Ephesians
2:1-10; John 3:14-21
March
15, 2015
© 2015
From shootings by police and of police to
fraternity chants, race tensions have been at the center of recent national attention.
Because of the places I have lived and served, and because of the people I have
known and worked with, these issues have personal impact on me. When an
African-American pastor who is a friend of mine was a boy growing up in
northern New Jersey in the 1950s, he witnessed his 18 year old uncle being
lynched by a mob who didn’t like the way he looked at a white woman. No one was
ever arrested, charged, tried, convicted or punished. This is just one among
many things that scream, “What is wrong with us?”
In his Gulag
Archipelago, Alexander Solzhenitsyn answered the question, “What is wrong
with us?”
When
I lay there on rotting prison straw, it was disclosed to me that the line
separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor
between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and
through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the
years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good
is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains, an un-uprooted
small corner of evil.
Though humorous, a conversation between Lucy
and Charlie Brown in a Peanuts cartoon sheds light on this. (quoted from
Exegetical Notes at Crossmarks by Brian Soffregen)
Lucy: Discouraged
again, eh, Charlie Brown? You know what your whole trouble is? The whole
trouble with you is that you're you!
Charlie: Well, what in the world can I do about
that?
Lucy:
I don't pretend to be able to
give advice...I merely point out the trouble! You know what the whole trouble
with you is, Charlie Brown?
Charlie: No, and I don't want to know! Leave me
alone! (He walks away.)
Ephesians 2:1-3 describes our problem as
being spiritually dead. John 3:19 describes our problem as loving darkness
rather than light.
Like Ephesians 2, John 3:14-21 tells us that when
we are ready to give up on broken humanity, with rich mercy and great love, God
lifts up Jesus to draw us out of darkness and death into light and eternal
life.
And
just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man
be lifted up, 15that
whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16“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.17“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. 18Those
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. 19And
this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved
darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20For
all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their
deeds may not be exposed. 21But
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.”
Just in case we didn’t get how much God loves
us from John 3:16, verse 17 says that God did not send the Son into the world
to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.
After briefly acknowledging that we are
spiritually dead, Ephesians 2:4 introduces the Gospel as rooted in the rich
mercy and great love at the core of God’s character.
This understanding of God’s character is
deeply rooted in the Hebrew Scriptures. Psalm 103:2-3,8,10, 12-14 says,
Bless the Lord, O my soul, who
forgives all your iniquity. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger
and abounding in steadfast love. He does not deal with us according to
our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. As far as the east
is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us. As a father has
compassion for his children, so the Lord has compassion for those who
fear him. For he knows how we were made; he remembers that we are dust.
And Psalm 130:3-4,7 says,
If you, O Lord, should mark
iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you, so that
you may be revered. Hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast
love, and with him is great power to redeem.
So that 2 Peter 3:9 can confidently declare,
The Lord is not slow about his
promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to
perish, but all to come to repentance.
John 3:14 is the first of several times John
wrote of Jesus being lifted up. When we are ready to give up on broken
humanity, with rich mercy and great love, God lifts up Jesus to draw us out of
darkness and death into light and eternal life.
The comparison of Jesus’ crucifixion to Moses
lifting up the serpent in the wilderness goes back to Numbers 21:4-9. During
the Israelites’ 40 years wandering in the wilderness between Egypt and the
Promised Land, they grumbled, and God sent poisonous snakes as punishment. When
they repented, God told Moses to make a bronze snake and put it on a high pole
so that when people were bitten, they could look at it and live. A snake on a
pole has been a symbol of healing medicine from this incident and the Rod of
Asclepius from Greek mythology.
The word for “lifted up” can mean either
hoisted on a gibbet for execution or exalted for reverent respect, both of
which apply to Jesus’ crucifixion. We will see it again next Sunday in John
12:32 where Jesus said, “When I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all
people to myself.”
In the 80s and 90s, spiritual writer Suzanne
Guthrie worked at Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, NY. Above the door of the
guest house was inscribed in Latin, “The Cross is the Medicine of the World.”
Some variation of the word “believe” occurs
in John’s Gospel 86 times, and is central to 3:14-21. We must ask what it means
to believe to be lifted out of darkness and death into the light and eternal
life and of God’s rich mercy and great love.
John 3:16 says God gave his only Son.
Ephesians 2:8 says that the grace by which we are saved in the gift of God. So
believing is not something we do, rather it is something we receive. Like the
bronze serpent Moses lifted up in the wilderness, we don’t affect our spiritual
healing, even with correct theology – believing correct things about God, but
we simply receive God’s gift.
Ephesians 2:1 says that we were dead. John
3:16 says that without God’s gift we perish. This doesn’t mean we cease to
exist but fail to fulfill the purpose of human life. Like Sisyphus in Greek
mythology, condemned to live forever rolling a stone to the top of a hill, only
to have it roll back down and start over again, endlessly. In his great prayer
in John 17:3 Jesus defined eternal life as to know the only true God, and Jesus
Christ whom He has sent. Eternal life is life in the presence of the
Eternal God, and only secondarily about duration.
Thus, eternal life is about our relationship
with God through Jesus, and by extension all others who share this eternal
life. Traditionally, we think that people come to believe in Jesus first and
then become part of the community of faith – the church. Diana Butler Bass (Christianity After Religion), and a
number of others, have observed in a society were fewer and fewer people know
about Jesus, they may often come into the community of faith first, and that is
where they meet Jesus and then come to believe in him. Thus, today, evangelism
starts with building relationships with people.
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