St. John 3:14-21
Divine Service
Lifted Up 

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

One of those things that I dreaded when I entered the ministry was the day that I would have to preach on one of those Bible lessons that everyone knows.  I think that a lesson that includes John 3:16 – possibly the best known of all Bible verses – epitomizes my fear!  I sat and stared at today’s lesson for a long time.  What could I possibly say about John 3:16 that had not already been said?  How could I possibly say anything fresh and new?

Then I took another look.  Our lesson for today is not just John 3:16.  Our lesson is St. John chapter 3 verses 14 through 21.  And while John 3:16 is probably the best-known verse in the Bible, the most overlooked verses are quite possibly John 3:17 and 18!!  And who bothers to remember the context of this lesson?  The Pharisee Nicodemus has come to see Jesus at night, so that he will not be seen!  And Jesus confuses Nicodemus by telling him that he must be born again – of water and of the Spirit.

Immediately after that comes our lesson.  We can assume that Jesus is still talking to Nicodemus.  Nicodemus was a Pharisee – a man who had studied the Old Testament; particularly the Torah, The Law: the five books of Moses; Genesis through Deuteronomy.  The travels of the Jews from Egypt to the Promised Land would have been very familiar to him.  He knew that this was a part of his history. 

During that journey the people had sinned against God, and fiery, poisonous snakes had been sent among them as a punishment.  The people asked Moses to pray to God for deliverance, and God instructed Moses to make a snake and set it on a pole, that whosoever should look at it after being bitten would not die.  It certainly seems strange, that just looking at a bronze snake on a pole could save someone from certain death due to snakebite.  Not your typical anti-venom.  But God works through means – He uses what seems foolish to shame the wise.  It has ever been so.  Jesus uses this imagery to refer to Himself: “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” 

The Son of Man must be lifted up as the world’s salvation.  Jesus came as Savior of all mankind.  That’s important for us to remember especially in a day and age when so many people are searching – looking – and they are saying, “Who can save me?”  Or worse yet they say, “How can I save myself?”  The Scriptures remind us that there is only one way of salvation.  It’s not through us.  It’s not through our good nature.  It’s not through our kindness.  It’s not through our buying our way into heaven, is it?  But we are reminded as the Apostles taught the crowd in the history of the church: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).  That name is Jesus, the name that means, “to save people from their sins.”  Not just a few people, not a few chosen people, but He came to save the whole world; for the whole world is born sinful.

“For in this way God loved the world.”  We normally hear this translated as “for God so loved the world.”  The Son of Man must be lifted up – God’s own Son replacing the serpent on that pole.  Instead of a bite from a living serpent, the bite that humanity needs to survive is the attack of the most infamous serpent of all time – Satan!  And the death we need to be saved from is not a simple earthly death, but the death of our soul for eternity.  And we have all inherited this death from the first sinners, Adam and Eve.  They were seduced by the first serpent, Satan, and that sin has corrupted all of mankind ever since.  “…That whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  Here are the means for eternal life.  We need not see the Son of Man hanging on the cross – the man on the cross replacing the serpent on the pole.  We must only believe that it is so, and that He did it for our salvation. 

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”  Nicodemus had just received a reprimand from Jesus about not understanding these things, even though he was Israel’s teacher.  But here Jesus softens that reprimand.  His purpose in this world was not to reprimand, not chastise, not condemn; His purpose in this world was to save the world – to be there for all men to look to and be saved, just as the serpent on the pole had saved the ancient Israelites who had been bitten by the serpents in the desert.  To save all men in the world, not just Nicodemus – not just his disciples – not just those who believe; Jesus came to save ALL! 

 “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.”  This is where we walk a fine line.  Whosever believes is not condemned – but faith is a gift; and whoever does not believe stands condemned already – through their own denial of the true, triune, God.  They have not believed that their salvation comes ONLY through faith in Jesus Christ – they have not believed in his vicarious atonement for the sins of the entire world.  The past, present and future heresies have drawn, and will continue to draw, itching ears; but those who hold to the faith given by the Holy Ghost will not be condemned – condemned to eternal death.  The phrases used are those that would have been used in a courtroom at the time of Jesus – the judge has condemned them to their unchangeable sentence!!

“This is the verdict: Light has come into the world.”  St. John tells us in the opening of his Gospel who the Light is.  The Light is the Word, the Son of God who was there at the creation of the world.  These are all one in the same God the Son – The Light, the Word, the Son of God, who calls Himself the Son of Man.  But what is our natural, human, sinful response to the Light?  “…But men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.”  Not just are intentionally evil deeds – most of us don’t do those.  But all of our deeds are evil, unless done in faith. 

“Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.”  Simple logical connection – all of men’s deeds were evil, everyone who does evil hates the light; therefore all men hate the light.  Not necessarily the light of day, but the Light of God, present in His Son.  St. John masterfully weaves this imagery in such a way that we can only say that “yes, I too hate the light!” 

The Apostle Paul writes to us from Corinthians: “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). Once again, He reminds us that we don’t stand on our own merits and worthiness, but God has worked faith in our hearts. Just as the Son of Man must be lifted up, so it is necessary that the Holy Spirit work faith in our hearts. That too is one of these necessary things of life, just as it is necessary to have air to breathe and food to eat and clothes to wear and on and on as that list could go, it is necessary to have the Holy Spirit and His gift of faith. Because of the gift of faith that comes from the Holy Spirit, we realize the necessary things of Jesus’ life, that the Son of Man must be lifted up.

We rejoice in the fact that God has placed His Light in our hearts.  Most of us received this Light in our Baptism as infants [as has Jonathon this morning].  Others receive it and then come to be baptized.  But each has been born again through water and the spirit, just as Jesus directed Nicodemus!  And through faith – through God placing that Light in our hearts – we can see the light.  God comes to us in our darkness – we cannot get to His Light in any other way.  No one who is blind can simply decide for themselves to see the light!  But we do see the Light through the grace of God.  By that Light we are no longer blind to our sin – we can see that all that we have done is evil in His sight, and that through His Light He has cured our spiritual blindness! 

With that inner, spiritual, sight, we can also understand the need for our forgiveness by the Light who was, and is, in the world, and who was lifted up on that cross for our salvation.  And just as we recognize that what we have done what is evil in His sight, we also recognize that that Son who was lifted up on the cross at Calvary has brought us eternal life through the forgiveness of our sins.  We know that His death on that cross was the necessary payment that bought eternal life for each and every one of us.  That through that payment, we can stand before God on the Day of Judgment and be acquitted, rather than receiving the sentence of eternal condemnation that we deserve for our sins! 

In the name of the Father and of the Son (†) and of the Holy Ghost. Amen

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