Below the sermon audio is the sermon text. Oh the inexpressible glory of John 3:16!
Sermon preached at Trinity Church, Newport, RI; Sunday March 8th 2020, The Reverend Alan Neale, “By Night”
In 2004 Wendy and I moved to Philadelphia to begin ministry at The Church of the Holy Trinity, Rittenhouse Square. After one year in a rental apartment (and, boy, did I love apartment living) the church decided to buy a Rectory in walking distance to the church and the search began… in earnest.
One Sunday we “happened” to be walking along S.16th Street and saw a “for sale” sign. We jumped up trying to look into the house without much success; we then moved across the street to look at the house more fully and then we saw it… above the door, the gold (somewhat faded) number of the house… 316. “This is it…”… a house for a minister and wife committed to the powerful truth of John 3:16 living in a house of that number. And yes, the house was bought and refurbished and we lived there for the next nine years.
John 3:16 – only 25 or so words; John 3:16 what Dr. Billy Graham once described as ‘the Gospel in a nutshell’; John 3:16 plastered on sandwich boards now called human billboard advertising; John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
This past week astronomers say that they have detected the biggest explosion ever documented in the universe. Well, John 3:16 is the equivalent of that enormous explosion in the story of God’s love affair with God’s creation.
Spending time with this passage, this particular verse I became acutely aware that this is holy ground, in many ways it is the foundation and the summation of our faith. It contains truth that can shape and motivate even the most burdened of lives, it contains truth that we ignore, overlook, downgrade at our peril.
John 3:16 – the verse that describes so poignantly our predicament without God (perishing and without the eternal dimension of life now and beyond the grave). In Mark 4:38 the disciples fear that the sudden storm will destroy their boat and their lives and they plead “Lord, do you not care that we are perishing” – same Greek word used in John and Mark.
John 3:16 – shows indeed the intense, profound, costly care that the Lord has for us who are perishing. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son…”
When we look at the preceding verses in John chapter three we observe first a dialogue before ever the monologue occurs. In the dialogue Jesus welcomes Nicodemus and allows, nay encourages, him to ask questions – though even Jesus utters surprise at the shallowness of understanding expressed by this teacher of the law. In the monologue Jesus, or maybe some later writer, muses on the prevenient grace of God and the predicament of humanity left to its own devices.
Nicodemus “comes by night” (John 3:2); some suggest that this was the normal time for rabbis to teach but more recognize that John is making a statement about the hesitant, fearful, secretive nature of Nicodemus as he approaches Jesus. Later in John 13:30 we read that as soon as Judas left the disciples to enact his betrayal… “it was night”. Light and darkness is a great theme in John’s writings so it is significant that Nicodemus “comes by night.”
This teacher of the law clearly knows, believes certain truths about Jesus… he is a teacher/rabbi, he is from God and he performs signs for God is with him.
This teacher of the law in childlike naiveté takes issue with the concept of being born anew, again or (maybe a more helpful translation) from above, by the Spirit.
The last we hear from Nicodemus in this story is a question (3:9) “How can this be?”
Nicodemus appears twice more in John’s Gospel. In chapter 7 (vv.50-52) he appears to come to Jesus’ defense in the midst of a fierce conflict between Jesus and the religious authorities, but his defense is described by one commentator as “lukewarm advocacy” and when challenged he disengages.
And then in John 19 Nicodemus assists Joseph of Arimathea (another secret disciple) to bury the body of Jesus. John bluntly reminds that this is the same man who once before came to Jesus by night. John adds that Nicodemus brings an inordinate amount of burial spices for the body – is this Nicodemus finally coming into the light or does he weigh down Jesus’ body with so many spices knowing that Jesus will remain in the tomb. We know not the answer; we are left “in the dark”!
There are some who hearing the good news of the Gospel respond and receive in a moment, for such conversion is an event; for others, Nicodemus included, it is more a process. In 12 Step Programs there are many who “get it” immediately and are rescued from their addiction; for others it is a process beset with many beginnings.
But to return to John 3:16… this will always hold a special place in the hearts of countless Christians… it lays bare God’s love for the whole world and, for John, “the world” is code for all that is hostile to God’s will. So we can read with integrity John 3:16 as “God so loved the God-hating world.” And here, with I hope joyful wonder, we note that God does not ask the world if it wishes to be the recipient of God’s love; God just goes ahead and does it and sacrifices himself in the process; he enacts a preemptive strike of love. God loves us whether we like it or not. In the face of that kind of love, you and I either yield to God’s love or run away screaming, surely (as one commentator notes) “no-one can remain neutral to such extravagance”.
In his book, Surprised by Joy, C.S.Lewis writes that one day, while riding on the top of an Oxford ‘bus, he had the sense that he was “holding something at bay, or shutting something out”. He could either open the door or keep it shut, but to open the door “meant the incalculable”. He finally submitted himself to God, the most “dejected and reluctant convert in all of Christendom”. This happen in 1929, it was not until 1931 he surrendered himself to Christ… how very Nicodem-ean.
There remains hope for Nicodemus and many identify with him, even if they sense they shouldn’t! I hope that one day Nicodemus could read John 3:16 and make it his own… “For God so loved Nicodemus that he gave his only Son so that if Nicodemus believed he would not perish but have eternal life.”
Perhaps… the whole of our Lenten journey is having faith and confidence, or even despair and loss, to write our name into John 3:16.
Have you done this? Can you do this?
Lord, help us. AMEN