For Love of the World

“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.” From John 3:1-17

This Sunday in Lent, we hear perhaps one of the most misconstrued, or at least limited in its context, verses in Scripture. We’ve all seen John 3:16 written on signs held up at ball games, on billboards, and bumper stickers. When people ask whether we are saved, it often centers on this evening encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus. There is a much broader context to this encounter than a simple binary answer.

My Greek professor in seminary always highlighted the irony of the full passage. Jesus invites Nicodemus to know that he must have a renewal experience from “above” that will give him a sense of the Spirit that will change everything. Nicodemus takes this rebirth literally and asks how on earth one can be physically born twice.

We are meant to chuckle and meant to remember all the times we misunderstood what was being offered to us. I do not think the passage is meant to strike fear in our hearts, but instead to crack us open to mystery.

Scripture witnesses to us over and over again that we are loved because we are children of God. This is true in the Hebrew Scriptures when we are reminded that we are made in the imago Dei — the very image of the One who creates us. Jesus models a closeness and intimacy with God that we are invited to imagine for ourselves. So, I am always suspicious of any interpretation of Scripture that narrows the scope of God’s love or instills fear in us.

When we know ourselves to be loved, we are called to respond, and that is a posture of gratitude and thanksgiving, not one of fear or scarcity. It does not divide us from others but connects us deeply in kinship.

A narrow interpretation of this passage is also highly individualistic and misses the communal nature of Jesus’ ministry and our own calling as the Church. A narrow interpretation also misses the emphasis in 3:17. God sent the gift of Jesus into the world to save the WORLD — not just us. Not just people who agree with us. Not even just people. The world and all the created order are loved by God. Salvation must include the very stuff of the universe to complete the vision of God.

That kind of love is so expansive I suspect we cannot really understand it. Thank God. How amazing to be loved by a God who has such an expansive view of the world and the creation that we are overwhelmed. To encounter that level of mystery is humbling. Only through that sense of awe do we begin to see the world as God sees it. I hope we all find a moment when our sense of awe cracks open our own view and makes us love that which we have only seen as unlovable. That is to be truly born from above.

Peace, Beth +