Believe

John 3:16 is everywhere...

John 3:16 has the type of mass appeal among Christians that when it comes up in the Revised Common Lectionary, like it will this Sunday morning, the congregation gets excited even before the preacher opens her mouth. Jesus said, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.” What’s not to like? God loves the world… YAY! God sent his only Son… Who doesn’t like Jesus?! Those who believe in him may not perish, but have eternal life… Eternal life, sign me up! Strangely though, if we in the Church continue to remove these words from the rest of this verse’s surrounding story they will have the effectiveness of a vital organ that a surgeon has just cut out and thrown in a garbage can. To receive the full, transformative power of what Jesus said, we have to examine the surrounding story and particularly why Jesus said what he said and to whom he said it.

Before going any further though, I must make a confession about this supremely famous passage from the Bible. While John 3:16 sometimes gets coopted into a straightforward explanation of why Jesus came to earth, this often-used proof text is not as simple as saying, “Jesus came to pay our debt to an angry God and as soon as you say you believe him then you get to go to heaven when you die.” This type of theological litmus test certainly has its appeal—it is human nature to want to be included, especially when it comes to something as important as eternity. However, when I hear my brothers and sisters in Christ saying through their interpretation of John 3:16 that if you believe in God (in the way that we believe in God), then Jesus you will go to heaven I cringe. I cringe because if it is up to us to be saved, even through something as simple as saying we “believe” in Jesus, then I think we will always fall short. Also, and more to the point of this post, this is not what John’s account of the Good News of Jesus Christ tells us, nor is it what God spoke through his Son Jesus. So, back to the surrounding story and why Jesus spoke what he spoke to whom he spoke it.

First, let us start with the last bit. To whom was Jesus speaking in John 3? Well, one night Nicodemus, who was a Pharisee, came to find Jesus. This was odd. Pharisees did not come to Jesus except to try to upend his ministry. This Pharisee though seemed stumped. The traditional rituals and practices of his Faith were not fulfilling him, so he came to Jesus to seek something more. Nicodemus came at night probably because he did not want his Pharisee buddies seeing that he was having trouble and going to an upstart rabbi named Jesus for help.

Nicodemus approached Jesus with some placating words at first. The Pharisee said, “Sir, we know that God has sent you to teach us. You could not work these miracles, unless God were with you.” Jesus took very little time to respond even without so much as a question from Nicodemus, as Jesus uttered, “I tell you for certain that you must be born from above before you can see God’s kingdom!” Jesus immediately saw through the kind words to see Nicodemus’ real problem—he was spiritually dead. Nicodemus though, thought Jesus spoke of an actual second physical birth, but even when Jesus responded with a teaching on the Spirit making new children of God (John 3:5-8) Nicodemus still did not understand. Jesus’ response to Nicodemus’ continued confusion gave birth to our entire story for this coming Sunday morning including John 3:16, which gets at why Jesus spoke what he did.

Jesus did not speak these most famous words in isolation, but rather in the context of a conversation with a confused Pharisee who could not grasp God wanting to renew us through the Spirit. The Pharisee’s initial comments that about Jesus’ signs (3:2) and Jesus’ wondering how this teacher of Israel could not comprehend the Spirit’s re-birthing (3:10) points us toward understanding what Jesus was trying to teach throughout this whole chapter of John’s gospel account. Throughout John’s gospel account Jesus performed signs not miracles. The signs were actually pointing to something beyond the action itself. When this Pharisee came in talking about the sign and continued to not understand the teaching about the Spirit Jesus seemingly got frustrated.

During this late night conversation Jesus wanted to go deeper with someone familiar with the teachings of God like him. Jesus yearned to go beyond the signs themselves to talk about the Truth to which they pointed. The Truth was and still is that God loves the world, that God sends the Son to save and not condemn the world, and that those who believe experience eternal life. God loving the world and the world not being condemned but saved is great news, but this bit about belief always trips me up. Mostly because I have never met anyone who had completely unwavering faith. Even the people we hold up as pillars of the faith struggle, so what happens if my belief falters? Well, over two thousand years the Church has morphed the true meaning of what it means to believe.

To believe once meant to give over oneself to something. This has less to do with the head and more to do with the soul. For one to believe has everything to do with being open to the work of the Spirit, which fits much more closely with what Jesus was already speaking to Nicodemus. If one is stuck in the rigid intellectual ascents that others have foisted upon that person or if one has completely switched off one’s heart such that one’s worship feels completely severed from one’s daily life, then one remains closed off to the re-birthing of the Spirit and the eternal life She brings.

Nicodemus came to Jesus at night wondering not about signs, but about the truth to which the signs pointed. Jesus saw through Nicodemus’ kind greeting to challenge the religious teacher to wake up to the deeper Truth of God’s love and the acting of the Spirit in his life. Before we throw around the most famous bit from the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, may we remember that is was not a litmus test for belief, but rather a challenge to experience the Spirit’s re-birthing. None of us will make it through life with unwavering faith and the good news is that we do not have to endure in this way. Rather, may we be open to the Spirit’s moving in us as we give over ourselves to God’s working in our lives.