowing who He is and what He’s done. St. James very pithily
writes something related to this. He says, “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the
demons believe that—and they shudder.”
Believing in Jesus means entrusting ourselves to Him. There’s a turning over of our self-will to the
one who’s worthy of that action. He’s not only our Savior, but our Lord as well.
Another reason we might prefer the darkness to the light is that the light exposes everything about
us. Have you ever had that experience of going into your bathroom first thing in the morning,
flipping the light on, and immediately looking at yourself in the mirror? You kind of look and say,
“Oh, my.” That’s probably just me. Well, when we allow Jesus to shine the light of His purity on us, it
may seem at very first like the ultimate bad hair day. We don’t particularly want to see the stuff that
light reveals. This can be pretty intimidating when we have an accurate sense of our own
sinfulness.
But the funny thing is that Jesus knows all this about us anyway. The light can very often be for our
own benefit, so we can know just what things need to be offered to Him for forgiveness and healing.
There are some things that are just too much for a hairbrush and hairspray. We need an extreme
makeover. Only the Lord can do that. Really, this is what confession is all about. In fact, really it’s
what the Christian life is about. It’s standing in the light of the Lord, so that not only can we clearly
see ourselves and our need, but also so the light can penetrate everything within us that’s not of
Him, and send it fleeing. In our passage Jesus says, “Everyone who does evil hates the light, and
will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth
comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through
God."
In this Lenten season of introspection, and always, may each of us live by the truth, and remain in
the light. May it be said of us that we have done good things, and that these good things have been
done through the power and love of God. And may we never forget Jesus’ promise for those who
believe, a promise of which there is none sweeter ever offered to any human being.
“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.” Amen.
Maybe you’ve seen it on billboards and bumper stickers. And I’m willing to bet that if Americans
were asked to quote just one scripture verse from the Bible, a pretty hefty percentage would quote
John 3:16.
Unfortunately, a fairly hefty percentage would also reveal modern society’s failure to teach biblical
literacy by quoting some things that are a bit more dubious. Things like, “To thine own self be true.”
Can you name chapter and verse? Good. Because that’s actually Shakespeare. Another one is,
“God helps those who help themselves”, which most assuredly is not in the canon of scripture. It’s
tempting to attribute that one to Bernard Madoff. He certainly helped himself. He needs our
prayers. But I digress.
John 3:16 says, “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.” I can’t think of a verse more deserving of
the attention it gets, because it captures beautifully the essence of the gospel message in around
two dozen words. This morning I’d like to spend a few minutes with you taking a close look at this
verse and the verses that immediately follow it in St. John’s Gospel.
You may know that the traditional emblem associated with St. John is the eagle. It’s been said that
one of the reasons for this is that the eagle is the only known animal able to look directly into the
sun without being blinded. As one who was arguably Jesus’ best friend on earth, I trust you can see
the appropriateness of the image. William Barclay writes this about John: “John has the most
penetrating gaze of all the New Testament writers into the eternal mysteries and the eternal truths
and the very mind of God. Many people find themselves closer to God and to Jesus Christ in John
than in any other book in the world.”
The opening phrase of John 3:16 wastes no time in establishing the character of God from the one
who saw Him so clearly. “For God so loved the world.” These six words speak volumes. They get
right to the point that the core of God’s being is love. We’ve talked before about how natural it is for
us to project onto God our own deficient perceptions. When we hear of God being our Father, it’s
all too easy to project onto Him the weaknesses and shortcomings of many earthly fathers. It’s all
too easy to see God as a stern disciplinarian, or a father who expresses his love with the character
defects present in this fallen world’s experience of fatherhood.
But in his Gospel John joyfully exclaims to the world that the love of our heavenly Father is in a
different category. In John 16:27 John recalls Jesus saying that very soon believers would be able
to go directly to the Father with requests, without even having to go through Jesus. Jesus says this
is because “the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I
came from God.” It’s the personal love of the Creator for the created and a father for is children. It’
s not a distant, impersonal desire for our wellbeing, but a deep, divine yearning for a close
relationship with us.
This love isn’t just a responsive love, but a proactive love. It’s a love in which God takes the
initiative for our salvation. “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes
in him will not perish, but will have eternal life.” God offered His Son. No one made Him do this. He
did it because He loves us. And if that doesn’t convince you of the specialness of God’s love,
consider this. The Father didn’t send his Son just for the good people, or for a particular nation, or
for the “elect”, or just for those who love him, but for the whole world. He loves every one of us that
much.
St. Paul writes to his protégé, Timothy, that God our Savior “desires everyone to be saved and to
come to a knowledge of the truth.” St. Augustine said, “God loves each one of us as if there was
only one of us to love.” That gets my gray matter smoking. Jesus is a gift, and He’s a gift offered
equally to every human being on earth.
So, now we’re all automatically in, right? Just by virtue of being born a human being from birth to
death we’re home free. Well, not exactly. There’s a danger in taking one verse out of context. The
belief I just cited is called universalism. It’s the idea that salvation is universal. It’s inevitable, from
Mother Teresa to Mussolini. But if we look at the verses right after John 3:16 we find that this isn’t
exactly an accurate way of perceiving God’s gift to us. Because, interestingly, John then proceeds
to tell us about a thing called condemnation.
It starts off nicely enough—Jesus goes on to say, “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.” At this point any well-
meaning universalist can shout a hearty “Hear, hear!” But then smiles freeze on universalist faces
as Jesus continues, “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.”
Now this is where many people in our time slam the door. The green light turns red. You get the
dismissive wave and the complaint that a loving God is suddenly turning nasty, or the charge that
someone later edited the text so that the church could hang the hammer over our heads. But let’s
look closely at this. First, I hope we can all take Jesus at his word when he says, “God did not send
the Son into the world to condemn the world.”
But if he didn’t send Jesus to condemn the world, where does this condemnation in verse 18 come
from? I think it needs to be said at this point that it’s very possible for a person to be offered nothing
but love and joy, and have that very experience turn into a condemnation. How? By refusing the
gift. Or worse yet, by rejecting the giver of the gift. Think of it this way. If a person goes and hears
the Vienna Philharmonic perform a stunning rendition of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and walks
away shaking his head and calling it trash, who do you think is more fitted for condemnation,
Beethoven, the Vienna Philharmonic or the concertgoer? I’m inclined to think that most people
would agree that Beethoven and the Vienna Philharmonic have established their credentials
sufficiently enough that trashing their work is much more likely to reflect badly on their critic.
And this is only a pale comparison with Jesus. The sinless one who lived his life as the perfect
personification of truth and love elicits different things from different people. From some he elicits
love and adoration. But from others he elicits only disdain. Jesus says that such a person stands
condemned. And really this is more a self-condemnation than anything else.
The passage continues with an assessment of just such a person. John writes, “This is the
judgment: that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness, rather than the light.” It’
s like one who cowers in the darkness of the cellar, hearing the skittering of the rats of his sinfulness
and the spiders of his addictions, and someone flings open the cellar door to the spring sunlight,
offering forgiveness and freedom. And the cellar dweller turns from the light and says, “Shut that
door, you’re blinding me!” “The people loved darkness rather than the light.”
Why do some people love the darkness rather than the light? Well, I’m sure that most of us can give
some good guesses. Fully receiving the benefits of the light, for instance, requires that we trust the
light-giver enough to let go of our self-will. For most of us this isn’t an easy thing to do. See,
believing in Jesus isn’t just a matter of giving our intellectual assent to His existence, or for that
matter, His resurrection. The guy in the cellar can believe that Jesus rose from the dead, and still
choose not to receive the light.
Jesus says all who believe in him will not perish, but have eternal life. Here’s what the Greek-English
Lexicon says about the Greek verb used here for “believe”: The definition is, “to entrust oneself to
an entity (someone or something) with complete confidence.” So when Jesus talks about “whoever
believes in him” it’s more than just knowing who He is and what He’s done. St. James very pithily
writes something related to this. He says, “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the
demons believe that—and they shudder.”
Believing in Jesus means entrusting ourselves to Him. There’s a turning over of our self-will to the
one who’s worthy of that action. He’s not only our Savior, but our Lord as well.
Another reason we might prefer the darkness to the light is that the light exposes everything about
us. Have you ever had that experience of going into your bathroom first thing in the morning,
flipping the light on, and immediately looking at yourself in the mirror? You kind of look and say,
“Oh, my.” That’s probably just me. Well, when we allow Jesus to shine the light of His purity on us, it
may seem at very first like the ultimate bad hair day. We don’t particularly want to see the stuff that
light reveals. This can be pretty intimidating when we have an accurate sense of our own
sinfulness.
But the funny thing is that Jesus knows all this about us anyway. The light can very often be for our
own benefit, so we can know just what things need to be offered to Him for forgiveness and healing.
There are some things that are just too much for a hairbrush and hairspray. We need an extreme
makeover. Only the Lord can do that. Really, this is what confession is all about. In fact, really it’s
what the Christian life is about. It’s standing in the light of the Lord, so that not only can we clearly
see ourselves and our need, but also so the light can penetrate everything within us that’s not of
Him, and send it fleeing. In our passage Jesus says, “Everyone who does evil hates the light, and
will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth
comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through
God."
In this Lenten season of introspection, and always, may each of us live by the truth, and remain in
the light. May it be said of us that we have done good things, and that these good things have been
done through the power and love of God. And may we never forget Jesus’ promise for those who
believe, a promise of which there is none sweeter ever offered to any human being.
“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.” Amen.
For God So Loved the World
(John 3:14-21) Fourth Sunday of Lent
(John 3:14-21) Fourth Sunday of Lent
March 22, 2009
Fr. Dan Tuton
Fr. Dan Tuton
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