March 19, 2021 John 3: 14-21
3Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a
leader of the Jews. 2He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are
a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do
apart from the presence of God.” 3Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no
one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” 4Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born
after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and
be born?” 5Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of
God without being born of water and Spirit. 6What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is
born of the Spirit is spirit. 7Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from
above.’ 8The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you
do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is
born of the Spirit.” 9Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of
Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? 11“Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we
know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our
testimony. 12If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can
you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13No one has ascended into heaven except the one
who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15that whoever believes in him may have eternal
life. 16“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. 17“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. 18Those who believe in him are not condemned; but
those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed
in the name of the only Son of God. 19And this is the judgment, that the light has
come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their
deeds were evil. 20For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the
light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21But 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.”
Numbers
21, one of God’s more interesting punishments upon the people. They were complaining so badly that poisonous
snakes were sent as punishment (BRONZE SERPENT: See note below). At God’s command, Moses created a bronze serpent,
presumably in the form of the poisonous snakes, and lifted it up on a
pole. When the snake was lifted up,
those who were bitten who looked upon it were saved from death.
As
the snake was lifted up in the wilderness, so Jesus was lifted up. When was Jesus lifted up? On the cross, that whoever believes in him
should have eternal life. That is the
catch and the parallel. Death was the
inevitability, for those who were bitten by the serpents and for those who have
chosen lives of sin and evil. Life was
regained when salvation was lifted up before them. It is one of the more interesting parallels that
Jesus draws from the Old Testament.
Why does
he do it? I suppose to draw on something
that Nicodemus would have known, as he was also a teacher, a Pharisee. It is as if Jesus is taking a different
direction. He tried getting him to wrap
his mind around the Spirit coming down. That
just seemed to frustrate Jesus in the lack of understanding from
Nicodemus. So how about appeal to an Old
Testament episode that Nicodemus could then work from. It is also a move from metaphor to
simile. “As” Moses lifted up the
serpent, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
There
is a shift in results as well. From the
kingdom of God, Jesus moves to talking about eternal life. These are synonymous as Jesus uses them, but it
moves to more direct language. Jesus is
lifted up and the result is eternal life.
Then Jesus develops on this.
It
happens not by chance but because God so loved the world that God provided
circumstances where God’s people would not perish but, through ‘his only son’,
have the potential to gain eternal life.
To
understand that God has done this through love, it is made clear that the Son
was NOT sent to condemn the world, but to save it. This is not the exercise of justice as humans
understand it, but mercy as God has provided it. So, to reinforce, those who believe are not
condemned. The world is already
condemned for the sins that its members have committed, because they have not
believed in the name of the only Son of God.
Jesus
is working back from the salvation that comes with his being lifted on the
cross, back through the love of God as its motivation, back through the need
for this salvation not because God is a Punisher, but because the punishment is
already in place and the people need a Savior.
This is being laid out step by step to Nicodemus but for us all to
understand.
Come
verse 19, Jesus moves to the language of the first verses of John. Chapter 1, vss. 3 and 4. In him (Jesus), was the life. The life was the light of all people, the
light that shines in the darkness. But
here, the concept of the darkness is unpacked.
Judgement comes because of the darkness.
Light came into the world, we already know from John 1 that the darkness
did not overcome it, but people loved darkness instead of the light because of
their evil deeds. These doers of evil
hate the light because they do not want their evil deeds to be exposed. Doers of evil are not living in a moral
vacuum. They know that what they are
doing is wrong, and Jesus tells us they want to hide what they are doing because
of that.
This circles
back to the message of salvation. Jesus
is sent from love for the people of the world.
The responsibility for the actions that require Jesus’ intervention are
not that Jesus brings some new judgement upon the world, but rather that the
world already knows the evil it has committed, its people have committed. But through Christ, the light is
fulfilled. People who do what is right
come into the light and their deeds are shown to have been done in God.
What
Jesus leaves unsaid, what he does not do is open his hands wide, look to
Nicodemus and say, “And I am that guy…”
Notes:
The Bronze Serpent
Why
did it have to be snakes? That was the
title of my sermon when this passage came up in the lectionary to preach
about. As the mechanism for saving those
who would otherwise die, the lifting of the snake and the lifting of Jesus on
the cross is the comparison being made here.
It is a rather unique way of inflicting punishment on the people. The punishments of the people for their
complaining against God during the Exodus was quite absolute. People died.
Obey God and live, disobey and die.
This
is not the only place where something causing pain and suffering is copied in metallic
form. In this case, the bronze snake is,
I assume, to be in the form of the poisonous snakes. Later on, when they are established as a
nation, the Israelites will go to war against the Philistines. In an attempt to corral the power of God and
use it to their advantage, the Israelites will march the ark of the covenant
down to the battlefield as some kind of divine weapon.
God’s
response is to let the Philistines capture the ark. But while it was held by the Philistines,
mice and boils became a plague, on the foodstuffs of the Philistines, and upon
their bodies. It resulted in them
sending the ark back, but with golden copies of the mice and boils as some kind
of offering of apology to the God of the Israelites.
There
is no explicit connection, except that copies were made of living creatures cursing
the people in the moment.
We
know the bronze serpent survives as a relic among the people of Israel because
in 2 Kings 18, very late in the time of the Southern Kingdom, King Hezekiah has
it hacked apart as part of his move to purge all non-Yahweh religious possibilities
from the Kingdom. So apparently, it
became some kind of religious symbol which runs counter to the Graven Images
Being Forbidden in the Ten Commandments.
Pastor Pete
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