John 3:14-21
This morning…I want to tell you about a guy I went to high school with.
- Billy Frichal.
- We were members of the same church.
- We graduated together.
- I went on to Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.
- Later seminary…becoming a Lutheran Pastor.
- Billy went on to the University of Wisconsin – Madison, WI.
- Later becoming a Medical Doctor.
Bill…years later…shared this with me…in a letter:
- “I grew up in the church.
- Then I grew away from the church.
- College…medical school and then to Vietnam as a battalion surgeon.
- A MASH surgeon: (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital).
- A place where I grew in cynicism.
- A place where I found myself amid rice paddies.
- Under the most inhuman conditions.
- The sounds and smells of war and injured and dead bodies.
- I grew away from God.”
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Bill’s relationship with God (or absence of a relationship with God) helps me understand what Jesus is talking about in today’s reading when he holds together love and judgment.
- “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” he says.
- Insisting that “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world.
- But in order that the world might be saved.”
Humanity…says Jesus…is like my running buddy Bill:
- Jesus’ love letter shows up…and suddenly we must make a choice.
- This is the judgment:
- That the light has come into the world…and we prefer darkness.
The word our Bible translates as “judgment” is actually the root of our English word “crisis.”
- And that gives us an important clue to understanding what Jesus is getting at.
- Because what is a crisis?
- What is a judgment?
- It is a moment of truth.
- A turning point.
- A decision for one way and against another?
Robert Frost wrote:
- Two roads diverged in a wood, and
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. - It’s where the rubber meets the road…and you must sort among all the maybes and the half-formed movements in your life and choose one.
- You cannot go on the way you have been any more.
- You must choose.
- And Bill chose darkness.
It’s like Cheryl Strayed says in her book…Wild: (Also a movie).
- Her book is a first-person memoir of her 1,100-mile hike along thePacific Crest Trail.
- From the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to the border with Washington State.
- The story contains flashbacks to prior life occurrences that led her to begin her mountain-walking journey.
Cheryl was devastated by her mother’s death when she was 22 years old.
- Her stepfather disengaged from her family.
- And her brother and sister remained distant.
- Cheryl became involved inheroin
- And she and her husband divorced.
Seeking self-discovery and resolution of her enduring grief and personal challenges.
- At age 26…Cheryl set out alone.
- On a 1,100-mile journey.
- Having no prior backpacking experience.
- Wildintertwines the stories of Strayed’s life before and during the journey.
- Describing her physical challenges and spiritual realizations while on the trail.
And so…whatever our crises is…
- Something shines a big fat spotlight on where you are:
- “You Are Here” on the maze-like map of your life.
- And the map shows that you have come as far down this hallway as you can.
- And now you must choose which way to go.
- Cheryl chose life.
“This is the judgment!” says Jesus.
- That the light comes into the world.
- And people choose.”
Of course…it often does not feel like a choice.
- Often it feels like we are stuck where we are.
- No matter how much we recognize a need to change.
- As the old prayer of confession has it:
- “We are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.”
And that is precisely what Jesus is talking about in this passage.
- When we read that “people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil” we do not identify.
- Because we think of “evil” as deliberately villainous and despicable.
- And we know that’s not us.
But that’s not what Jesus is saying.
- The word he uses for “evil” was originally used to talk about the work of slaves.
- People without choices.
- Forced to toil continually with no results.
- Knowing that no matter how hard they worked their only reward would be another day of toil.
- That is evil.
- And that is something we can identify with.
The sense of being trapped in futility.
- Knowing this is no way to live.
- Yet seeing no way out of our maze.
- This is the human condition.
- And this is what Jesus is talking about.
- The crisis…what Jesus came to shine a light onto…
- Is that we are stuck in futility.
- And human sin…even when Jesus shows us another way…
- Causes us to prefer to stick with the devil we know.
- This is the judgment:
- That the light came into the world…
- And we prefer darkness.
My boyhood friend…Bill…grew up in a good and loving church.
- And came from a good and loving family.
- But he grew in cynicism.
- War and worry and hate and fear and anger got the best of him.
- And he chose death instead of life.
- And he could not imagine finding his way back.
That is what Jesus is talking about.
- But it doesn’t have to be that way.
- God did not go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger.
- He came to help.
- To put the world right again.
And this is why:
- So that no one need be destroyed.
- “Come to me” Jesus said.
- “All you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens…and I will give you rest.”
- Bring your futility to me and set it down.
Some 3,300 years ago Moses led a nation of slaves to freedom.
- They spent decades in a desert as toilsome as slavery.
- Finally…the day came when they stood on the threshold of the Promised Land.
- Behind them lay bleak desert.
- Ahead of them a banquet of green pastureland.
As they stood poised to cross into this land…Moses spoke to them about making a choice.
- You Are Here…he said…pointing to this pivotal moment in history.
- Now decide which way you are going to go.
- “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death…blessings and curses.
- Choose life so that you and your descendants may live…
- Loving the Lord your God…
- Obeying him…
- And holding fast to him.
- For that means life to you and length of days.”
- Choose life.
A postscript:
- What Bill wanted to report to me in his letter is that literally amid the rice paddies.
- Under the most inhuman circumstances.
- The sounds and smells of war.
- He heard on his small transistor radio what he called the one sane voice.
- The words of a radio preacher.
This one voice was not enough to stand against the blood.
- But what he had heard in the rice paddies…
- He heard again at the baptism of his daughter.
- And he was drawn into the hearing of the Word and the life of the congregation’s faith community.
He will never be the same.
- Never without the scars of war.
- Nevertheless…he wrote:
- “It is as if I have been swept up by…
- And become captive to…
- The wonderful message of God’s grace.”
- Bill chose life!