Sermon for Sunday, March 10, 2024 || Lent 4B || John 3:14-21
When I went to high school football games as a kid in Alabama, people were always holding up signs that said, “John 3:16.” Not the words of the verse, just the citation, which was almost something of a brand in and of itself. “John 3:16” signs were everywhere. Years later while in seminary, I became a scholar of the Gospel of John. And I had this silly desire to head back to my high school, go to a football game, and hold up a sign that said, “John 3:17.” Perhaps, the person next to me would ask me why my sign was wrong and I could say that the sign wasn’t wrong, but a different verse entirely. The verse after the most famous verse of the Bible says, “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.” This sermon starts with 3:17 and moves into the verses that follow it as we contemplate walking in darkness and walking in light.
We’ve talked before about John’s use of the word “world” (or “cosmos” in Greek), so here’s just a quick reminder. For John, the world is the creation that has fallen into disrepair because of bad human choices. One of the reasons that John starts his Gospel with, “In the beginning,” is so we readers might make the link back to the story of creation in Genesis, in which God created the heavens and the earth. Three chapters into Genesis, things start to fall apart because of Adam and Eve’s bad choices.
Fast-forward to John’s time or to our own, and the broken state of the world is evident. Much of the brokenness stems directly from bad choices made over and over again. And because these decisions are made again and again, they become part of systems, the machinery of brokenness, and we feel helpless in the face of a crumbling world. Nevertheless, God so loved this world that God chose to send God’s Son into the brokenness in order that he might show us what is broken. And in showing us, he gave us the gift and the mission of helping him restore the broken world to wholeness.
This restoration starts taking place at the origin of the brokenness – in the hearts of God’s children. In the mythic imagination of the compilers of the book of Genesis, Adam and Eve had the choice to obey or disobey God. They chose disobedience. Each of us has a choice too, which Jesus names using the imagery of darkness and light: “The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil,” he says. “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.”
We have a choice to stumble in the darkness or to walk in the light, to be part of the problem or part of the solution, to add to the brokenness or to participate in the healing. And we don’t make this choice just once. This choice is part of every single decision we make. Every decision either pulls us back to the darkness or pushes us further into the light. Perhaps you can remember a choice you made that turned out to be the wrong one – failing to stand up to a friend’s bully or taking out your frustration on your spouse or knowingly purchasing a product that was fabricated under unbearable conditions – the list is endless. When I make a choice that pulls me towards the darkness, I feel just a little bit unmade, like a little bit of me has eroded away. A few sermons ago, I described this feeling as becoming unraveled. If I continually choose the wrong path, if I continually embrace the darkness, I wonder — will there be anything left of me?
This question points to the condemnation that Jesus talks about. And this is the most important part of the sermon, so listen up. God does not condemn; rather, we condemn ourselves when we choose the darkness over the light. Each time the verb “condemn” happens in the middle of our passage, the word is passive. God takes no active part in our condemnation. God only patiently and constantly calls us back to the light. This call is what keeps us from eroding away entirely, what keeps us from total annihilation. God’s constant call back to the light gives us a beacon to turn to, a lighthouse, if you will, that can guide us through the darkness and keep us from breaking up on the rocks. God does not force us to choose the light; rather, God invites us to steer toward the harbor of God’s radiant blessing.
As we answer God’s call and choose the light over the darkness, we discover that we can be part of the healing of the world. In our own experiences of the darkness, in our own vulnerability, we find the common ground of brokenness that Christ found when he came to earth and when he was lifted up on the cross. When we choose the light, we choose to be partners with Christ in healing the brokenness of the world even as Christ is healing our own brokenness. We rehearse these choices every week when we share in the Confession of Sin together.
So, how do we translate the imagery of walking in the light into our everyday lives? What does choosing the light look like on the ground, in our day-to-day lives, at the office or at school or at home? Everything comes back to inviting God into our decisions, about orienting toward God’s lighthouse in each choice so that we do not feel like we are being eroded away to nothingness.
Inviting God into our decisions involves three steps: Awareness, Practice, and Reflection.
First, Awareness. We pray with God about what we hold most dear, about what defines us as people, about the values we hold, the values that frame our moral lives just like our skeletons frame our bodies. We listen to our bodies and our breath as we discern if those values are truly the ones that God would have us champion.
Once we reveal the core values that animate us, we move on to Step Two: Practice. We apply those values to decisions we make. We do this consciously at first, like we are exercising our moral muscles. In time and with God’s help, we integrate those core values deeply enough within us that they become the foundation of our decision-making.
Once our values sink into our moral bedrock, we arrive at Step Three: Reflection. When something becomes automatic in our lives, we tend to let it slip out of focus, trusting it always to work properly. Periodic check-ins with God via personal and communal prayer (like the Confession) help us to reflect on our moral framework and make sure we are still making decisions based on it. And thus the three steps cycle again.
As we cycle through these steps, we will walk in the light and we will walk in darkness. This is not a binary. But the good news is this: earlier in John’s Gospel, John reminds that “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not extinguish the light.” The Lighthouse of God’s radiant blessing shines throughout our days, always calling us back to lives of integrity, loyalty, justice, love, and peace.
Photo by Riley McCullough on Unsplash.
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