Tag: bible

The Most Memorized Scripture

Scriptures that Define Us

Our next series is titled “Scriptures that Define Us.” It is a collection of scriptures that people from my church or who read this blog have lifted up as scriptures that define our faith in some way. Be it our identity, our foundational beliefs, our values, or some combination of these and more, these scriptures get at the core of what it means to be Christian – and they lead us to some interesting points of wrestling in our faith.

I debated where to begin this collection of scriptures. Most of them are well known, but I landed on this passage from John because it is the beginning. It’s the scripture that first introduced so many to the Gospel of Christ, the truth of God’s love for us and the power of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

We begin with the scripture that most of us first memorized when we were in elementary school. Found in the Gospel of John, in the midst of a conversation with a man named Nicodemus where Jesus was teaching about being born again and transformed by the light of the world, we read:

John 3:14-21 | Love, Light, and Lifted Up

“And 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, NRSVUE)

Commentary

Because of the way John wrote this Gospel, there is a theological richness to what is being said here. Each of these points: the son of Man being lifted up, the Love of God to send his only son, and the light falling on people in darkness have an Old Testament parallel and help communicate an important piece of the Jesus story and what we, as Christians, believe.

The passage begins by comparing the lifting up of the Son of Man (which is to say Jesus’ crucifixion) to the way Moses lifted up a serpent in the desert. This story of Moses can be found at Numbers 21:4-9. It tells a story of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness when, after they grumble against God, venomous snakes descend on them and begin biting them. God tells Moses to fashion a bronze serpent on a staff in response to this, and to hold it high where the Israelites can look upon it. When an Israelite bit by a snake looks to the bronze serpent, they are healed.

At first read, most of us are at a loss as to what this has to do with Jesus, but the weight of this comparison is in the symbolism of what snakes meant to the Israelite people. From the book of Genesis when the serpent gets Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge (Gen 3), snakes are associated with sin and forces contrary to the will of God. When God has Moses fashion this serpent of bronze to bring healing to the Israelites, what happens is this: They must look upon sin in order to find healing. (Some scholars even go so far as to say that they must look upon sin forged through fire (as bronze would have been) and thus made pure.)

So, in the same way when the Son of Man is lifted up, so we must look upon the cross and recognize the weight and sight of sin in order to find healing and wholeness – in order to find the abundant life God wants for us.

And that’s what John tells us in the next passage, that one we love so much from Sunday School:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16, KJV)

This passage gets at the heart of the Christian faith, of the hope we have in Jesus the Christ. We believe that God loves us. We believe that God wants us to have this everlasting life with him. And we believe that -just as Abraham, when asked, offered his son to God (Genesis 22) – so God gave his son to us.

However, while God spared Isaac in the Abraham story, we did not spare Jesus. When the God-light came into the world, people ran for darkness. (John draws here from the language of Isaiah 9:2, something quite familiar to us following advent.) The people ran for darkness and rejected the light. We, as a human collective, rejected the light and love of God, choosing darkness, and lifting the fullness of our sin – the crucifixion of an innocent God-made-flesh – up for all to see.

Then, of course, there is a resurrection, but this scripture doesn’t quite get there, so we’ll hold that until next week.

Today’s Questions

For God so loved… Some say that these simple four words are the crux of our whole faith. This simple truth that God loves you, that God has a vested interest in your unique life and story. Where have you seen or experienced evidence of God’s love for you and for the world?

This comparison of Jesus on the Cross to the Bronze Snake in Numbers is striking and worth wrestling with as an image and a theology. What do you think of the crucifixion? Do you consider the image an important piece of your faith or do you dwell more on other parts of the Jesus story like his teachings or the resurrection?

If we boil John’s writing here down to its simplest parts, I believe he is communicating that an important part of our faith is that we find healing and wholeness by looking upon sin, by acknowledging the dark, messy hard parts of our stories. In what ways do you look upon sin to find wholeness?

Are your deeds in the light or are you still trying to hide some things in the darkness? God sees all, what’s done in light and truth and what’s done in the dark. How can you bring all your work into the light?

A Blessing for Your Week

Child of God,

May gazing upon sin, evil, and those things done in the dark

Those you did and those done to you –

Ultimately, bring you healing and wholeness.

May God meet you in your gazing

With forgiveness, grace, and love.

May the Light of the World shine upon you,

And may you know that you are loved.

Amen.