Fourth Sunday in Lent

March 14, 2021 | John 3:14-21 | Beth A. Schlegel |

Numbers 21:4-9; Psalm 107; John 3:14-21

[Jesus said:] ¹⁴“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
¹⁶“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.
¹⁷“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. ¹⁸Those 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. ¹⁹And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. ²¹But 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.”

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Most confirmands learn about the teachings of the Lutheran Church in the Augsburg Confession. They discover that the first portion of that document is structured in much the same way as the story of salvation in the Bible:

First, there is God: Father Son and Holy Spirit

Then there is rebellious humanity, in captivity to sin and unable to free itself.

Then there is the saving Word, Jesus, the Son of God, whose life, death, and resurrection is the destruction of the power of sin and death to destroy us.

The means by which we come to know Jesus and trust him is the Church, in which, by the work of the Holy Spirit, God’s Word and the Sacraments create faith in those who seek God.

By our faith in Christ, we are healed.

And we respond to this great and precious gift by giving thanks with our lives of worship and obedience to God’s Word.

This outline of our story of faith was not concocted in the 16^th century by Martin Luther and his friends, however — it is already the biblical narrative.

We hear its summary in  Psalm 107:

¹⁷Some were fools and took to rebellious ways;
they were afflicted because of their sins.
¹⁹Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
  and he delivered them from their distress. 
²⁰He sent forth his word and healed them
and saved them from the grave.
²¹Let them give thanks to the Lord for his mercy.

We hear it in the story of the bronze serpent in the wilderness and again in that famous passage from John 3 that was our Gospel reading today,

We can say it by heart:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Luther called this verse the entire Bible in a nutshell.

Everything we experience in life has its place in this story.

Beauty, joy, friendship, love, acceptance, and purpose are what God created us for.

But also other things:

• Climate change
• Fear of those who are different from us
• sorrow
• COVID-19
• Political corruption
• Conspiracy theories
• Brutality
• Addiction

These belong also to the world God loves, but which is broken by the rebellion of humanity against God.

These are the things that come out of sinful humanity and which can be overcome only by divine mercy:

The mercy which Jesus demonstrated on the cross as the one man lifted up as the bronze serpent to heal all humans who look to him for life.

…

As those who know Jesus Christ crucified as the means by which we live, we respond in three ways:

1. We give God thanks and praise with our worship
2. We resist, avoid, and call out sin – just as we would go to great lengths to give wide berth to the poisonous snake and warn others to avoid it as well.
3. We tell others where to find help – to look to Jesus as the Savior who gave his life in mercy for all people.

This is the basis for all evangelism.  This is the reason we invite people to church or to our website or Facebook page.

It is to look at Jesus on the cross and be healed of sin’s lethal condemnation.

It is to share in the worship of God who so loves us.

It is to learn what is good and what is harmful and to seek what is good.

We invite others into the presence of Jesus who gives himself to us in a life-giving bath and a meal of forgiveness.

Strengthened by the life of Jesus – God in us – we can face the world in all its brokenness and work to be God’s redeeming presence in it.

We can work toward a cleaner environment as God created it to be.

We can work for peace and seek to understand those whose views differ from ours.

We can accept suffering as the consequence of sin, trusting in Christ’s redemption as the final verdict.

We can persevere in this pandemic, confident that it will have an end.

Above all, with the psalmist, Let us offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving

  and tell of God’s acts with shouts of joy.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

—

The Rev. Beth A. Schlegel