March 20, 2011 - Lent 2

God Sends Jesus
John 3:1-17
Lent 2 – March 20, 2011

I've always had a certain affection for this story, and for the character of Nicodemus. It started back in college, when our Lutheran Campus Ministry pastors came up with a Bible study called “Nic at Nite” - you know, like the TV channel, except it was based on this story from the gospel of John. And it wasn't your typical Bible study. It was more of a discussion group – a chance for a bunch of college kids to get together and talk about our faith - & even more important, for us to ask the big questions of our faith. Who is God? Who is Jesus? What do they have to do with my life? What do they want from me? All those good questions.

But this gospel story – it was the basis for that group, because Nicodemus, who only shows up in John's gospel, and then only 3 times, comes to Jesus with questions. This is the first time we meet him, and it seems that Nicodemus, this Pharisee and leader of his people, has heard about Jesus. Now, we're only in chapter three, so you know this is early in Jesus' ministry, and at this point, he hasn't done all that much. He's called a few disciples, he's done the whole changing water into wine thing, and oh yeah, he just finished turning the tables over in the temple. That got some attention!

So now Nicodemus is curious, and he comes to Jesus with these questions, probably expecting some clear answers. He doesn't come across that way, as a questioning person, not at 1st. He starts the conversation off sounding pretty confident: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who comes from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from God,” but you can almost hear the question underneath it. Is it true? Just who are you? What are you doing? What does it all mean?

These aren't new questions. We've all asked the same kinds of questions – and our questions don't stop there, Even when we think we've got a fairly good handle on the answers, something will happen to send us back to Jesus with more questions in the middle of the night, just like Nicodemus. You know the kind of questions I mean. Not just the big questions about who Jesus is or who God is but the just-as-big questions about where Jesus is when you need him and why God allows all the trouble in the world. We lay awake with these questions, what theologians call “theodicy” questions. Basically, that's the age-old dilemma of why bad things happen to good people – and how a good God could let such bad things happen. And with everything that's been happening around the world in recent days and weeks and months, I'm sure that are many people bringing these questions to Jesus in the darkness, wondering why there is so much pain and hurt and devastation in the world. Why are there earthquakes and tsunamis and the threat of nuclear fallout? Why are there hurricanes and tornadoes and flooding? Why do so many people suffer from cancer or live with belly-gnawing hunger or die from treatable diseases because they don't have access to life-saving medications?

There are people in this world who are braver than I, people who claim to speak for God in the face of these situations, people who dare to think that they have the answer to these questions. We have a church group that demonstrates at military funerals, claiming that the deaths of soldiers are a direct result of God's displeasure with America's tolerance of homosexuality. We have religious figures who declared that God sent Haiti an earthquake as punishment because their government made a pact with the devil to gain their independence. We have political pundits who suggest that God sent the earthquake and tsunami to Japan in order to send a message – I guess that the world needs to straighten up & fly right because “what we're doing isn't working”.

Their answers are enough to make you weep in sadness or yell in frustration – because while I don't claim to speak for God, I do dare to claim the truth of what we read in the Bible. And what we read in the Bible this morning from the 3rd chapter of the Gospel of John is that there aren't a lot of good answers for why all of these bad things happen. The reality is, we live in a broken world. This world, the whole creation, the whole universe, is not the way God intended and created it to be. Death and disease and destruction are not a part of God's vision for the world – they never have been. They are the signs and symptoms of the rebellion and sin that entered the world way back in the garden of Eden. But these events are not sent by God as a warning. They are not sent by God to get our attention. They are not sent by God as punishment. We know this because Jesus tells us so – right here in John 3:16 & 17. “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.”

“For God so loved the world...” It's important for us to know that in John's gospel, when John talks about “the world,” he means the world that sees God as an enemy, the “God-hating world.” And yet, despite the fact that the world hates God, God sends, not earthquakes or tsunamis or hurricanes or natural disasters of any kind, not diseases and destruction and death – no, in the face of the world's rebellion, God sends none of those things. Instead, God sends Jesus.

God sends Jesus. Because God loves this broken, messed up world that much. God sends Jesus, because God longs to restore us and all of creation to what we were meant to be. God sends Jesus – not to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. God sends Jesus, and it is in him and through him and because of him that we have can hope in the face of struggle and pain and tragedy – because in Jesus, we see the face of God. In him, we get a glimpse of how much God loves each of us. In Jesus, we see how far that love is willing to go to heal, because he lays down his life for us. In him, we know that God will never leave us alone, no matter what. Even with all of our questions, we cling to this one thing. God sends Jesus – God sends him still! - and God sends him in love to redeem us, restore us, and make us whole again.

Thanks be to God!

Amen.