When You Believe ~ John 3:14-21 ~ Fourth Sunday in Lent

A short time after we were married, Elizabeth and I made up a word for all the TV shows and movies I like to watch—but she doesn’t.

We call it “men-tertainment”

One of my all-time favorites is Myth-Busters—a show that puts urban legends to the test to find out whether or not they’re true.  This past Tuesday, the cast was out to find out why some people can walk barefoot across hot coals—and not get burned.

So the Myth-busters do a little scientific research—and they learn that it is possible to do this safely.  So three of them line up to put their findings to the test—and sure enough, they don’t get burned.

Then they ask a fourth Myth-buster to do the very same—but he wasn’t part of the research.  He didn’t know the science.  But after he watches the others walk across the hot coals safely, he decides to try it for himself.

And half-way across, he panics.  He runs toward the cool grass—and he gets burned. 

The first three cast members believed they could walk across the hot coals safely.  Because of that, they walked across calmly and gently on the tops of the hot coals, where the heat was far less intense.  But the other guy believed he was going to burn his feet—and that’s why he ran.  By running, forces his feet deeper into the hot coals, where the heat is more intense. 

This whole incident demonstrates to the power of our beliefs in influencing what we do—and how we react to things. 

Beliefs are not like nickels and dimes that we carry in our pockets.  Our beliefs influence the way in which we live our lives—and no beliefs are more influential to what we say and do than our beliefs about God.

If you don’t believe in God, it’s likely that you’ll not believe in life after death.  And you will surely live your life differently if you believe that this life is all there is…

But as Christians, we do believe in God; we do believe in life after death.  And we look to God for the answer to question, “what happens when we die?” 

Sure enough, Jesus Christ is that answer.  He is God’s own self-revelation.  We open the Scriptures to know Jesus Christ; his promises to us, and his will for our lives.

John 3:16 has been described by many as “the Bible in Miniature”—and that is a very appropriate way to describe it.  I told the youth in our confirmation class that is the most important passage of Scripture to know.  It summarizes all of God’s truth in one sentence.   It is God’s answer to the problem of sin—and the problem of mortality—that afflict our human existence.

As we revisit this familiar passage, one important we must remember is that this is not God’s answer to the question “what must we do in order to be saved?”  Jesus himself telling us what God does for us so that we shall be saved. 

God so loved the God-hating world so as not to condemn it.  Out of love for us, God gave his son to be lifted up upon the cross to suffer the condemnation we deserved, so that we might have eternal life. 

In the cross, we see just how great a love God has for us and for the world.  In Jesus’ self-giving act upon the cross, God gives us the gifts of the forgiveness of our sins and eternal life. 

We are saved by what Jesus does for us.

But the one element that is so crucial in the midst of all these promises is that of believing.  Our act of believing does not save us—but if we don’t believe, God cannot draw us to Christ, nor can we be embraced by God’s love.  Believing is the means through which God’s self-giving love takes root in our lives.  When we believe, we’re drawn into the light of Christ—and we are transformed.  We have the peace of knowing that we’re forgiven; we have the comfort in knowing that we’ll be with Jesus when we die; and we have the confidence in knowing that Christ is with us.  And believing that God so loved the whole world, we love our neighbors as Jesus loves them. 

We all know from life experience that believing in God can so often be so difficult as to be impossible.  Yet we cannot believe in God by our own power or strength.  We’re not capable of just believing in God.  The good news is that God helps us to believe. 

So when we find ourselves doubting; when our guilt becomes so enormous that we feel unlovable by God, we must flee to the light of Jesus Christ in the ways that it shines for us. 

We return again to this familiar passage of Scripture, to hear again of God’s great love and promise to the world.  The light of Christ shines whenever we carry our sorrows and worries to Christ in prayer.  The light of Christ shines here in our church, in the songs of hope and praise we sing, and in the company we share.  And the light of Christ shines in the love that we show for each other. 

Our journey to the cross with Jesus Christ during this season of Lent is one of the most important ways in which we can immerse ourselves in his love as life continues to present us with so much fear and heartache.   It is in the tragedy of the cross that we see the extent of God’s great love for us—and beyond that cross in the empty tomb we see the hope that awaits us all beyond the grace.  Our dark world needs so desperately the light of Christ—and thanks be to God, Christ is here to shine it upon us.