John 3:14-21
Beyond the Now
James Sledge Lent
4 – March 18, 2012
The
words Jesus speaks to us this morning actually begin as a conversation. Nicodemus, a Pharisee and leader in his
religious community comes to see Jesus, at night. He was quite sure that Jesus could not do the
things he was doing apart from God, but he came to Jesus in the dark. In John’s gospel, darkness is not a good
thing.
Nick
remains “in the dark.” As he speaks with
Jesus he grows more and more confused, and by the time we get to the part of
the conversation we heard this morning, befuddled Nick seems to have disappeared
from the scene. Jesus talks past
Nicodemus as though he were no longer there. He even shifts from saying “you,” singular, to
saying “y’all,” plural.
To be honest, I was not all that happy that
this Scripture readings showed up on my last Sunday here, but none of the
readings really excited me. So I settled
on the John verses. At least they did talk
of God so loving the world, of eternal life.
But of course then they go on to say how many are condemned already and that
people are evil, preferring darkness to light.
A lot to unpack in a “goodbye” sermon.
I was tempted simply to ignore all that about judgment and condemnation,
but that would be ignoring a lot that Jesus said. So here goes.
When
I was young and single, I found it difficult to tell a young woman that I was
attracted to her. For me there was
nothing quite so terrifying as putting myself and my feelings out there where I
might get shot down. I assume that many
of you have at some point in your life wanted to tell another person that you
were interested in them, that you wanted to go out with them. But once you blurt out, “Would you go out
with me?” or, when in a relationship, “I love you,” you have precipitated a
crisis moment. There is no going
back. Things might go well or they might
not, but things will not be the same.
If
you’ve ever been shot down when you asked someone out, or if you’ve ever loved
someone who would not or could not return that love, you may have some small
sense of what Jesus is talking about when he speaks of judgment and of people
being condemned already.
I know that we
often presume Jesus is speaking about being saved, about whether or not they
are on the heavenly guest list, but I think Jesus is talking about the sort of
crisis that happens when you tell someone “I love you.”
When John’s gospel says, “And
this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and the people
loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil,” the
actual word translated “judgment” is kri¯si» (krisis) which
is the basis for our word crisis. And I
think this judgment, this crisis provoked by the light of God’s love entering
the world, is very much like the crisis provoked by saying “I love you.” It demands a response. It requires that the one addressed come
toward the love, the light, or move away.
I
have encountered another crisis provoking situation of late, that of ending my
time as pastor here. It is a somewhat
different sort of crisis, but it still demands that judgments be made. They cannot be put off. As pastor, there is always another day, a
next year, a new program, another sermon to write. But no more.
This is it, and so there is no putting off judgments about how it went,
what worked, and what didn’t go so well.
As
the light of finishing shines on my ministry here, there are those parts where
I am happy to come into the brightness of the light. But then there are those things I’d rather
keep in the shadows.
As
I look back over eleven years, there are wonderful memories of Bible studies
together with many of you, of boxes piled high in the Fellowship Hall each
December as scores of people fill them with food and gifts for children. There were wonderful dinners in that same
Fellowship Hall. There were bands
playing outside as we enjoyed hamburgers, cotton candy, and games at the Fall
block party. There were kickball games
and picking the first vegetables from our raised bed gardens. There was beautiful music from the choir at
Christmas and Easter. There was a
genuine candlelight Christmas Eve service when the power went out complete with
a huge, communal “Aw” of disappointment when the lights came on toward the
end. There was a beautiful renovation of
the chapel. There were shared laughs and
joys, shared hopes and dreams. There are
friendships and relationships that will long be treasured. There were births
and baptisms, and there were farewells to beloved members who departed this
congregation to enter the Church Triumphant.
I could list many more, but suffice to say that the light of my
time ending here shines on these and illuminates them for me, making them all the more
precious and poignant.
But
then there are those things where the light is painful. There were plans that did not work and hopes
that did not materialize. There were
missteps and mistakes. There were harsh
words I wished I had not said. There
were broken relationships that were not repaired. There were times when momentum faltered and I
was not able to help sustain it. Right
now, there are budget struggles and worries about the future, and my leaving
means there is not a tomorrow to fix or to finish. The light shines on failures and things
undone.
The light that shines on the good and
the bad, the positive and the negative, renders its judgment. It reveals how things are in this moment, in
the now and already. And this is the
same sort of language Jesus uses when he speaks of those who are condemned
already. And I think Jesus is
stressing the crisis of now
that comes from the light. When the
light shines, when God’s love strikes us, a crisis ensues and judgments are
rendered. But, and here’s the critical
thing, Jesus does not say that such judgments are final.
Nicodemus,
remember him, comes to Jesus in the dark of night, hiding from the bright light
of God’s love. He cannot seem to make
sense of Jesus or believe the things Jesus tells him. He cannot come into the light, and he simply
evaporates into the darkness, disappearing from our reading without a
sound. According to Jesus’ own words, he
is condemned
already. But this is not the
last time Nick appears in John’s gospel.
His final appearance is in broad daylight, when Jesus dies on the cross
and Joseph of Arimathea comes to ask Pilate for the body. John’s gospel tells us, Nicodemus, who had at first come
to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing
almost a hundred pounds.
Nicodemus, not one of the believers, who
preferred darkness to light, is still somehow drawn to the cross, and ends up
helping give Jesus a decent, even extravagant burial.
God
so loved the world, the very world that struggles so hard against God. But when the light of God’s love shines on
the world, on us, it reveals us for who we truly are. For most of us, that’s a mixed bag. Some things about us we don’t mind bringing
out into the light, but there’s plenty about us, about our families, our
communities, and our church, that we would just as soon keep hidden.
When
the light of God’s self-giving love, a love that would endure the cross, shines
on us, it reveals how selfish and unloving we can be, how we reserve our love
for a select few, how we expect our churches to serve us rather than sacrifice
themselves for the world. When God’s
love shines on us, we are judged, and in the moment, the now, the already, some
of those judgments are not pretty.
But
the now, the already, is not the future.
It was not Nicodemus’ future. It
is not your or my future. It is not
Boulevard Presbyterian’s future. And it
most certainly is not God’s future, that new day that draws near to us in
Jesus. And the cross of Jesus draws us
toward that new future, a future not bound by the now or the already, not bound
by our failings, our shortcomings, or our timid faith, a future not bound by
current judgments. At the cross, we meet
a love so powerful that it can transform who we are and what our future will
be. God’s love turns weeping to dancing,
darkness to light, judgment into hope, endings
into new beginnings, and the death of
“condemned already” into glorious eternal life. Thanks be to God!
No comments:
Post a Comment