By David Lose
John 3:16, everyone’s favorite Bible verse. But I’ve wondered whether, if people thought about what this verse says for just a little longer than it takes to read a bumper sticker, it might just prove to be one of our least favorite verses in the Bible. Let me explain.
Jesus articulates in this statement what Luther called “the Gospel in a nutshell” – that God is fundamentally a God of love, that love is the logic by which the kingdom of God runs, and that God’s love trumps everything else, even justice, in the end.
I realize not everyone reads it this way. After all, Jesus says “everyone who believes…” will eternal life, which perhaps implies a different outcome for those who don’t believe. But read on, for in the next verse Jesus states 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.” Period. Moreover, the “judgment” to come is not punishment but simply the crisis that befalls those who will not come out of the darkness for fear of the light. It is not judgment as punishment, but judgment as crisis, as tragedy, as loss. God comes in love to redeem such loss, turn such tragedy into victory, and demonstrate true power through sheer vulnerability and sacrifice.
Which is the first reason we might not name this as our favorite verse if we gave it any real thought, as our world – and quite often our lives – operate according to the more traditional belief that security comes not through vulnerability and sacrifice but through power and might. Oh, we probably don’t go around wearing t-shirts that say “might makes right,” but we live according to such logic regularly. For we live in a world that seeks security not only through power but also through wealth and consumption, and we are taught from a very early age to avoid true vulnerability – and the truly vulnerable – at all costs. So, sacrifice? Sure, when we can afford to. Love our enemies? Maybe if everything else is taken care of first. Vulnerability? Only if there is no other choice.
The kind of self-sacrificing love Jesus offers is frightening to such a world. No wonder some run and hide, as it requires us to trust nothing other than God. And most of us find it impossible to embrace Jesus’ example…except when we ourselves have been brought low by illness, or loss, or a broken relationship, or disappointed hopes or some other way by which the world taught us that no matter how hard we try, no matter what position we may achieve, no matter how much money we may save, yet we cannot secure our destiny or save our lives. Only God can do that. Only love can do that. And it’s frightening to be so utterly dependent on God.
But there is a second reason this may not be our favorite verse as well, and that’s because of the claim it makes on us. Notice that God doesn’t ask our permission first before sending Jesus to die for us. I know, I know, that may seem like an odd detail to point out. But think of the claim a person – any person – has on us once they’ve saved our life, let alone died doing it. In the face of such love, such sacrifice, we must surrender all of our claims.
Years ago I preached a sermon about the offensive nature of God’s grace, suggesting that we might add four words to the end of our service of baptism, saying, “Child of God, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit…like it or not.” A few weeks later, a friend shared a bedtime encounter he’d had with his then six-year-old son. Upset that his father was putting him to bed earlier than he wanted to go, Benjamin said, “Daddy, I hate you.” Benjamin’s father, exercising the kind of parental wisdom I hope for, replied, “Ben, I’m sorry you feel that way, but I love you.” Benjamin’s response to such gracious words surprised his dad: “Don’t say that!” “I’m sorry Benjamin, but it’s true. I love you.” “Don’t,” his son protested, “Don’t say that again!” At which point Ben’s father, remembering the words of the sermon, said, “Benjamin, I love you…like it or not!”
Why was Benjamin protesting his father’s love? Because he realized he could not control his father’s love and twist it to his advantage. Indeed, in the face of such love there is no bargaining and, ultimately, no control whatsoever. If his dad had said that if he ate all his vegetables he could stay up, or agreed that Ben could stay up later this night if he went to bed earlier the next, then Benjamin would have been a player, he would have exercised some measure of control over the situation and, indeed, over his dad. But in the face of unconditional love we are powerless. Yes, perhaps we can choose to accept it or not, perhaps we can run away from it, but we cannot influence it, manipulate it, or control it. In the face of this kind of love, we are powerless. And only when we’ve died to all of our delusions of actually being in control do we realize that such loss of perceived freedom and power is actually life.
God’s love, you see, is tenacious. And so God’s love will continue to chase us after us, seeking to hold onto us and redeem us all the days of our lives, whether we like it or not. So maybe this is a verse, if we took it more seriously, that might terrify us in how it renders us powerless in a world literally hell-bent on accumulating and exercising power. Then again, maybe as we remember God’s tenacious love we realize that, precisely because this is the one relationship in our lives that we have no power, it is also the one relationship we cannot screw up. Because God created it, God maintains it, and God will bring it to a good end, all through the power of God’s vulnerability, self-sacrificing, and ever so tenacious love.
2. Lawrence
Jesus, John tells us, was responsible for creation. The purpose of the Incarnation was to save creation, not save us from it! Salvation is about Life with God in this world. Now, of course, this life is not all there is. But eternal life is primarily about the Life of God and life with God – what John calls “Life in all its abundance” (10:10). What the cross points to is that Life and God is to be found precisely in the places and moments of deepest darkness and hopelessness. The Life of God – the Light of Christ – is to be found where it has no right being! It is a Life that is stronger than death – strong enough to embrace it and rob it of its power. That is why the Light of Christ shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never been able to put it out (1:5)!
Jesus is quite explicitly the pre-existent Son of God from all eternity in John’s theology (cf John 1: 1-3). In 3:13 (the verse preceding the lectionary reading) he is the One who has “descended from heaven” (ie “come down”). This is Incarnation – God walking among us. Think about it in this way for as moment: the serpent is a symbol of death – and so are human beings! They symbolise darkness, lostness, rebellion, sin and death! And God, in order to save us, is to be found as a human being! In other words, the story of God’s salvation – from Exodus to Incarnation – is the story of God entering into lostness and redeeming it. And in the same way, the lifting up of Jesus on the cross is both the symbol of the very depths to which humanity sinks (the most potent symbol of evil) and the sign and symbol of Life! In other words, both the serpent and the crucified Jesus become the means of Life because God is there! They don’t show God’s pious horror and avoidance of the messiness and darkness of human living, but God’s embracing of it in order to save us. God, in love, embraces what is utterly opposite to God – suffering and death.
3. Dale Bruner
In his commentary on John, Dale Bruner points out that he once saw John 3:16 laid out as follows as a way to highlight the amazing power in this most famous of Bible verses:
“God ……………………………………………………….……….The greatest subject ever So (much)…………………………………………………….….The greatest extent ever Loved………………………………………………………..………The greatest affection ever The world (kosmos)…………………………….…… ..…….The greatest object ever That He gave His One-and-Only Son,………………… The greatest gift ever So that every single individual, whoever,……………. The greatest opportunity ever Who is [simply] entrusting oneself to him…………… The greatest commitment ever Would never be destroyed, ………………………………… The greatest rescue ever “But would even now have a deep, lasting Life.” ……The greatest promise ever
4. Marilyn Salmon
John 3:16 is a good interpretive lens into the gospel. John begins with echoes of Genesis (1:1) and the goodness of God’s creation, the world, all that is in it. That note is sounded again so clearly here. For the sake of this world, God gives his most cherished beloved son. Any parent knows that the love for one’s child is so great one might sacrifice oneself for a child. In this human experience we grasp God’s self-giving love for us, giving us the incomparable gift of salvation, life forever through his beloved Son.
How else to respond but to love and cherish the world and every creature in it as beloved of God. If we take this response seriously, it will be an all-consuming challenge. We might take it in the direction of global warming and care for the earth. Or we might tackle poverty or hunger in light of the abundance most of us enjoy. Or advocate for peaceful resolution of differences.
Opportunities stretch from our doorstep around the globe. We might conclude that we are too busy to make it our business to judge who is saved or not, condemned or not. We might instead accept John’s challenge to followers of Jesus in his community as our own, that is moving outside our comfort zone to make a public confession of our faith
5. Barbara Brown Taylor
” 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. But 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.””
Barbara Brown Taylor in Learning to Walk in the Darkness makes a compelling case for the importance and beauty of darkness, both physical and spiritual. She writes, “…darkness turns out to be as essential to our physical well-being as light. We not only need it to sleep well, we need it to be well.” Like stars in the night sky, sometimes we need to be surrounded by darkness in order to be seen and known.
It is no surprise that darkness does not have a good reputation in our scriptures. Darkness is scary. But does that make it evil? Not necessarily. It is scary because it contains the unknown. Unknown things are neither bad nor good; they are simply mysteries. When Jesus says that he is the light of the world, I believe he means, “I am someone you can know, in the midst of all the things you cannot know.”
In Jesus, our unknowable God becomes known to us. He is the light of the world. But before we can know him fully, we will be in darkness. We need darkness in order to appreciate light. It was scary in the darkness of the tomb, but that is where the resurrection happened.