Second Lent

       February 17, 2008

     A man was driving to work when a truck ran a stop sign, hit his car broadside, and knocked him unconscious.  Passersby pulled him from the wreck and revived him.  He began to struggle violently and had to be tranquilized by the paramedics.  Later, when he had calmed down, they asked him why he had fought so hard against those trying to help him.  He said, “I remember the impact, then nothing.  I woke up on a concrete slab in front of a huge, flashing ‘Shell’ sign.  And somebody was standing in front of the ‘S!’”

     It is right and a good and joyful thing to struggle to stay out of that place.  That was in the back of the mind of a good man named Nicodemus.  Jesus responds to his inquiry by telling him something about being born again, being born anew, being born from above.

     There are hundreds of jokes about born-again Christians.  A visitor from out of town walked in to a charismatic Episcopal church.  He saw an empty seat about one-third of the way down the aisle. 

     “Excuse me,” he said to the man one seat over, “but is the seat next to you saved?”

     The man replied, “No, but I’m praying for it!”

     Comedians like them.  “I thought about being born again, but my mother refused.”  “Taking pot-shots at born-again Christians is like hunting dairy cows with a scope and rifle.”  There are many more.  But, of course, humor very often disguises something that causes anxiety or about which we have doubts and questions.  We laugh, while at the same time, we wonder.  We want some assurance that God is big enough to take care of us.

     Today we hear one of those stories of blessed assurance again.  Hearing the same story over and over can anesthetize us and we can miss the point of it all.  The Gospel for this Second Sunday in Lent gives us a familiar story.  We have heard it many times.  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”  John 3:16 is one of those stories that we have heard over and over.  Even those with little or no religious conviction can quote the passage.  But, have we really heard it?  Do we realize how totally revolutionary such a statement is?  Perhaps most importantly, do we believe what John 3:16 says?  That’s the central message of the passage.  Everyone who believes in this incredible gift will not perish.  Accepting the truth of this passage brings about a recreating change in the life of the believer.

     The change comes about when we fall in love with the one called Jesus the Christ and allow him to take center stage in our hearts and lives.  This Thursday we can ask that he shoot his arrow of love into our hearts again, so that Valentine’s Day might take on a new and different meaning.  Once that arrow is in place, all the other loves in our life take on deeper significance and we stop taking them for granted.  That arrow of love helps us know forgiveness for past wrongs and helps us grow in understanding God’s will for our lives.  The presence of that arrow helps us become aware that we are citizens of God’s Kingdom, a redeemed, ransomed child of God, and an inheritor of eternal life, which is the very nature of God.

     It is fatally easy to think of Christianity as something to be discussed and not as something to be experienced.  Yes, it is important to have an intellectual grasp of Christian truth, but it is far more vital to have a deep, living experience of the power of the one called Jesus the Christ.  It is not necessary for me to understand the intricacies of human anatomy in order to be treated for a particular illness or to undergo surgery for something that must be removed or corrected.  This Thursday, Valentine’s Day, the baby brother in our family, Brother Randy, will undergo something called an “aortic ephemeral bypass with graft” surgical procedure at UVA.  Dr. Louise knows what that means; Randy and I do not.  I have faith that the members of the surgical team at UVA paid attention in class and passed all their anatomy and surgery classes. 

     In the realm of spiritual matters I believe God in Christ knows me far better than I can ever know myself.  I would go out on a limb and say that might apply to you, as well.  At the heart of Christianity there is mystery, but it is not the mystery of intellectual appreciation, but the mystery of redemption.

     So, as we continue our Lenten pilgrimage, what does John 3:16 mean to us?  I want to suggest three things out the many meanings.  First, John 3:16 means that God is as Jesus showed him to be.  In the mission, message, and ministry of Jesus we are shown a God who loves us, cares for us, wants nothing more than to forgive us, and wants us to know how dear we are to the loving heartbeat of the universe.  Jesus reminded his followers, both then and now, that if they desire to know anything about God they are invited to look at him.

     Secondly, John 3:16 means that Jesus is the Son of God.  Just as we must understand Good Friday in the light of the temptations in the desert, so we can understand his special entrance into history in Mary’s silence on Good Friday.  In the person of Jesus the Christ we see the mind and intent of God.  Jesus was so in tune with the purposes of God the Father that in the actions of Jesus we see the actions of God.  Like Father, like Son.  The acorn does not fall far from the tree.  A chip off the old block.  It is the very basic truth of the Incarnation that God, in love and in freedom, chose to become like us.  God became flesh and blood.  Adam’s rebellion, in which we so readily participate, raised an invisible cross in the heart of God.  In the coming cross, upon which the Son will hang, flesh is broken and blood is shed in order for proper atonement to be made.  The invisible cross in the heart of God is made visible in history on Calvary.

     Finally, it the world that God so loved.  We stake everything on the fact that what Jesus said is true.  It is the world that God loved and continues to love.  We must, then, strive to do what he commands.  If it is the world that God loves we must expand our understanding of neighborhood.  If it is the world that God so loves then Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Mormons, and Southern Baptists are included in that love and we must love our neighbors.  It summarizes the law; “you (and I) must love God with all our heart, minds, soul, and strength and we must love our neighbors as ourselves.”  We have to stop and ask, “Who decreed that they should be our enemies?” 

     We need to remember that it was God’s idea, God’s decision to send his Son into the world for the purpose of paying the high ransom for our very souls.  It all originated with God.  Apparently, it is the very nature of God to demonstrate to us time and time again the extent to which he is willing to go to bring his lost, wondering children home.

     So, when you have done the best job you can with your Lenten discipline and you come to the passion of Palm Sunday you may ask, why?  When you walk through the days of Holy Week and come to Maundy Thursday and celebrate the gift of the Eucharist you may ask, why?  When you look at the Lord’s agony in Gethsemane and see a man praying that the cup might pass him by, but praying “not my will, but thy will be done,” you may ask, why?  When you endure the awful silence of Holy Saturday and wonder when God might speak you may ask, why?  When you hear the victorious shout of life on Easter day you may ask, why?

     And the answer always come in the same old story, hopefully heard in a new way, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”  It is, after all, the greatest story ever told.  Amen.   

         ~The Rev. G. Thomas Mustard