We continue our summer series on peace with the familiar
story of Nicodemus and Jesus. Last Sunday, Michelle reminded us of the
importance of prayer as a path to peace with God. The Lord’s Prayer provides us
with a model for all of us to use as we seek a clear relationship with God.
Today, we have the example of Nicodemus, who sought out
Jesus with his questions. Jesus pointed him towards the necessity of a
spiritual birth as the start of a spiritual life that will last forever with
God. You and I have been born physically, and we live our natural lives here on
earth until we die. Jesus tells us – as he told Nicodemus – that we must also
be born spiritually if we want to live spiritually with God.
John summarizes all of this with what are perhaps the best
loved verses in all of Scripture: “God loved the world so much that he gave his
only begotten son, and whoever believes in him [Jesus] will not die
(spiritually) but can live forever (spiritually). God did not send his son into
the world to condemn us, but that everyone might be saved through him.”
Excursus: A brief rabbit trail about that phrase “only begotten Son”. In chapter 1, John tells us that the creative Word of God came into the world, but the people he had prepared for his coming rejected him. Then he writes, “But to as many as did receive him he gave the right to become children [sons and daughters] of God, even to those who believe in his name.” Many translations leave out “begotten”, because it is an unfamiliar word (in Greek: monogenetes). But John 3:16 paired with John 1:12 shows us both how we are like Jesus and how Jesus is unique. We are like Jesus because we also are adopted into God’s family as God’s children, with Jesus as our elder brother. But Jesus is unique in that he alone is monogenetes. “Begotten” means that the child shares the DNA of the parents. Jesus shares the DNA of God – uncreated, eternal, pure Spirit (as well as fully human), all-knowing and all-powerful, and so on. Whatever we can say about God, we say about Jesus, because Jesus – the eternal uncreated Word – is God made flesh.
Believe in Jesus
I have two simple thoughts on this verse this morning.
Here’s the first one. “Believe in Jesus”: What does it mean to believe in
Jesus?
Suppose I asked you if you believe in Santa Claus. Most of
us would respond by saying no. We mean that we do not believe that Santa Claus
exists, although we know the stories about him. We may even use those stories
in our own family’s celebration of Christmas. When our sons were young, I wrote
several letters from Father Christmas about that year’s work of life at the
North Pole. (I borrowed the idea from J.R.R. Tolkien, who wrote a letter a year
for many years, enlisting the mail carrier to bring it to the house with his
own hand made stamps from the North Pole on them!)
When we say we don’t believe in Santa Claus (even while we
use the idea of this strange man with a white beard), we mean that we don’t
believe he really exists. What do we mean when we say we do believe in Jesus?
First, we mean that we believe that the stories about him in
the New Testament are true, but the way John uses the words here goes deeper
than simple belief that Jesus exists.
Consider a different example. Charles Blondin was a
tightrope walker who lived in the 1800s. In 1859, he crossed the Niagara Gorge
on a tightrope, a feat that he repeated many times after that. One thousand one
hundred feet across the river and 160 feet above the water. Blondin
demonstrated a remarkable belief in his own abilities, pushing a wheelbarrow
across the rope, stopping part way to cook an egg and eat it, and even carrying
a man (his manager) across on his back.
It's that last one that really gets me. Harry Colcord was
the man who agreed to go on Blondin’s back. You could say that Colcord believed
in Blondin. He trusted Blondin with his life. What happens if Blondin has to
sneeze? I know that I would not have trusted Blondin with my life like that! You
hear that phrase: “trust him with his life.” That’s what it means to believe in
Jesus. It’s not enough to believe that Jesus lived. It’s not even enough to
believe that Jesus is the Word made flesh, the incarnate Son of God. The verse
goes deeper: “Whoever believes in him shall have everlasting life”: “Whoever
trusts him with their life shall have everlasting life.” “Believe in Jesus”
means to trust him with your life, just as deeply as Colcord trusted Blondin
with his life crossing the Niagara Gorge.
Our theme for the summer is peace with God, with the people
around us, and with the whole of creation. Last Sunday we heard of the path to
peace: a life of prayer modelled on the Lord’s Prayer. Believing in Jesus walks
on that path to find the heart of peace with God. As we trust Jesus with our
lives, we fall in love with Jesus and experience God’s love poured over us.
That love brings us peace with God.
An Integrated Life
This brings us to my second point: This peace operates at
every level. Believing in Jesus leads to peace with God; and believing in Jesus
leads to peace with our brothers and sisters in faith; and believing in Jesus
leads to peace with the world around us, including the whole of creation.
When we find ourselves with a ruptured relationship, John
brings us back to this verse: God loved the world so much that God gave us
Jesus to believe in and receive life and peace. This point is easy to see and
remarkably difficult for us to see and do in practise. Let me spell it out a
bit and try to move beyond a simplistic answer to life’s problems.
Suppose you are married, and you have a conflict with your
spouse. A common occurrence, which many of us have experienced. The integration
of peace at every level of our lives means that the conflict ripples through
every part of our lives, so that our relationship with God also suffers.
Similarly, if our relationship with God is weak, our
relationships with others also suffer. If we participate in the abuse of the
environment, that abuse causes conflict with others and with God. Conflict at
any one level of our lives affects every other area as well, like plucking a
spider web and watching the whole web vibrate. Like someone who kicks the dog
at home because their boss (metaphorically) kicked them at work,
We have to be careful with this understanding of an
integrated life. Sometimes people think that if I just pray hard enough –
nurturing peace with God – then the conflict with my spouse will just go away.
It doesn’t work like that. Remembering the various levels of conflict in our
lives means that we work on reconciliation with our spouse, and we pray more,
deepening our relationship with Jesus. We seek the renewed health of the
environment, and we pray more, seeking God’s face. We pursue peace at every
level of our relationships together.
This pursuit flows from our commitment to trust Jesus with
our very lives. We believe in Jesus means that we commit ourselves to him and
his ways every day and every moment of our lives. As we do so, we bring God
into the centre of the conflicts and disruptions of our lives, seeking God’s
peace at every level of our lives.
Contrast to the World around Us
This pursuit of peace stands in sharp contrast to the world
around us. Conventional wisdom tells us that when we find ourselves in a
conflict, we should end the conflict as soon as possible and cut ties with the
person with whom we are in conflict. People don’t change, we are told, and the
only recourse to conflict is to get out.
There is real wisdom in conventional wisdom. If you are in
an abusive relationship with your spouse, I do not counsel you to stay there,
seeking peace: Sometimes you do indeed need to leave and not return. But our
society has taken this truth much further.
The underlying belief for many in our society is that people
don’t change; in fact, we would say, people cannot change. We hear voices that
sway any conflict makes it clear that the person you are in conflict with is
unsafe. Reconciliation is impossible. We hear them say they are bad people, and
you must avoid them forever. This is the spirit behind what we sometimes call
“cancel culture”, and it works to perpetuate conflicts rather than to bring
peace.
In contrast to this stance, John reminds us that God gave
Jesus for us. Jesus lived for us, and Jesus died for us. He took our rebellion
against God into himself and rose from death to reconcile us with God. His
victory over death is also victory over the power of evil in our world.
Therefore, we can change. Therefore, we can reconcile – both with God and with
other people. Therefore, we can live at peace with God and experience peace
with others and with the whole of creation.
Conclusion
I remember a dramatic example of this pursuit of peace, with
God’s love for us and our love for God at its heart. Fifteen or 20 years ago,
Reaksa Himm spoke at Providence. He graduated from the seminary the year before
I came, and he visited us again ten years later in 2006. He told us his story,
which you can read in his book, The Tears of My Soul.
Reaksa was a survivor of the killing fields in Cambodia. He
was shot by the Khmer, along with the rest of the people in his village.
Somehow, he survived in the open grave where they were dumped and escaped into
the jungle. In 1989, he left Cambodia as a refugee and came to Canada. He
expected never to return, but God had other plans for him.
In his journey as a refugee, he left Buddhism and became a
Christian. His conversion brought him peace with God, but his heart was
tormented by the memories of his bitter experiences at the hands of the Khmer
Rouge, including the death of his family. In 1998, he was invited to return to
Cambodia as a Bible teacher to help train leaders in the young church growing
there. He resisted, with the hurt and pain of the past strong in his life, but
God would not let him rest. Finally, in 1999, he agreed and returned to
Cambodia. In the years that followed, he started a school in his home village
among the people who had helped to kill his family. Here is his description of
returning to his home village:
Then on 6th June 2003, I went back to the village where my family was killed. I discovered that four of the six men involved had been killed and one had moved to a different village. I met the remaining one. He was fearful of meeting me but I spoke to him of God’s love and forgiveness. By God’s grace I was able to forgive him and set him free in my heart.
I thank God for sparing my life so that I can bring the message of salvation and forgiveness to my broken people. I also thank God for the healing of my hurt and pain that I had endured for more than 25 years. Now, I can see the glory and experience the joy of serving him in my hometown. (Sokreaksa Himm, 156)
Reaksa’s story illustrates the way that God’s love brings
peace to every area of our lives – even if it takes our whole life to do so.
Peace with God leads to peace with others and peace with the whole of creation.
For God loved us so much that he gave his only begotten son, and when we
believe in Jesus we receive everlasting life, the life of God’s Spirit that
lasts forever.
Steinbach Mennonite Church
2 July 2023
Text -- John 3: 1 to 21
