4th Sunday in Lent (Year B)
– Sunday, March 18, 2012
Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church,
Lancaster, PA
Texts: Ephesians 2:1-10; John 3:14-21
Why
are you here? No, I mean, seriously, why are you here? What is so
important about church that you dragged yourself out of bed the
morning after St. Patrick's Day, got yourself together, chased down
the kids, in order to spend an hour or so of your morning here
sitting next to these people listening to me? You could be finishing
your laundry or doing the dishes or catching up on email or any of
the other twenty things on your to-do list that will be waiting for
you when you get home. You could be catching up on sleep that you
might miss during restless nights, or, you know, maybe actually
spending some time taking care of yourself after taking care of
everyone else. How many of you actually get a day to really rest and
do things that give you peace in your life? Do you get a whole day
every week? Do you get even a little slice every day? [looking for
show of hands] I thought so.
So
what compels you to choose to be here when you could be so many other
places doing so many other things? Maybe it's because this is what
you've always done, or maybe because you come with your family. Is
it because you want to learn how to be a better person, or because
you're trying to bring up your children the right way? These are all
understandable reasons. But we have to ask, does God want us to be
here? And if so, why? Does God ask us to have at least 70 percent
attendance on our report cards in order to just barely squeak by
heaven's entry requirements? Well, no. We know that. In fact,
Jesus doesn't ever talk about going to church in order to follow him,
or in order to obtain eternal life rather than condemnation.
So it
seems that God's vision for our Christian lives is about something
more than going to church. So what are our Christian lives
about? Why are we Christians? Why are you a Christian? Why should
anyone be a Christian? In the midst of all the competing demands for
our time, energy, money, and devotion, given all the other gods we
could and do follow in the world (and I'm not talking about other
religions), given how hard it is just to keep this church going from
week to week, why should we be Christians? When I “googled” this
question last night, someone put up a website of 23 reasons why I
should be a Christian and reason number one was “so you don't get
destroyed in hell.” While it wasn't ever put to me in so many
words, this was what I understood to be the reason when I was growing
up. I'd heard about heaven and hell and I had been taught that I had
to believe, I had to have faith, in order to saved. I remember
wondering what kind of faith and how much of it was necessary. I
remember wondering over and over again that if someone put a gun to
my head and asked me if I believed in God, with a yes resulting in my
death, if I would believe or not. I couldn't come up with a better
test in my mind. It was the only thing that proved it to me. And
so, I thought, being a Christian must be to die believing in God and
Jesus, and that somehow that secured me a place in heaven. Maybe.
But in
order to really understand what it means to be a Christian and why we
should be one, we need to wrestle with another question, and that's,
“why Jesus?” Why did the God of Israel, the Father, send Jesus
the Son, to his people? And this is where I think we need to listen
very closely to John today. We all know John 3:16 so well that we
might not ever really listen to it and think about what Jesus is
saying. “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.”
Why
Jesus? Why did the Son come down from heaven? Because God so loved
the world. The whole wide world. “The itty bitty babies, a-you
and me brother...and sister.” But more than that. God so loved
the fish, and the birds, and the trees, the fungi, the bacteria, the
mountains, the beaches, the rivers, the oceans. The word behind
“world” here is kosmos,
and it means the whole universe, the stars, the black holes,
the infinite expanses of space. God sent Jesus because God so loved
all that too. But more than that. God loved YOU. That's right.
God sent Jesus because God so loves YOU out of all the billions who
have lived...and also because God so loves all the people you can't
stand. And all the people you don't agree with. And the people who
blow up suicide bombs in Afghanistan. And the 16 innocent, murdered
people there, and the soldier who killed them too. And all those in
uniform who are made to do things we can't imagine. And we who send
them there.
We get
hung up on the second half of John 3:16 - “so that everyone who
believes in him may not perish by may have eternal life.”
Sometimes we think that God sent Jesus in order to draw a line in the
sand between those who believe in him and those who do not. But the
next verse helps us out a bit, John 3:17, and it's a verse I think
just as worthy of memorizing as the one before it: “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.” Woah. God did not
send Jesus in order to set up a new hoop to jump through, as if there
weren't enough already. God did not send Jesus to raise the bar of
salvation. God did not send Jesus in order to fill up the vacant
lots in hell. God sent Jesus to save the world, the whole world, the
world he loved so dearly, like the way you love your children. And
as you are willing to lay down your life for your children, so God
the Son was willing to lay down his own life for his Father's
children, for his friends, the same ones who sent him to the cross.
And so
who is this God who so loves the world? This is a God who shines
light into the dark world, into our darkness, into us who love
darkness. God is a God who enters into your darkness and calls you
into the light. And yes, in the light, your sin, and my sin, and all
the sin of all of us who are dead in sin, is exposed, and forgiven.
God is a God who recognizes that all of us who are at one time or
another unbelievers are all condemned already because we cannot
recognize God in the suffering Christ, in the crucified criminal.
This is a God who loves the whole world, who loves you, so much that
he simply cannot allow your sins, your failure to see, to define the
future of your relationship with him. This is God who comes to meet
you here, and also every day, wherever you are, in the most unlikely
places, and says, “here I am! I love you!” And we say, “wow!,”
that's amazing, and we are able to trust that we'll find God wherever
we go.
What
does it mean to be a Christian? It is to meet the crucified and
risen God. Really, to meet him in Jesus Christ, and thereby to be
graced with a radical trust in a God who loves the world, who loves
you, with a radical love. Why be a Christian? That question doesn't
even matter. You are a Christian, because Christ met you and
made you one, in those waters or some other baptismal bath. You are
Christians, you are those who have met God in Christ so that you can
trust and even recognize him out in the world that he so loves.
And
so, Christians, people of God, why are you here today? Well, I can't
answer that question. But God is not keeping an attendance book.
Being here is not the goal. As the baptized Christians you are, part
of your ministry might be here, but more importantly it's out there.
You are being a minister of the God who so loves the world when you
parent, when you work, when you do your laundry or the dishes or take
a moment to give someone a smile. When you're here, I invite you to
keep your eyes and ears open for God. Watch for those God-sightings.
Consider where God is, and what God is doing, and then, try to
recognize God wherever you are. Because I promise you that the God
who so loves the whole world is there, and it is there that we are
called to be with him. Amen.
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