LIFTED UP
a sermon based on John 3:1-17
by Rev. Rick Thompson

     Nicodemus was a curious fellow.  He had heard about the signs Jesus was doing–like turning water into wine, and cleansing the Temple.  He had watched as many flocked to Jesus, to hear Jesus teach, to watch and see if he would do another sign–hoping, perhaps, that Jesus’ next miracle would be done for them!

      Many were believing in Jesus because of these signs.  Nicodemus was feeling attracted to Jesus, too.  He wanted to know more about Jesus.

     Nicodemus wanted to see for himself.  So, he went to visit Jesus.  He went to Jesus at night, hoping Jesus could show him the light of day. Nicodemus came to Jesus at night, and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God; for no one can do the things that you do apart from the presence of God.”  Implied in that statement is a challenge: “What are you up to, Jesus?  Help me to see!”

      And Jesus responds, “No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

     Nicodemus just doesn’t get it.  That’s actually understandable, because the word Jesus uses can actually mean both “from above” and “again.”  Jesus meant one thing, and Nicodemus heard the other.  So, puzzled, he asks, “How can a person be born again?”  Nicodemus understood biology, after all!

     Jesus explains.  He is clearly talking about a different kind of birth than human birth.  He is talking about a new birth of the spirit, one that only God can accomplish.  No earthly power can do what God can do.  Only God can give us new life; only God can transform us into people of faith and children of God; only God can give us second birth!  God’s Spirit, like the wind, blows when and where it wishes, and when the Spirit blows into our lives, we are transformed into beloved children. 

     Now Nicodemus is completely baffled.  He just doesn’t get what Jesus is talking about, just doesn’t see.  He is stuck at the earthly level, trying to understand God as he would try to understand everyday human life.  But God won’t be understood in that way. 

     And finally Nicodemus, who seemed so confident when he first approached Jesus, is reducing to a stumbling, stammering fool.  All he can do is mutter, “How can these things be?”

      Nicodemus just doesn’t see.

      And neither, sometimes, do we.

    God is mysterious.  God is like the wind, Jesus says, difficult to see, impossible to comprehend fully–mysterious.  God is so different from us, in so many ways, that we, like Nicodemus, often feel as if we’re in the dark when God is at work–that is, if God is at work at all!

      “Where is God?”  “If God is here, why is my life so mixed up?”  “If God cares about me and about those I love, why do bad things seem to happen so often?”  “If God is at work, if God does care, then why does it seem like night?  Why is it so hard for me to see?”

      We don’t always get it either, do we.  We have a hard time figuring God out.  We might find ourselves, frequently, muttering like Nicodemus, “How can these things be?”

      “Why is it so hard to see?”

      A child wondered about that one time, as he stood among a crowd, trying to watch a magician perform a trick.  Philip could only see the top of the magician’s hat!  He couldn’t see, as the magician reached for her saw, and started cutting away at a wooden box in front of her.  Philip had seen the magician strap a man into that box, and he was terrified! 

Philip’s father was a short man, so even being hoisted on his dad’s shoulders didn’t help.  But Philip really wanted to know if that person in the box would be OK when the magician

 

got done sawing!  So Philip was really frustrated.  “I want to see!  I can’t see!  I want to see if that man is OK!” Philip shouted.

     Just then Philip’s father pointed, and said, “Look!”

     Philip’s eyes followed his father’s finger.  And what Philip saw simply amazed him! There, resting on the shoulders of two magician’s assistants, was the man who had been sawed up in the box!    And the man was just fine!  No cuts, no blood, no missing body parts.  Philip was relieved–tremendously relieved!–that he could finally see, and relieved that the man really was OK.    

     The magician’s assistants had lifted up the one who’d been in the box and, finally, Philip could see clearly!

     So, for Nicodemus and for us, Jesus says, we will see.  We will see what God is up to, whether or not God cares, where God is at work in the world.

     How will we see?  “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,” Jesus said, “so must the Son of Man be lifted up.”

     JESUS must be lifted up!  Jesus must be put on the cross of death by sinful political and religious leaders, yes–but, ultimately, put on that cross by God!  Jesus must be lifted up, battered and bruised, lifted up in death!  Jesus must be lifted up–lifted up to new, glorious, eternal, resurrected life!  Jesus must be lifted up–ascended to his Father in heaven.  Jesus must be lifted up, and when he is, we will THEN see what God is up to!  THEN we will see God at work!  THEN we will know the truth of that beloved verse from this reading:

“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.”

     As Jesus is lifted up, God enables us to see.  Every skeptical or cautious Nicodemus, everyone who has ever wondered what God is up to, everyone who has ever questioned whether God can be trusted, all who have puzzled about the ways and the will of God–all are invited to look upon Jesus, lifted up on the cross, and there to see.

     There we see God’s deep and wondrous love, as God’s own beloved Son is given up to death.  There we see how powerfully, yet humbly, God has entered into our human lot and taken on our plight.  There, as Jesus is lifted up in death, we see the love and mercy of God.  There we see a God who is not distant and aloof, but intimately a part of the human predicament, even sharing in our death.  There we see a God who cares, who definitely, absolutely, without-a-doubt, cares about you and me!  There, as Jesus is lifted up, we see a God who loves so deeply that NOT EVEN DEATH is beyond God’s reach!

     When Jesus is lifted up, we see what God is up to.  We see what God intends for us.  We see God’s total and undeserved favor toward us.  “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.”

     Isn’t it wonderful to know that?  Isn’t it wonderful to realize that God intends to save us, to rescue us, and does not, finally, condemn us?  What wondrous love God has for us!!

     Think of it like this: a mother has repeatedly told her son to stay away from the ice on the pond behind the house.  It has been warm lately, and the ice is thin, and people are being warned, “Thin ice!  Stay off the ice!”  Mom has been repeating the warning.

     The son hears his mother, and promises to stay away from the pond and the ice.  But you know how that goes!  There’s something out on the ice, and the boy wants to see what it is.  There couldn’t be any harm in just going out on the ice a few feet, could there?

     But, of course, there is.  The boy falls through.  Mother is watching out the window, and comes racing to the rescue.  The child is up to his shoulders in cold, dark water, when mother crawls out on the ice, extending a pole to her son, who just manages to latch onto it as he is about to go under, and mother pulls him to safety.

     Mom has every right to be angry, and there will no doubt be consequences later.  But, for now, mother is content to embrace her child, and give thanks his life has been spared, and get him inside, into a warm bath, and some warm clothes, and to serve him a warm cup of hot chocolate with warm cookies–his favorite chocolate chip ones–fresh from the oven.

     Because of her love for her son, and despite his disobedience, she went into action to rescue him from drowning.

     God is like that.  That’s what we see when Jesus is lifted up in death, resurrection, and ascension.  God is like that–full of love, wanting to rescue, not ever wanting to condemn.

     “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.”

     So, when we want to see God at work, this is what we’re invited to see: we’re invited to see Jesus, lifted up on the cross, to pour out God’s love–God’s saving, unending love:

     God’s love for the world.

     God’s love for you.

     God’s love for me.

                                                                                                AMEN