For God So Loved the World

“For God So Loved the World”

            “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.”  (John 3:16) These words have been immortalized not only in our scriptures but also in our secular lives, most especially on Sunday…afternoons.  At any sporting event you can see this passage everywhere…in every end zone, in every crowd shot there is always someone holding up the placard that says: “John 3:16”  And now we have the Bronco’s quarterback Tim Tebow wearing  the words John 3:16 under his eyes as sun block.  What is it about this verse that has captured our imagination so much especially at sporting events?  Is it because faith gives one a leg up?  If so, then why did the Bronco’s lose in the playoffs?  Wait a minute, they were playing against the Patriots…maybe skill trumps faith.  Now Tebow is in danger of losing his job to Peyton Manning…I guess faith doesn’t save football careers.

            In this season of Lent one of the things we contemplate is our salvation.  What does it mean to be saved? How do we become saved?  Is salvation for everyone in the world or only reserved to those who have faith in Jesus alone?   Is salvation freely given or is it earned?  And does salvation work here on earth as well as it does in heaven…you know does faith in Jesus help us win the big game, get the great jobs and succeed in winning a Grammy. 

When I was a little girl growing up in the Catholic Church I had a healthy curiosity concerning the things that the nuns and priests were teaching me and much to their consternation I was not afraid to question what they were teaching me.  For instance I was taught that the only people who were saved, that is the only ones who were going to go to heaven were Catholics, and only the good ones at that.  Oh sure there were exceptions such as babies who were not baptized that would go to limbo but everyone else was condemned to eternal damnation. Well that didn’t seem fair to me.  At that time I was friends with a bunch of Baptist girls down the street and I had a hard time believing that were they not going to heaven because they weren’t Catholic.  What about the people in other countries, you know the starving children in China that I heard about every time I tried to not eat my vegetables, these kids didn’t even know about the Catholic faith, were they condemned as well.  How could a God who loves the world so much send over half of all creation to the fires of hell just because they weren’t Catholic? 

Fast forward to seminary, as you can salvation was a hot topic of discussion in and out of the classroom.  Many of us who grew up in the church had been taught to believe that Christianity was the only way to salvation.  For many of us, salvation through the belief in Jesus was of great comfort because could know what we needed to do to be saved.  However some of us felt that this notion of salvation through faith alone in Jesus was quite disturbing because it implied that God’s grace is reserved for just a few insiders.   What we learned is that salvation is not an either/or supposition.  If we are saved by belief in Jesus alone than it makes salvation a purely human accomplishment, thus taking away possibility of God’s ability giving us the gift of grace freely however if salvation is God’s initiative alone then we are in danger of taking God’s grace for granted and not responding to it, it is what theologian Dietrich Bonheoffer calls “cheap grace.”  Ok, are your heads ready to explode…yep mine too.

It wasn’t until I was a hospital chaplain that I learned the true meaning of salvation and the heart of the verse John 3:16.  I was assigned to the cardiac care unit; there I met many patients face to face with their mortality, many for the first time.  Most were forced to consider major lifestyle changes to accommodate their weakened hearts.  For some it was a matter of changing their diet and activity level, for others it meant adding a pace maker or medication to get their heart to beat normally and still others had to consider major surgery, cardiac bypass or a valve replacement to heal the damage done to their heart.  Needless to say, the fear of death was a prevalent in the cardiac care unit as patients and their families made decisions regarding their medical course of action.  However, I met a woman who faced her future with no fear.

On a busy weekday morning I was paged by the nurses of the cardiac unit to intervene in a family situation.  “Edna” had just been told by her doctor that she needed a valve replacement in order to survive the latest injury to her heart.  Edna decided quickly that she was done with surgical intervention and that she just wanted to go home to let nature to take its course.  Edna’s daughter did not agree with Edna’s decision.  When I came into the room, Edna was in her bed, connected to IV’s tubes and monitors.  Over the beeping of the machines her daughter argued with Edna, urging her to get the surgery, “Mom if you don’t get the surgery, you won’t be able to breath and you’ll choke to death…Mom, if you don’t get the surgery your heart will stop and we won’t be able to do anything about it….Mom, if you don’t get the surgery you’ll just drop dead.”  Edna listened to her daughter just nodding her head.  I tried to talk to them both but in her Edna’s daughter kept interrupting me with more arguments as to why Edna should get the surgery.  Eventually I had to ask the daughter for a moment alone with Edna so that I discuss with her the reasons for her opting not to get surgery.

The atmosphere in the room calmed down considerably when the daughter left.  I asked Edna how she came to the decision to not get surgery.  She replied, “Because I’m not afraid to die.” 

“Really” I asked “Why is that?”

“Because no matter what happens I know I’ll be OK.” She said

I continued probing “How do you know that to be true?”

“Because John 3:16 in the Bible tells me so.” She stated.

Unfortunately my beeper went off and I had to leave.  I asked her if she’d like me to come back later and she said yes, and asked me to bring my Bible so we could read it together.

When I came back to Edna’s room that afternoon with Bible in hand, I was taken aback by what I saw.  Gone were the wires, the monitors and IV tubes.  All there was was Edna in her bed waiting to be discharged.  The room seemed strangely quiet without the beeps and buzzes of the monitors that had previously kept track of Edna’s vital signs.  I sat down and opened the Bible to the Gospel of John chapter 3.  I asked her if she would like me to read her the whole chapter rather than just a snippet to which she enthusiastically agreed.  It was then, sitting in a hospital room, reading scripture with a woman fearlessly facing death that I finally got what salvation was all about.  It was all about our relationship with God through Jesus Christ, that we are saved by grace through faith.  I witnessed Edna facing her future graciously through her faith in God just as Jesus faced the cross.  Edna had eternal life her whole life long, not only because she believed in the promise of resurrection from death that Jesus had on Easter morning, but also because she had the close and abiding relationship with God that Jesus did. 

God’s love is abundantly poured out for the whole world so that all, not just a select few, can experience the good news of God’s love and grace freely given to all.  This salvation, this relationship with God, is what propels us to move beyond our fears to do God’s work in the world.

May it be so.  Amen.