February 17, 2010 - John 3:16

Why on earth God would lead me to the most widely known passage in the Bible is beyond me. What can I possibly add that hasn't been said before, and far better than I can do? John 3:16 and the 23rd Psalm are two passages that it seems we are born knowing. They're part of our national consciousness, like the Pledge of Allegience. They're just there, and we can recite them without thinking.

And perhaps that's the point. How much of God's Word do we recite without thinking? John 3:16. The 23rd Psalm. The Lord's Prayer. Quick now! All three! Yep, I thought you could.

Ok...deep breath...so let's try and break this passage down a little.

"For God so loved the world..." God LOVES the world. He doesn't hate it, or despise it, or wish He'd never created it. He loves it. And that means that He loves what is IN the world, since the world is made up of its individual parts, right? Now, it is easy for me to love something and not like something about it. You may love chicken, but not like the skin. You may love how you feel after you excercise, but hate the exercise itself. You may love your children, but not like some of their behavior.

Perhaps its the same with God. He loves the world, but I'm quite sure there are parts He's not real happy about. Crime, poverty, hate, hunger, despair. So...God loves the world, though He's probably not thrilled with what we've done with His gift.

"He gave His only Son..." God didn't have a lot of little chillun running around and figured He could spare one. He gave His ONLY Son. Just the one Son that He had, because He couldn't bear to see the mess His earthly children were making of their lives. Ok...hang on a minute. Let's explore that. I believe that we all have what Quakers call "that of God" in all of us. We are His children. But if Jesus is His ONLY Son...what does that mean? Where does that put us? I suppose there is a distinction between being a Son and being sons. If, as traditional churches believe, Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit are ONE entity (even if we don't understand that concept), then it makes more sense. We are still God's children, but Jesus is God's Child.

"So that everyone who believes in Him..." Pretty straight forward, that. I think the key word here is EVERYONE. Everyone...not just Catholics, or Protestants, or Quakers, or the Amish, or the Fundamentalists. But EVERYONE. Those who go to church, and those who don't. Those who take one portion of the Bible as their Guiding Light, and those who never read the Bible at all. Everyone who believes. There a lot of people in this world who BELIEVE and have never seen a Bible in their lives and couldn't read it even if they had one. Does that leave them out of God's equation? I think not! "Everyone who believes" is a pretty inclusive statement.

"May not perish, but have eternal life." We all perish. This earthly shell of ours gives out, some sooner, some later. But we all die. Death is as much a part of life as being born is. It happens. This old body of ours will just stop one day. So this promise of not perishing has nothing to do with our physical selves, but to our spirits. Our spirits are that intangible part of us that belong 100% to God, whether we know or acknowledge it or not. And that part has eternal life. Now, where we will spend that eternal life is a whole post all by itself...