Year A Lent 2 2023 That The World Might Be Saved

 Year A Lent 2, 5 March 2023

St. James the Less Episcopal, Ashland, VA

“That The World Might Be Saved”

Collect: O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

John 3:1-17

There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

“Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 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.”

Today is the day of our Annual Meeting. A day when we gather to look back, and look ahead. To check on how things are, and the anticipated steps for the coming year. And on this annual “State of the Church” gathering, it is so important for us to spend a little time on what is most important.

It is not about leadership. It is not about finances. It is not about hopes and wishes. It is not reminiscences or regrets. Friends, it is about faith.

Faith is the crux and the key, and as the shepherd of this flock I must ask how is your belief? We were talking about fundraising the other day, and someone mentioned having a big thermometer, marking off one red line at a time. But from God’s perspective, how would God gauge our Faith? Where would God put the line on our faith-o-meter?

In our Genesis reading we see the call of God on Abram, long before he became Abraham. God promised blessings, so that Abram could be a blessing. Blessed to be a blessing. It is no different for us. God does not plan to put us on a shelf, like some trinket or knick-knack. We are not a bauble in God’s glass menagerie. We are God’s investment. He put time, effort, and energy into us so that we could go out and be at work in the world to expand God’s Kingdom Realm, grow into the full stature of Christ, and engage this hurting world with God’s Grace.

As Paul quotes in our reading from Romans today, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.”

God loved that with the simple faith of a child, an elderly man would pick up and give up the life and world he knew to go into the unknown, to believe that even so advanced in years he would bear a son, and that his legacy would not be just one child but a blessings to the entire world.

About 4,000 years ago Abraham took these steps of faith. About 3,000 years ago King David reigned. About 2,000 years ago Jesus came fulfilling the prophecies from all the preceding years. And despite this lineage and legacy, we still have trouble believing at times. Even reading history is an act of faith. We were not there. Scripture is doubly faith-filled as it is both historical and spiritual. Today we are given the chance to believe and obey, for the story is not over.

Friends, I walk around this campus and see how exceedingly blessed we are, but as nice as we have things it is not for us to do nothing with. God invested in us. We were blessed to be a blessing. What happens in the clinic is a blessing. What happens in our classrooms is a blessing. What happens on the playground or in the new pavilion is to make this world a bit more bearable, a bit more blessed.

When we look with eyes of faith, we see things a bit differently. Nicodemus, a longtime teacher of the faith in Jesus’ day came at night with some of those nagging questions that seem to keep us up at night. Or maybe he was afraid to admit that he had to seek advice because he knew that despite his years of supposed authority his words were as empty as his soul.

But God gave him a gift to see that something he was real, something eternally true. So he came to Jesus to see if what he wanted to believe was trustworthy.

“Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; 

for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.”

Jesus told him that God blessed him to see that truth, and that this was “born from above.”

Nicodemus gets caught up in a lingering literalism about being born “again.” He began to see things differently, but he could not let go of his false expectations. 

For folks looking for the long-awaited Messiah, they were expecting a great ruler, like King David from 1,000 years before Jesus. But Jesus, and God, had a bigger, better, bolder plan. They did not want to deal with the symptoms of sin, political power and its misuse (at this point in the history we are talking about the Romans), but the root of the problem, Sin itself.

Jesus spoke very clearly about Spirit and Wind, moving and shaking invisibly yet still powerfully, and poor, stuck Nicodemus did not follow. With patience and Grace, Jesus continues,

“If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 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 those of you who do not remember the story, after leaving Egypt, the children of Israel encountered a stretch of desert filled with poisonous snakes. Moses was instructed to make a brass serpent to hold up, and any bitten by a snake could look at this symbol of death and be delivered from death. It is no accident that when Jesus was lifted up, he was raised on a symbol of power and authority, and most certainly, death. The Cross has since become something we think of as beautiful, and we even have jewelry adorning our bodies of this thing most lethal.

And then Jesus makes a statement which has lost some of its power because of its ubiquity. It is not just about a sign in an endzone at a football game. It is about life, the universe, and everything. John 3:16:

“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.”

We miss much if we miss the snake analogy. We are already under certain death, as if we were bitten by a poisonous snake. So if we look at this reverse symbol with faith we might be saved. Belief, that thing that is reckoned to us as righteousness, enables what was once deadly to deliver, what was poisonous to pass over.

And if stopped there, it would sound exclusive. What about those who have not heard about this “out clause?” Or were raised in another faith?

But Jesus continues, and I find more hope and love in John 3:17 than John 3:16:

“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.”

God is not looking for judgment and condemnation. He is looking for righteousness and redemption. Remember how we started today? In God’s economy, he is not creating trinkets, he is investing in things that give a return.

He is investing in you. He is investing in me. We are blessed to be a blessing. We have been saved to be salvific. Jesus saves, but he also invites us in on the action. He wants us to be a part.

When we approach things that we do as a church, maybe that is the phrase that is our litmus test.

Why do we do anything that we do? That the world might be saved through him. If it does not stand that test, is it something that we should be about?

If we take this approach, God can be glorified, and we can be that blessing we have been blessed to be. May God bless us for the coming year. And may we be a blessing! Amen