On Good Friday,
March 29,
I’ll carry a large wooden cross into the church.
I’ll stop at three points
between the entrance to the nave
and just up here in front of the altar.
At each stop I’ll say
“Look on the wood of the cross,
on which was raised the savior of the world.
O come let us worship.”
The next night,
at the Easter Vigil,
the Paschal Candle will stop at the same spots
as someone sings,
“The Light of Christ” and we all sing back
“Thanks be to God.”
In our gospel passage today,
Jesus is inviting Nicodemus –
a Pharisee and religious leader –
to look on the wood of the cross
and to see the light of Christ.
By John’s math,
this is years before Jesus will be crucified.
It’s two weeks before we hear
Mark’s story of the crucifixion.
Nicodemus has come to Jesus in the night
and probably leaves in the morning,
having had his heart transformed,
having been converted
to following Jesus the Way.
He’s asked Jesus hard questions.
Questions are how Jesus teaches in John,
though Jesus rarely answers them directly.
“Rabbi,
we know that you are a teacher
who has come from God;
for no one can do these signs that you do
apart from the presence of God…
How can anyone be born
after having grown old?
Can one enter a second time
into the mother’s womb
and be born?…
How can these things –
birth from above,
and the comings and goings
of those born from above –
be?”
Jesus doesn’t answer the questions,
but tells something of a story
reminding Nicodemus of a story that he knows,
one he’s familiar with as a devout follower of
the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
“So Moses made a serpent of bronze,
and put it upon a pole;
and whenever a serpent bit someone,
that person would look at the serpent of bronze
and live.”
“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.”
Jesus then offers discourse on belief
and the reality that he has not come
to make sure some people perish.
Rather, “but in order that the world –
the cosmos –
might be saved through him.”
I grew up memorizing John 3.16 –
before I knew the 23rd Psalm
or the Lord’s Prayer.
This believing in Jesus to avoid perishing
is perhaps more accurately translated
believing in to.
You’re probably tired of hearing me say it,
but John isn’t talking about merely intellectual assent.
Believing in to Jesus,
as Nicodemus does through this night,
requires a change of life.
It requires a conversion,
and it requires repentance.
This week as we studied Martin L. Smith’s Reconciliation,
we read, “Repentance is the response we are called to make
as we meet Christ in the place
where we have been brought to a halt,
and sense his insistence
that we reorient ourselves towards God,
receiving from him the impulse and energy
to embark freely on the next stage.
This reorientation
is not merely setting our sights on God
as our eventual goal;
rather, repentance means facing God
here and now at the turning point
and recognizing God
as our companion on the way.”
Repentance is itself
a reorientation.
A Greek word for repentance
can be translated as
“The journey of changing one’s mind.”
While not directly about
turning around,
it is nevertheless
about changing direction.
As Smith says,
“This reorientation
is not merely setting our sights on God
as our eventual goal;
rather, repentance means facing God
here and now at the turning point
and recognizing God
as our companion on the way.”
That’s what belief into Jesus looks like.
That’s what living in the light
and letting our deeds be done in the light means.
In this season of Lent
as Stephanie prepares for baptism
and we prepare to renew our baptismal vows
we’ve been called to repentance,
called to reorienting our lives.
Smith continues,
“In repentance
we let go of this defensive self-exoneration
and take real responsibility for our sins.
We relinquish self-deception,
face our moral poverty,
come down to earth
from our pedestal of immunity from judgment
and join other sinners–
and it is on this level
that we truly find ourselves face to face
with Christ where he chooses to be.”
No amount of being sorry enough,
confessing enough,
weeping enough,
or trying to prove ourselves
saves us.
Belief into Jesus means telling the truth,
the truth that our sins are real,
that we’ve hurt other people
and that we’ve hurt God.
Yes, God is Lord of heaven and earth,
and in God’s goodness and love for the whole of creation,
we turn away
and our love fails,
and God feels that hurt, too.
And.
And, “God did not send the Son into the world
to condemn the world,
but in order that the world might be saved
through him.”
As we reorient our lives,
as we experience conversion after conversion,
looking on the wood of the cross
and seeing the light of Christ,
we believe in to Jesus.
We turn away from how we’ve lived
ways that aren’t working for us,
ways that are hurting us,
or our relationships,
or our planet,
or our neighbors
as expansively defined.
Sin is the ongoing venom
of the serpents that surround us daily.
In the same way that God sent relief to the Israelites,
God has sent Jesus as a relief to the whole of creation.
Turn away from how we’ve lived
ways that aren’t working for us,
harmful ways of living.
Turn away from how we’ve lived,
and look on the wood of the cross
on which was raised the savior of the world.
When we make that turn,
again, and again, and again,
we’ll the light of Christ.
Thanks be to God. Amen.