Sunday, February 17, 2008

Lent 2A

John 3:1-17

 

FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD

 

It was hard to miss the large photograph on the front page of Friday’s Oregonian          of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton speaking to large crowds in the state of Washington.  In the middle of the photo in bold letters were the words “CHARGED UP”.  The lead paragraph in the article below read: “Barack Obama is attracting jaw-dropping crowds at stop after stop.  Democratic rival Hillary Clinton would be thrilled with her own big turnouts except that his are so much bigger.”  Given the long association of the Clintons with presidential politics, and given Senator Clinton’s 8 years of service in Congress, it is not surprising that she is a serious candidate for president.  Senator Obama’s rapid ascent to serious presidential candidate was somewhat more unexpected.  The catalyst seems to have been his electrifying speech before the Democratic National Convention in July 2004.  One phrase in particular stuck in listeners’ minds: “the audacity of hope.”  Senator Obama’s campaign is attracting many young people who have never voted.  He is stirring a sense of hope in them.

 

On the Thursday evening CBS News, Katie Couric interviewed his wife Michelle.  Couric mentioned that the word “messianic” had been used by someone to describe the Obama phenomenon.  To her credit, Michelle Obama recognized the dangers of such messianic hopes.

The president of the most powerful nation on earth can have a major impact on this country as well as the world.  But no president in the history of the United States has qualified as a messiah.  Any seasoned politician knows how quickly the adulation for a political leader can wane when the hopes of his or her supporters are not fulfilled.

 

Tomorrow we celebrate the birthdays of the two most famous presidents in our nation’s history: George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  Washington is often referred to as the father of the nation.  Abraham Lincoln is remembered for his central role in keeping our nation united.  Neither of them was a messiah.  The history of presidential politics is a long history of hopes fulfilled and just as many hopes dashed.  That will be the pattern for the foreseeable future, no matter who is in office.  We do not want to diminish the good that responsible public servants can do.  A certain measure of audacity may be necessary to get things done.  But if we place any sense of ultimate hope in a political leader we are setting ourselves and the leader up for disappoint and failure.

 

For me the most hope-filled article in Friday’s Oregonian was on page A12.  The headline read: “Bush trip puts focus on Africa.”  President Bush left on Friday for a six day, five country trip to Africa.  Today he meets with the President of Tanzania.  Tomorrow he will visit the Maasai Girls School, that many Lutherans have been supported.  On Thursday he will meet with President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in Liberia.  The original purpose of the trip was to promote US efforts against poverty and disease.  Given the current violence and turmoil on the African continent, President Bush will also seek to play the role of peacemaker.  One would hope the President of the United States would have a positive impact on the troubled nations of Africa, and we can be thankful for whatever good President Bush may accomplish.  It is encouraging that our last two presidents have not ignored the needs of the people of Africa.  But once again, a political leader can only do so much.  No political leader can be a messiah.  We must look elsewhere for someone in whom to place our ultimate hopes.

 

John 3:16, the most well-known verse in the Bible, identifies Jesus as that someone.  Martin Luther referred to John 3:16 as the “gospel in miniature”: “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.”

 

In our Christian tradition one predominant way salvation has been understood is as an escape from this evil, sinful world.  Given this understanding of salvation, the basic message is that God sent Jesus to save us from our sins.  If we believe in Jesus, then when we die, we will leave this world behind and go to heaven.  As a young boy I remember worrying whether I believed in Jesus enough to get to go to heaven. 

 

John 3:16 challenges such an escape theology.  The primary motivation for God sending Jesus into the world is God’s love for the world.  The Greek word translated as “world” is “kosmos”, from which our English word “cosmos” has originated.  The cosmos is the world or universe, regarded as an orderly, harmonious system.  It is everything that God has created—that is, the creation.

 

The message of John 3:16 is that God loves the creation so much that God refuses to give up on it.  Elsewhere in the gospel of John God is said to have sent his Son Jesus into the world.  This is the only place in which God is said to have given his Son.  This highlights that Jesus is God’s gift to the world.  Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection reveal the depth of God’s love for the whole world and for everyone and everything in it.

 

John 3:16 assures us that whoever believes in Jesus will share in eternal life with him.  The proponents of escape theology are right on the importance of faith in Jesus; however, they suffer from an impoverished view of the love of God and of eternal life.

 

To believe in Jesus is, first of all, to believe that God is who Jesus declares him to be.  Jesus proclaims that God loves the whole cosmos, cares for each one of us, and wants to forgive us.  To believe in Jesus is, secondly, to believe that Jesus is the Son of God.  He is endowed with the mind of God; and therefore, he is able to tell the truth about God.  To believe in Jesus is, thirdly, to do whatever he commands or teaches.[1]

 

If eternal life is not an escape from this evil, sinful world, what then is it?  Richard Donovan provides helpful insight into what is meant by eternal life in the gospel of John.  It is not a state of being that is put off into the future; instead, it begins in the present.  It is the change in human existence caused by faith in Jesus.  It is life lived in the unending presence of God.  We do not have to wait for a future life to live in the presence of God.  Those who believe in Jesus Christ have their lives defined primarily by God.  They are first and foremost children of God.  They are no longer defined primarily by bloodlines, ethnic group, nation, or even religious affiliation.  Eternal life includes what is often called the afterlife.  But faith in Jesus Christ gives us access to eternal life here and now, even in the midst of the trials and tribulations of this life.

 

Clearly, then, God did not send Jesus into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.  Nor did God send Jesus into the world so that we might escape from the sinful, evil world.  Sin, evil, and suffering are part of life in this world.  But they do not keep us from living in the presence of God.  Eternal life is still possible for those believe in Jesus Christ.  The only way to bring judgment and condemnation upon ourselves is to refuse to believe in Jesus.  Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet: “To be or not to be—that is the question.”  In the gospel of John the question is: “To believe or not to believe in Jesus Christ.”  It is a question of living the eternal life that God has given to us.

 

As mentioned earlier, believing in Jesus includes obeying his commandments and teachings.  In John 15:12 Jesus commands his disciples “to love one another as I have loved you.”  That is, Jesus instructs them to embody the love of God for one another as he has embodied the love of God for them.  Those who believe in Jesus are not Messiahs.  Nonetheless, they do become conduits for God’s love for the world.

 

On Monday evening my family and I and Jay and Pam Meredith had an opportunity to meet Saah Joseph, the director of the Mt. Barclay School Project.  He told his story of having to flee from Liberia and several other countries.  It is only by the grace of God, as he said, that he has returned to Liberia and is able to help the children of Mt. Barclay.  He praised God for the role St. Andrew had played in funding the “Bridge of Hope.”

 

Saah Joseph was not a dynamic speaker or an imposing figure.  But it was obvious that he was a conduit of God’s grace and love.  He embodied God’s love for the children of Mt. Barclay.  By financing the “Bridge of Hope” we were also able to be conduits of God’s love for the children of Mt. Barclay.

 

To be a place of grace is part and parcel of what it means for the people of St. Andrew to believe in Jesus.  Those who believe in Jesus are audacious enough to believe that eternal life is available here and now—that we are living in the presence of God right here at St. Andrew and right here in Beaverton.  Those who believe in Jesus are audacious enough to believe that they are conduits of God’s love for the world.  That should be enough to get us charged up.  In Jesus’ name

AMEN.