John 3: 16 says...

'Jesus said, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

“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.

“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. 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. 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. 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.”'

--John 3: 14-21

Is there a more often quoted line of Scripture than John 3: 16? You used to see someone holding a sign that said ‘John 3: 16’ at major sporting events, and I’ve seen more than a couple of churches with billboards and electronic signage that read ‘John 3: 16.” But in none of those cases does anyone actually spell out WHAT John 3: 16 says, let alone what it means. The citation has become a parody, mocked by everything from the Netflix animated comedy America: The Motion Picture to the wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin, who quipped that "Austin 3: 16 says I just whooped your…."well, I won’t finish that quote. 

These used to be everywhere.

So let’s talk about the most popular – and probably most misunderstood – sentence in the Bible. “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.” Longtime Episcopalians might recognize this sentence as one of the so-called Comfortable Words that a priest says after the Confession of Sin and just before the Passing of the Peace in our Rite I liturgies (or any Eucharist prior to 1976). Taken out of context it’s hard to tell who’s saying these words, to whom they’re saying them, or why. 

Jesus is the one who is speaking, but our lectionary doesn’t give us any further information. If we read a bit earlier, we learn that he is  speaking to Nicodemus, one of the Pharisees – that sect of Judaism devoted to the Law and keeping the traditions alive in the face of Roman occupation. This happens right after Jesus has performed his infamous Cleansing of the Temple, as we heard last week, and those religious authorities are upset. Nicodemus goes to Jesus under the cover of darkness. He’s intrigued by this rabbi from Nazareth and clearly sees that he is about doing the will of God, but his methods are confusing to the traditionalists. Nicodemus asks him to explain himself, give his platform, as it were, what are his ministry goals, etc. Jesus tells him – in the section just before the part we read this week – that a person cannot see the kingdom of God without being born from above, which is statement that isn’t just baffling to Nicodemus, but is still confusing for us today. Then Jesus brings up the story of Moses lifting up the bonze serpent in the dessert – a story found in the book of Numbers - and how the people who looked upon that bronze serpent were healed of their infirmities. In the same way, Jesus says, those who look upon him when he is lifted up – that is, when he is crucified – will also be healed. 

And then comes the famous line: “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.” What does Jesus mean here? What he doesn’t mean is that God gave the Son as some sort of penal sacrifice for the repayment of everyone’s sins – what is known as substitutionary atonement. This idea doesn’t even come into existence until the Mid-dle Ages, and today a lot of churches and preachers use this idea – that Jesus died to pay back to God for your individual sins because you’re a terrible person – as a means of guilt-tripping people into following them. It’s an abusive tactic and not at all in-keeping with what Jesus means when he says that God “gave his only Son.” The Greek word didomi used here means to “to give freely of one’s accord with goodwill.” That doesn't sound like substitutionary atonement to me. God’s gift, freely given to humanity, is God’s own self, not for the purpose of appeasing a bloodthirsty God, but so that the world can know God more fully, more intimately than ever before.

John 3: 16 gets quoted all the time, but does anyone ever hear folks quote John 3: 17? “For God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” Too often churches and preachers use John 3: 16– and, honestly, John’s Gospel as a whole - to condemn those who do not actively or openly affirm the same beliefs as them, but it’s clear in verse 17 that that isn’t God’s plan. Jesus is not here to judge and condemn and punish but to draw people together, to bring them out of the darkness of ignorance, into the light of revelation.

We focus so much on John 3: 16 that the rest of the interaction with Nicodemus gets lost, including verses 20 and 21, where Jesus makes his mission clear: he is the light coming into a world where people have grown accustomed to darkness. It feels like home, maybe because in the darkness we get to enjoy our own illusions of light, our sweet magical memories of being righteous and pure, of having good intent, of having bright ideas and shiny opinions. We’ve been the heroes of our own story in the paradise of memory, after all. The darkness allows people to hide from the truth, be blissfully blind, so as to fit societal standards. Folks go with the flow in the dark. Maybe that’s why Nicodemus uses the nighttime to come see Jesus.

What shall be gained, then, by aligning with the light? The short answer is freedom, the freedom to see things – to see the world and to see ourselves – as they really are. And the freedom to be who we really are, namely the covenant people of God, remembering that when we look upon Jesus we find our healing, just as the people in the dessert found theirs when looking at the bronze serpent on the pole – which is, incidentally, still used as a symbol of healing on virtually every ambulance you see.

We must acknowledge, however, that the use of words like “darkness” and “light” or “black” and “white” have racial connotations and have been twisted over the years to equate that which is dark or black with being fallen or even evil, while light and whiteness are associated with purity and God. This is a sinful and false interpretation of Scripture and it must always been decried. Rather, a more appropriate dichotomy than darkness and light might be ignorance and revelation. Those to whom Jesus speaks through the words of John’s Gospel are those who are willfully ignorant, convinced that anything new will destroy them – they remind me of the Phantom of the Opera, who turns away from the “cold, unfeeling light.” 

But in Jesus is revelation, the unveiling of God’s love, mercy, and grace, that is free to all , and in this new covenant between us and God, mediated by Jesus through the waters of baptism, is true heal-ing and the kind of life that is rooted in the eternal love of God, for which God gave Jesus to the world, not for judgment, but that all may saved by love, mercy, and grace.