by Fr. Bill Garrison
Please note that the following sermon text was provided prior to the audio recording. The two versions may differ substantially.
Jesus said, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
“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. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”
—John 3:14-21 (NRSV)
“Nicodemus and Jesus on a Rooftop” - Henry Ossawa Tanner (Public Domain)
Today we are thinking about darkness and light as metaphors for many things, among them the idea that we hide what we do not want others to know in the darkness and put into the light what we do want others to know about. I think everyone of us here knows exactly what I mean. We all have secrets. Here is an example of a secret being kept in the darkness by an Episcopal Priest.
Father Jacob woke up one Sunday morning, and realizing it was an exceptionally beautiful and sunny early spring day, decided he just had to play golf. So.... he called and told the associate pastor that he was feeling sick and convinced him to preach and celebrate for him that day. As soon as the associate pastor was off the phone, this priest headed out of town to a golf course about forty miles away. This way he knew he wouldn't accidentally meet anyone he knew from his church.
Setting up on the first tee, he found that he was alone. After all, it was Sunday morning and in that part of the country almost everyone else was in church! He began to line up his first shot on a par three hole.
At about this time, Saint Peter leaned over to the Lord while looking down from heaven and exclaimed, "You're not going to let him get away with this, are you?" The Lord sighed, and said, "No, I guess not."
Just then our priest hit the ball and it traveled high and straight towards the pin, dropping just short of it, rolled up and fell into the hole. It was a hole in one!
Saint Peter was astonished. He looked at the Lord and asked, "Why did you let him do that?" The Lord smiled and replied, "Who's he going to tell?"
Can you imagine the frustration? I haven’t played golf in years, but a hole in one and not being able to tell anybody? That’s cruel punishment indeed.
In an old Dennis the Menace cartoon, Dennis and his friend Joey are leaving Mrs. Wilson's house, their hands full of cookies. Joey says, "I wonder what we did to deserve this."
Dennis answers, "Look, Joey. Mrs. Wilson gives us cookies not because we're nice, but because she's nice."
If you are tired and in need of a nap that little cartoon is the entire sermon. I’ll wake you up when I’m done.
At the beginning of the Gospel, heard a moment ago, we find ourselves in the middle of a conversation Jesus is having with the famous pharisee, Nicodemus. He says to him that just as Moses lifted-up the serpent in the wilderness, so must Jesus be lifted-up so that whoever believes in him will have eternal life. To understand we must return to our Old Testament scripture which was read a bit ago.
The Israelites were constantly complaining while in the wilderness. They were tired of walking. They were tired of the food. Many were saying they had it better back when they were in Egypt.
Well God finally had enough and sent poisonous snakes after them. As complainers will do, they forgot about how hard they were to deal with and begged Moses to intercede for them. Moses did and God told Moses to put a bronze serpent on a stick and raise it up. Whoever looked at the serpent would not die after being bitten.
Jesus used this story as a metaphor for himself. He is telling Nicodemus that he will be crucified and because of his death and resurrection the rest of us will have eternal life. The snakes will continue to bite us in this life, sometimes painfully, but we will have eternal life in which to look forward.
Then Jesus says the most famous lines of the New Testament to cap off this portion of the gospel and to emphasize the metaphor. "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.” Jesus tells us very clearly how much God loves us and to what ends God is willing to go to rescue us from ourselves and the snakes that we suffer with during this life.
Then, as he continues to teach Nicodemus, Jesus uses another metaphor, the metaphor of light and darkness, that finishes today’s gospel reading. Jesus says very clearly that he is the light. The world has been living in darkness and now Jesus had come into the world bringing light where it had not shown before.
At first blush this sound terrific, but we need to recognize that light is not always welcome. When light is shined in the darkness, where light has not been shown before, the things that prefer darkness will hide, and if they cannot hide, they will strike out. This is not news. We are all afraid to stick our hands where we cannot see.
The darkness contains the deeds everyone wishes to hide. Ask the public figures who have been exposed to the light. Look at all the evil that has been done in darkness. We could think of example after example. But let’s not go there. Instead let’s look inwardly.
All of us have our own darkness within us in which we have secrets that we do not want others to discover. We have issues we do not wish exposed. Especially tragic for each of us are the issues that we try to hide from ourselves, pretending they don’t exist. Denial is a great friend in the inner darkness. It helps us not to examine things too closely.
None of us wants our darkness illuminated. But that desire doesn’t work with God. We must remember that Jesus is the light. Wherever God exists nothing can hide from this light. We can hide our issues from others. We can hide them often from ourselves. But,we cannot hide them from God. The light of God penetrates every attempt to sneak away. The light of God penetrates every darkness and exposes all that exists within.
And yet, and this is the most wonderful news of all, God loves us anyway. We are always standing within the light of God, always exposed, yet God loves us even when we do not love, and probably cannot stand the sight of ourselves in that much light. We cannot stand the sight of ourselves, yet God can and does see us as we are, loving us in God’s most incredible way.
And so, we take a breath. We have two pieces of great news today. God has chosen to grant us eternal life and sees us for who we are, loving us anyway, showering us in every moment with love and grace.
It’s like the cartoon I mentioned earlier when Dennis and his friend walked away from Mrs. Wilson’s house with handfuls of cookies. We often say, "I wonder what we did to deserve this?"
The answer my friends is the same as why Mrs. Wilson gave the boys cookies. God gives us grace not because we're nice or deserve it, but because God’s nice and loves us so much.