John 3: 11-21

We will soon begin to see in the evening moths fluttering around street lights and porch lights. Come to find out, they are migratory insects. It is believed moths draw close to the lights in the evening because they are meant to fly at night attracted to the heavenly lights like the moon to aid their migratory pattern. Our porch lights, evidently, give moths a false light to which they are attracted.

When Jesus came and was revealed as the Anointed One of God, light was revealed and darkness was exposed. The citizens of this world, even the religious and political authorities, were drawn to the light because they were not ashamed OR they scurried into the darkness because their deeds were evil. Just as moths are more likely to be seen at night collecting around street lights in the spring, the occasional bug may be seen on kitchen floors after the light is turned on and scurries away to the shadows. When the light is turned on, a path through the room is evident, but the darkness can no longer give cover to what hides in the open.

Light and belief, condemnation and darkness. How well have you shared the good news of God coming to all of us in Jesus Christ? To friends and loved ones, without even considering the random stranger or neighbor. Chances are we’ve made our attempts of conveying light, our own experiences of the love of God, in order to inspire faith, but so often our own frustration of friends and loved ones not coming to the light, the light of God’s love in Jesus Christ, leads us to spew condemnation and a misguided fear of approaching darkness. Surely, something’s gotta work.

There  was a farmer who had three sons: Jim, John, and Sam. No one in the family ever attended church or had time for God. The pastor and the others in the church tried for years to interest the family in the things of God to no avail. Then one day Sam was bitten by a rattlesnake. The doctor was called and he did all he could for Sam, but the outlook for Sam’s recovery was bleak indeed. So the pastor was called and apprised of the situation. The pastor arrived and began to pray: “O wise and righteous Father, we thank Thee that in Thine wisdom thou didst send this rattlesnake to bite Sam. He has never been inside the church and it is doubtful that he has, in all this time, ever prayed or even acknowledged thine existence. Now we trust that this experience will be a valuable lesson to him and will lead to his genuine repentance. And now, O Father, wilt thou send another rattlesnake to bite Jim, and another to bite John, and another really big one to bite the old man. For years we have done everything we know to get them to turn to Thee, but all in vain. It seems, therefore, that what all our combined efforts could not do, this rattlesnake has done. We thus conclude that the only thing that will do the family any real good is rattlesnakes, so, Lord, send us bigger and better rattlesnakes. Amen.”

In the season of Lent we are now, again, prompted to draw close to the light of life eternal found nowhere else but Jesus OR to scurry back into the shadows because we have so much to hide. The story of Jesus, the revelation of Christ lifted high, is not meant to put us to shame, but it is to draw us close to the one who does not condemn but save.

During hard times in the darkness of winter in an Alaskan Eskimo village, a young man of unequaled courage might go out into the bitter cold in search of food for his people. Armed only with a long, pointed stick and his compassion for his starving village, he would wander, anticipating an attack from a polar bear. Having no natural fear of humans, a polar bear will stalk and eat a human being. In the attack, the Eskimo hunter would wave his hands and spear to anger the approaching bear and make it rise up on its hind legs to over ten feet in height; and then, with the spear braced on his foot, the hunter would aim at the bear’s heart as weight of the bear came down upon the hunter and the spear. With its heart pierced, the bear might live long enough to maim or kill this noble hunter. Loving family and friends would follow the hunter’s tracks out of the village and find food for their survival and evidence of profound courage. Early missionaries proclaimed to attentive ears that Jesus Christ is the “Good Hunter” who lays down his life for the world.

It is not in mapping out conflict between light and dark, good and evil or faith and condemnation that John records the revelation of God in Christ to the world. The apostle John records Jesus’s words of his Father’s intention of displaying first and foremost grace upon grace to the world. From the gospel of John, chapter one, we read, “From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace” (1:16). It is in grace, divine unmerited favor, that Jesus was lifted up to draw all the world to himself. It is in grace God so loved the world that he gave his son, and it is in grace that his light has come. When light exposes what is hidden, secrets no longer need to be covered because JESUS DID NOT COME TO CONDEMN THE SECRETS HIDDEN, THE EVIL DEEDS COVERED, BUT THAT WE MIGHT BE SAVED THROUGH HIM. Light prompts us to surrender what we’ve hidden for too long. In the light of Christ we can be honest with ourselves and surrender to his love. For his grace on the cross will cleanse us all from our guilt, shame and sin. The Good Hunter laid down his life for us and for the world he so loves.

The light of God has come by grace. Belief in him is not merely a belief in his existence or his eternal reality thousands of years after his appearance on earth. It is the belief in Jesus as the Son of God, as the one endued with the authority and power and divine significance to be lifted up in order to draw all to himself as the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Belief in Jesus is belief in his mission to reveal the Kingdom of God in his words and deeds. Belief in him is the belief in the power of his name and the unique identity of Jesus as the incarnation, God in human flesh revealing the nature and character of God to heal, save, cast out and make whole. Belief in him yokes the believer with life eternal.  Belief in him is the belief God sent his son out of love not to condemn the world but to save it.

It’s not the rattlesnakes that’ll work. It’s the love of God that makes all the difference. It is the divine, unmerited favor of God in Christ Jesus that inspires belief and addresses condemnation. It is the grace of God that brings forth light to expose darkness and reveal what only the blood of Christ can cleanse. Darkness and condemnation are tools of God, not to punish, but to expose the foolish and the shallow and lead the lost, the hurting, the discouraged to the grace of God in Christ. This is the good news we all need. Alleluia.

(Preached at St Mark United Methodist Church in Anniston, AL, 3-10-24)