Lent 4B                                                                      The Rev. Carl M. Saxton, II

Ephesians 2.1-10; John 3.14-21                                                  15 March 2015

So here’s that verse, the one we all know.  It’s probably the most famous verse in all the Bible: you know, John 3:16; the verse that’s been translated into more languages than any other piece of literature, it’s the very first verse I ever memorized in Vacation Bible School and I’ll bet many of you learned it that way too.  It’s the verse that is so famous that it’s held up on placards at sporting events, and Tim Tebow is known for printing the reference in the eye-black beneath his eye.  In fact, it’s so famous that the whole verse doesn’t even need to be printed in order for people to recognize it – so much that even if you just print “3 colon 16” on a sign in your yard, nearly everyone knows what it means.

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.

That’s the one.  This most famous of verses. But, you know, there’s something very uncomfortable about this verse.  Here’s a question that might illustrate what I mean:  What would it be like if someone died for you?  First, I’d guess we’d all feel a deep sense of gratitude for that person.  Now, however, imagine that it wasn’t just some random act of bravery, like someone pushing you out of the path of an oncoming car, but someone knew you were in mortal danger and actually exchanged their life for yours.  That sense of deep gratitude suddenly becomes an overwhelming sense of debt, one that is impossible to repay.  What could you possible do to ‘make it up’ to someone who has given so much, quite literally everything?  Well, this is the picture Jesus gives us of God in today’s gospel reading.  The giving of the Son is just sending Jesus to deliver a message to us of how to live a better life, it’s giving Jesus over to die, to die on a cross, to die on a cross for us. 

That’s why there is something so very troubling at the heart of this most well-known and well-worn verse from John’s Gospel.  God didn’t ask our opinion of all of this first, God didn’t ask permission, or try to get us ‘on-board,’ or work to get our ‘buy-in.’ God didn’t allow us to register concerns, complaints, or objections to His plan, He just goes ahead and gives His Son into the hands of sinners to die…for us.

If you think about the implications of that…it’s possible to be both deeply, deeply grateful and a little annoyed at the same time.  I mean, this puts an awfully huge claim on our lives, and God didn’t even take our plans, what we want, into account at all.  It takes all control…out of our hands!

God’s giving of His Son without our consent, or even consultation, is a lot like the scandal of infant Baptism.  After all, we too bring babies to the font without first getting their approval and dictatorially immerse them in the love of God.  There are those who would argue that what we do is offensive; that we don’t wait until they are ‘of age’ and can make such a life-changing decision for themselves.  But, that’s the whole point, the very heart of infant Baptism if you think about it; God just accepts us, adopts us, makes us His own, and promises to be both with us and for us forever.  This all happens whether we’re ready, interested, or eager to receive it or not!  I read, in fact, one priest who claims we should add four little words to our service of Baptism:  “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit…like it or not!”

One night, a father is having a hard time getting his six-year old son to bed.  After nearly an hour of dad standing firm on bedtime, the boy, Benjamin, became so frustrated that he said, ‘Daddy, I hate you!”  Dad, having more presence of mind than most folks dealing with a six-year old in the midst of tantrum, replied, ‘I’m sorry you feel that way Ben, but I love you.’  And we’d all expect that little Ben would respond with, ‘I’m sorry Daddy,’ or ‘Oh, ok,’ nope.  Instead little Ben yelled back at his father, ‘Don’t say that!’  Surprised, dad said, ‘But, Ben, it’s true—I love you.’  ‘Don’t say that, Daddy.’ ‘But I love you Ben.’ ‘Stop saying that, Daddy! Stop saying it right now!’  Dad responded, ‘Benjamin, listen to me: I love you…like it or not!’

Even at the tender age of six, you see, little Ben knew that he was absolutely powerless in the face of unconditional love.  If there had been some negotiation, some wiggle room – I’ll love you if you go to be when you’re told – then Ben might have played along: OK, this time, but I’m not eating broccoli for a month!  But once it was clear that there was no negotiation; that the dad’s love for his son was not contingent on something Ben did, then Ben could only either accept that love or run away from it.

We live in the same conundrum.  If God makes His great love for the world, and us, based on something that we do, then we suddenly have tremendous power, power over God.  We can negotiate.  We can threaten to reject God’s love unless our terms are met.  But, when God just loves us – completely and unconditionally – and then just goes and dies for us, then the jig is up; there’s absolutely nothing we can do to influence Him.  That’s just what happens in this verse: 

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.

And there it is, as Martin Luther said of John 3:16 – the Gospel in miniature – God, in Jesus Christ, has made His decision…and it is for us.  Sure, we can run; but, we cannot ever change the fact – irrefutable if we believe that Christ was born, crucified, and was raised from the dead – that God loves us, that God loves the whole world more than we could ever imagine.  So, no wonder that this is the world’s favorite Bible verse, that it’s taught to children and posted everywhere, because it is good news, in fact, it may even be the best news ever.  But first it’s hard.  Hard because we’re not in control.  Hard because it’s not up to us.  Hard because every time we hear that God loves us, we also know that we had nothing to do with it, we cannot influence it, and therefore are completely out of control.  And being out of control can sometimes make us afraid.

Let’s face it, life can be harsh at times, and maybe we’ve been trained by experience that, ultimately, no one can really be trusted, or that life is so chaotic that the only way to safety is to remain in control at all times.  In the face of a society that says you are an individual before everything else, with no responsibility but to and for yourself, and you are in control of your life: God’s unconditional, uncontrollable love can be frightening. John’s Gospel says as much in this morning’s reading:

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.

Trying, desperately, to cling to some semblance of control at any cost, we sometimes run from the light, running away from God’s loving embrace, only to find ourselves trapped in darkness of our own making.

But then along comes life, or tragedy, or God, or destiny, fate, whatever you want to call it; something happens that upends our life, shakes us up, shows up with something utterly beyond our ability to cope, and drives us to our knees – like the end of an important relationship, or a marriage, the loss of a job, the death of a loved one, or the return of an illness we thought we had vanquished – and we realize in a lightning flash of supernatural insight…that we were never really in control.  Not of our lives, of our circumstances, and certainly not of God.  And all of a sudden this difficult, troubling verse about God’s grace becomes the most wonderful news imaginable.  Because, here’s the thing:  precisely because we’re not in control of God and therefore not in control of our relationship with Him, we realize that it’s the one relationship in our lives that we can’t screw up, the one relationship we have no power to destroy.  God has taken responsibility for this one, and He has promised to bring it to a good end.

That’s why this verse is so troublesome…and so wonderful and desperately hopeful and life-giving at the same time.  This is why it is both one of my favorite verses found in the Bible, and the most difficult live with:  because it promises that God will never let us go, that He won’t take “No” for and answer, that He will pursue us like Francis Thompson’s Hound of Heaven until we are His own.

This doesn’t mean that we are mere passive players in this immensely important relationship.  Once we come to our senses and realize that we are loved so fully, so completely; we can respond in love, honoring God and sharing the news of His love with the whole world.  And we can love each other, diving into both the celebrations and the struggles all around us, always working for the good of our neighbor and the healing of the world always motivated by the knowledge that God loves us and the world so deeply.  So there’s plenty of work to do:

For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. [Ephesians 2.10]

But we do it all with the sure understanding that we are only messengers, witnesses to what God has done for us, not managers.

So hear both the judgment and promise of this passage once again.  You are not in control – of this world or even your own life, not really.  The God who created the infinite universe will hold you close amid the chaos, love you when you feel the most unlovable, and bring you to eternal life.  As St. John writes, and the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ guarantees,

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.

Like it or not.