Readings:
Sermon:
John presents the teachings of Jesus in a quite different way to the other gospel writers. Starting from a particular episode, question or comment Jesus' responses range over a wide field of ideas. Sometimes his words are reminiscent of sayings recorded elsewhere but more often in this gospel they are expressed in a philosophical idiom. The gospels all present us with different attempts to gather Jesus' teachings into a form that brings out their meaning and John has done this in a more systematic way than the others.
The Pharisee, Nicodemus, was evidently more sympathetic to Jesus than others, recognising him as a teacher like himself and with a divine mission, but without real understanding of who Jesus really was. So in his question, 'How is it possible for a man once grown to be born again?' he gives the dramatic cue for a more subtle explanation from Jesus. The idea that a man might be reborn by committing himself to a new religion or philosophy was not unheard of but what did it mean in Christian terms? Jesus says that a new spirit is reborn in those accepting Christ as being born of God himself.
Baptism was something that happened on earth with the spirit received being an enrichment of human life, but if rebirth is in faith in Christ, Christ is a figure belonging to both the earthly and the divine. Thus the Son of Man must be lifted up, both on the cross and up to heaven, with the example of the instructions to Moses to make a serpent of bronze which was lifted up and anyone bitten by a serpent could look at it and recover - a token of deliverance - so Christian believers also would find deliverance and possess eternal life, brought by the Son of Man into heaven.
John then ends the passage saying, 'God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, not to judge the world but that through him the world might be saved,' with this being in the present, rather than some ultimate future. When we look to Christ we are saved by him on earth and will live with him in time, for all time, in heaven.
Questions:
- How do you view salvation - as being now through your living faith, or coming at some collective future time?
- How, therefore, does your belief influence your actions today?