“Choose Wisely”

John 3:1-21

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

3 Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2 He 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 unless God is with that person.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” 4 Nicodemus 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?” 5 Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ 8 The 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.” 9 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you the 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. 12 If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 

14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that 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. 18 Those 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. 19 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. 20 For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21 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.”

John 3:16.

The most well-known verse in the Bible. Children memorize it in Sunday school. The Gideons traditionally placed the verse on the front page of the Bibles that are in hotel rooms. It is used by missionaries as a starting point for evangelism. The man with the multi-colored wig seen at football games holds up a sign with the verse written on it, although most don’t know what it refers to – who is John and why is his birthday so important?

The verse is often lifted out of John, chapter 3 as a stand-alone that defines all one needs to know about faith. But understanding the context of John 3:16 is important. The verse falls within the story of Jesus’ meeting with Nicodemus. Nicodemus’ questions weren’t raised during a sermon or when Jesus was teaching crowds or when he was with his disciples. Nicodemus’ questions were spoken to Jesus in the dark of the night.

Nicodemus was a religious VIP with a list of credentials to his name. He had advanced theological degrees, honorary doctorates, and was prominent in the Jerusalem edition of Who’s Who. The Jews living near Jerusalem knew who he was, they recognized his face. Fame was nice, but not so nice when he wanted to be anonymous.

John 3 tells the story of Nicodemus visiting the new rabbi in town. An upstanding Pharisee such as himself avoided the company of lesser-known religious figures. The Pharisees, at this point, through of Jesus as a messianic wannabe. He had recently destroyed the Passover festival by driving the merchants and moneychangers out of the Temple, creating mass chaos.

Nicodemus felt the need to see this man. He waited until everyone had retired to their homes for the night before he went to see Jesus. Why was it so important for him to go in the dead of night to see Jesus? Questions! Questions a Pharisee shouldn’t have or acknowledge that he had them. They were questions of faith. So, Nicodemus goes to the one he thinks has answers, Jesus. By going to see Jesus, he acknowledges that the man came from God based on what he had seen and heard.

Questions, those that “inquiring minds want to know” the answers to. Questions we want the answers to just as much as Nicodemus did. Ones we need to know to pass the test, do well on the SAT’s, to fix the car, make the best dish for dinner, or create a winning bracket for the NCAA basketball tournament. We want answers to more complex questions as well: why the sky is blue, or how are solar flares created, or how do I know I will go to heaven.

That last question is more in line with those Nicodemus asked Jesus when he asks, “How can this be?” Jesus knows. Jesus starts right off with a difficult answer: “I tell you that no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus was taken aback. “How can anyone be born after growing old?” We would wonder the same thing. Physically it is impossible.

Jesus goes on to explain the difference. You must be born both by water and by the Spirit. One is born by water at birth. One is born by the Spirit by belief. Nicodemus’ understanding of the Spirit was what he had learned from the scriptures (the Old Testament for us). The Spirit came to be with someone for a particular task or time. When that was over, the Spirit left. Jesus refers to the Spirit that appeared at his baptism, the dove that accompanied God’s voice. The one that, later, would anoint the disciples at Pentecost. The same one that leads the disciples into ministry, the ministry we read about in Acts.

This is all confusing to Nicodemus. It is confusing to us. Questions of faith usually are. There aren’t easy answers. No “Easy” button to push or a host who provides the right question to the answer on Jeopardy. We want those easy answers, or at least understandable ones. John 3:16 by itself, out of context, is an easy answer. Believe in Jesus, have eternal life. This works if we want an answer at a basic or surficial level.

The basic answers have their place. When a child asks why the sky is blue, they don’t want to hear about the properties of light, the way refraction works in the atmosphere, or how water interacts with the Sun or how our eye picks up color. A child is much happier with the answer that God made the sky blue for us to enjoy.

Jesus tells Nicodemus that there aren’t easy answers to the questions of faith. Those answers have layers. Understanding one thing leads to an awareness of more we don’t understand.

You begin to understand at a deeper level by looking directly at what is hurting you, like the people were forced to do in the story of Moses and the serpent on the post in Numbers 21. The Israelites were impatient, were complaining, and generally speaking against God. God sent poisonous snakes whose bites killed many people. When the people went to God and admitted their sin God told Moses to make a serpent and lift it up on a pole. When the people looked at it, they were healed. The hurt we experience gets in the way of experiencing God’s love.

Hemmingway tells the story of a Spanish father who wanted to reconcile with his son who had run away from home to the city of Madrid. The father missed his son, so he put an ad in the paper: “Paco, meet me at the Motel Montana at noon on Tuesday. All is forgiven. Love, Papa.” Now Paco is a common name in Spain. When the father went to the hotel on Tuesday at noon, 800 young men named Paco were waiting for their fathers.

We are all desperate for forgiveness. That’s where John 3:16 leads…to verse 17.

“God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

The crux of the matter is forgiveness. Ephesians 2:4 says that “God’s mercy is so abundant and his love for us is so great that while we were spiritually dead in our disobedience, he brought us to life with Christ,” and that “It is by God’s grace you have been saved.” The problems, mistakes, and hurts of yesterday weigh us down today. Forgiveness takes the weight away.

We live with guilt. With those things we wish we’d never said or done. With bitterness and resentment that are the result of the injustice done to us. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were a way to get rid of the weight of unresolved guilt which pushes us down?

Keeping the guilt, resentment, and bitterness we have under the surface of life is like trying to keep a beach ball under water in the deep end of a swimming pool. You can do it for a while, but it becomes harder and takes more energy the longer you try to keep the ball submerged. Eventually you must let the beach ball go back to the surface where it becomes lighter and easier to manage. In the same way, unresolved guilt weighs us down. Forgiveness makes us lighter. This easy concept is hard to grasp, and harder to accept.

Jesus tells Nicodemus that understanding faith and forgiveness is easy, but he (and we) makes it complex. We want thorough answers to convince ourselves our questions must be harder than they seem. Jesus’ message is we have a choice. We can choose the darkness of sin and evil and live there. Or we choose the light of forgiveness. The answer to our question of faith and of forgiveness is this choice.

The story is told of Anna and Susan Warner who began writing to help the family financial situation. Their father, Henry Warner, lost their fortune in the 1837 depression. Anna wrote a song to include in her sister’s novel, Say and Seal. It was a short-lived but extremely popular work of fiction. The story included a Sunday school teacher’s ministry to a dying boy.

In his attempt to comfort the boy in his final hours, Mr. Linden, the teacher, recited the poem supplied by Anna Warner. William Bradbury, who wrote musical scores for Sweet Hour of Prayer, He Leadeth Me, and On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand, was mesmerized by the story and the poem. So, he wrote a score to accompany the poem.

Mr. Linden read the words, which, when accompanied by Bradbury’s music, have become the most famous children’s song of all time. We still sing it today. “Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me.”

Start with the basics, faith in Jesus and acceptance of God’s love and go from there. The choice to live in the darkness of sin and evil or to live in the light of forgiveness becomes easy when we embrace these basics.

Amen.