A sermon by Youth Minister Aaron French, March 22, 2009
John 3:14-21
How much do I have to believe to be a Christian? It’s a question that we all wrestle with as we find our way as Christians. Many churches have a basic statement of belief that congregants recite together in worship, and depending on the church you grew up in, many of you may still be able to recite the Apostles Creed or the Nicene Creed from memory, “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son our Lord,” and so forth. We don’t do that here, but isn’t there a core set of beliefs we have to affirm in order to call ourselves Christians? What if we can’t affirm all of those beliefs, what then? I feel that this scripture, John 3:14-21, really simplifies these issues.
Let us be clear: Despite the strong sounding language about condemnation, this passage is about God’s love, not God’s judgment. Jesus is a living expression of God’s love for each one of us. God does not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world. But then comes the kicker: “But whoever does not believe is condemned already.” There’s a way of reading that verse that understands it to say that if you don’t believe in the gospel, you are going to hell. And if you haven’t heard the gospel, then you don’t even stand a chance. Quite frankly, it’s a verse that has been used to justify many evils in the name of spreading the gospel and saving “heathen” souls. “Believe it or else!” it seems to say; “Believe it or face eternal damnation!”
I’d like to invite you to another way of reading this difficult verse. It’s a way of reading it that understands that we only find our true lives in relationship with God. Time after time God revealed himself—herself, if you wish, or it might be better simply to say Godself—to the people of Israel. What Christians call the Old Testament and Jews call the Tanakh is a record of God’s self-manifestations and what they meant for the people of ancient Israel. For Christians, God’s ultimate, ongoing self-revelation is in Jesus Christ. And why does God reveal Godself to us? It is not to condemn us, to say that we have to believe in “Him” in a particular way or else suffer the consequences. God is not on a power trip, commanding us to believe and obey so that every one will know who is really in charge. No, in revealing himself to us, God is calling us into relationship with him.
The first part of Jesus’ great commandment is “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” In Leisurely Lectionary, our Wednesday morning Bible study, the question came up, “But how do you love God?” I would say that it starts as a natural response to the knowledge that God loves you. It starts when you wake up and realize that you are cursed only insofar as you do not know God’s love for you, and that in reality you are blessed by the gift of your life and the great love that God has for you. Love calls forth love.
To walk in the light of God’s love is life itself. But how we love the darkness, writes the evangelist! We’re like the creatures that scurry to cover when you pry a board off in an old house, those strange many-legged things that can’t stand the light of day. This is how John says we are when faced with God’s love. We love the darkness. In shame and pride and denial and disbelief so many of us stay locked up in the darkness of ourselves, watching this gift of life turn sour. And this is the condemnation, that we suffer from not knowing that God loves us. We think we are complete unto ourselves, that we ought to be able to do everything for ourselves, even as we watch all our best efforts fail. How painful our lives are in the darkness, how painful and incomplete! Ever wanting, never trusting, always scurrying back into the dark. Every person in this sanctuary has tasted that darkness at some point in his or her life. And every person here has seen that power that darkness has to destroy a life. I needn’t look any further for an example of this than just yesterday, when an old friend of my roommates’ knocked on the door from out of the blue. He was in town from Ohio to do an alcohol intervention with a friend of his. The situation was dire, as the man had locked himself in a room with his liquor and a handgun, and was suffering a total psychological breakdown. Fortunately, my roommates’ friend was able to persuade him to check himself into a psychological care facility. I pray that he will be able to recover and lead a full and rich life, instead of disappearing into the darkness as so many do.
We each are given such a short time to dwell on this earth, and our lives are smaller still when we spend them in the dark. We don’t even know ourselves in the dark, who we really are or what our lives are really worth. It leads us to hateful actions, destructive to ourselves and to others. But God calls us into the light of his boundless love, into lives that matter, not just for now and for ourselves alone, but for always and for everyone. We only become our true selves in loving relationship with God. This is what it means to be made in God’s image: We are made with the capacity to give love and receive love. Indeed, we need God’s love, and cannot live without it, though many try. Living in the darkness is the condemnation! God reveals himself to us in Jesus Christ not to condemn us, but save us from the powers of darkness by showing us his great love for us, the love that makes our lives complete. This is why the great Reformation theologian Martin Luther could call John 3:16 “the gospel in a nutshell”: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believed in him should have eternal life.” Many of you had to memorize that verse as children: The gospel in a nutshell.
So how much do you have to believe to be a Christian? Christianity is not a matter of right belief, but of loving response. You are a Christian if your heart is open to God’s love for, in, and through Jesus Christ and, knowing you are loved by God, you respond to that love. The first part of Jesus’ great commandment is not “Believe it or else,” but “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind.” The second part is “love your neighbor as yourself,” and it follows from the first. When you feel God’s love for you, you want others to know that love, too. Believe me, it’s the one thing in this world that there’s more than enough of to go around. If you have not felt God’s love for you through Jesus Christ, but earnestly crave to know it, and have put yourself in the way of discovering it for yourself by your thoughts and deeds and prayers, then you are a Christian, too. Do not despair; you will know the love of God in good time.
“How much do I have to believe to be a Christian?” Each of us will find his or her own way as a Christian, into a way of believing that we are comfortable with, that fits, that is authentic and true, as long as we first know God’s love for us in and through Jesus Christ. It is up to each of us to work out the implications of that great love for ourselves. Don’t believe it. Know it. It will transform you. And it will save you from the darkness.