SCRIPTURE: John 3:14-21
TEXT: THEME: Salvation is found in a loving relationship with God. INTRODUCTION We began the next Certificate of Theological Education for Leadership class yesterday on the New Testament. The theme was on the context of the New Testament. The setting for the accounts as well as for the first hearers of the Gospel. One of the students said, “We look at the social political background but not the physical setting.” This brings another way to inform our understanding of the New Testament, the Gospels and Jesus. This brings me to this passage, where the author is talking about the Son of Man by drawing on a story from the People of God’s time in the wilderness with Moses. SCRIPTURE The focus of this passage is not on believing enough to secure eternal life, but on God loving us in ways that develops relationships. The Wilderness passage is a template for us to view and understand God’s love for the world. Freed Israelite slaves wandering in the desert complain to God about their accommodations and food. Unappreciative of what God has given them, God holds back the protections around these ungrateful campers and serpents entered in, biting and killing many of these newly freed slaves. Sometimes we cannot see what God is doing, until God stops helping us. “Moses, please talk to God to help us!” God tells Moses to fashion a bronze serpent and put it on a stick. If anyone who has been bitten looks up to the serpent, a symbol of their sin, they will see the location of God’s Glory in healing. The serpent on a stick helps the hearer to understand God’s actions which draw us into relationship. We are a people who struggle in our relationship with God. Gratitude is a practice that allows us to see what God is doing. But when we look only to ourselves, we can become blind to what God is doing around us and have grief, instead of gratitude. One of my professors in seminary identified the ‘sin’ of Adam and Eve as ‘self-pity’. This selfish view, considers the world according to the things that they want. When God forbids them from eating from the tree, they think that God is holding out on them and pity themselves, calling God a liar. Then they decide that they know better than God and chose against God’s will. Our world has its perils and protections. God’s love fills our landscape although there are times when we take what God does for granted, or we grieve over something that we believe we have lost. Jesus comes to show us how to live beyond commandments and into a relationship with God. Looking upon Jesus, reveals the very location of God’s glory. Jesus living in relationship with God, is light, but there are those who prefer to live uninspired lives centered around Greed. Professor Randi Walker, similarly has identified original sin as being ‘greed’. For each choice for darkness, there is an opposite choice for light. Death or life, consumption or stewardship, power or love, lying or honestly, falsehood or truth, privilege or acceptance, self-pity or selflessness, wars or partnerships, bullying or respect, materialism or relationships. We have a choice, but sometimes, we are so caught up in seeing, doing, surviving things in only one way that we prefer the dark to the light, hidden, familiar, knowing that to expect, but Jesus shows us that there is another way. APPLICATION Salvation is in being in relationship with God. Our relationship with God has an eternal consequence to it. This is what happens when the source and creator of life loves you and you love God. God outpours love over us through Jesus and then invites us to respond to the location of God’s glory, Jesus. How do we respond to God’s love and grace? So, what does being loved by God free us to live? We can choose to step out of darkness and live according to God’s light. As we look at the surrounding stories of this passage, Jesus reveals to us the possibility of being transformed or born again, of having our sins forgiven, of being a people who worship God in spirit and truth, of being accepted and treated lovingly even when we are caught in harmful behavior, of healing, of feeding the hungry, of protecting the oppressed, of being called to follow Jesus. Our faith is more than believing things about Jesus. Our faith is about being loved by God through Jesus and having God’s love lived out through us. This is what I see as a Spouse takes care of their partner through sickness and health. This what I see as we follow a call that is not about money but stewardship of God’s gifts. This is what I see as we take the threat of the pandemic to be about others more than ourselves and wear masks, get vaccinated, wash hands and keep 6 feet apart and gather in limited groups. This is what I see in those who contribute generously to the mission and work of this congregation. I see this in the clusters of caring that work together in the church whether for Bible Study, food pantry, choir, administration, preschool, in Dodge Hall Kitchen, at Rummage Sales or puttering around the church campus. This is what I see as we worship, in person and on Facebook. Reading mailed out sermons, or Upper Room devotions. Our community is praying, Caring by sending out cards. I got a couple calls from people who have received cards and said thank you with updates of what they are doing, and a ‘hello’, back at you. Learning through ETCL, or CTEL communities, expanding our theology to include the excluded. I just learned that author, Beth Moore has left the Southern Baptist Convention, because of how little they did in the support of abused women, their stance on having a woman in their pulpit preaching, of how they have not moved away from their history of slavery, and of how they treat those whom they consider sinful. How God loves us must get translated and interpreted in the way that we live as people who believe. CONCLUSION If they look up to the cross, and see the Son of God lifted up, they will see the Love God has for them, and the location of the Glory of God. Salvation is not about believing hard enough, salvation is about God loving us. God gives us his son, not as a sacrifice to die as a payment of our sins (that does not sound very loving and contrary to the Isaac and Abraham story) but to show us how to live loving God and loving others. Imagine loving others to the point where political powers becoming threatened and the religious authorities plot to have us killed. When we gaze at the cross, where the Son of Man hangs, we can see how Jesus never stops loving us and the location of the Glory of God.
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