“John 3:16”
Scripture Reading: I Corinthians: 13
Sermon Transcript for February 12, 2006
By Rev. Charles Hutchinson
Good morning! I want to take a reality test with you this morning to see where we are as far as worship. And it is this – attitude check! (A few in the congregation responded: “Praise the Lord!”) I love that song; when we love people they would sing “attitude check”. And the response is supposed to be “Praise the Lord”. And they said, “Reverend, you don’t know anything if you don’t know that.” So I don’t want to say nothing about you but …” Attitude check – (congregation responds “Praise the Lord!”)
You know, John 3:16, we hear it off and on through the year, we see it on billboards and signs here and there and we hear it. Somebody singing John 3:16. It was done beautifully by Stacey this morning. So we hear it all the time hearing it. Along the highway we see it. It is so familiar I wonder sometimes if it has lost its impact and its power. It seems to be in suspended animation. It doesn’t grab you so that we can dig deep into it for its power and majesty. Sometimes we say things so fast and say it so unintelligible sometimes that we miss it. (Reads John 3:16 very quickly). And we didn’t catch anything from it; we just mouthed it. John 3:16, these words just seem to fly by often when we hear it. Now let me see if I can slow it down so you can open it up so that it can break through the whole stuff and trash of life and break through the materialistic mind that we have in our culture. And once again, hopefully, it will flow with all of its transformative powers and majesty.
First of all, let me put forth two illustrations as a backdrop to this great text. The first one is taken from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. In her walk about she comes up on a grinning cat that is on a limb in a tree. And Alice says to herself, “Well, you know, he looks kind of friendly. I’ll ask him a question.” So, “Would you tell me, please, which way out do I go from here?” The cat said, “That depends a great deal on where you want to get to.” “Well,” said Alice, “I don’t much care where.” And the cat said, “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.” Alice was kind of taken back by this and she said, “Where do all the people live here?” “In that direction,” the cat pointed to his right, “there is a hatter; and in this direction is a marsh hare. Go to either one. They both are mad.” And Alice said, “I don’t want to go among mad people!” The cat said, “You can’t help yourself because we all are mad here. I am mad and you are mad.” Alice said, “How do you know I am mad?” The cat said, “Well, if you are not mad, you wouldn’t have come here in the first place. So you are mad.”
Okay now that is the first illustration. And the second illustration is from a film or video, the title of it, The Never Ending Story. Now in the story, the city of Fantasia is about to be destroyed by an encroaching void called the Nothing. Altraido, the young warrior, was summoned to go on a quest, to go on a journey, a long journey, to confront the Nothing. In his search he comes up on a creature of darkness. And as he approaches, the creature began to growl with a frightening sound that would put anybody’s heart running. The creature is so grotesque with teeth like needles. Many, many teeth! Altraido began to approach and the creature began to speak, “If you come any closer, I will tear you to shreds.” And Altraido said, “Who are you?” I am Rork. And you, whoever you are, has the opportunity to be my last victim. “I will not die easily”, said the warrior, “for I am a warrior.” The creature, with a stinging, frightening laugh said, “Ha, Ha, Ha, brave warrior then fight the Nothing.” Altraido said, “I can’t, I can’t even get to the boundaries of that kingdom.” And the creature said, “Fantasia, don’t you know anything little boy. Fantasia has no boundaries. It is a world of human fantasy. “Well what if Fantasia dies?” said Altraido. “People are going to lose their hopes and forget their dreams and the Nothing grows stronger.” Altraido says, “What is the Nothing?” “It is the emptiness that is left and despair that has destroyed this world.” “But why?” said Altraido. “People who have no hopes are easy to control and whoever has control has the power.”
Now these illustrations tell us something as a backdrop about the world. Now the question is, “Are we mad and safe in bondage and handcuffed by the power of the Nothing or do we turn and embrace the greatest power and energy in the universe—the love of God? John 3:16! Are we beginning to see it now? John 3:16—are we beginning to feel its power and majesty? God has called us in Jesus Christ to love as God loves us. What should be the Christian response to a world gone mad and caught in the grip of the Nothing? This is the world God loves. See, John 3:16 is not a warm fuzzy. It is not something to kind of play around with. John 3:16 is dynamite! God so loved, God Almighty everlasting, God creator, sustainer, God alpha and omega the beginning and the end, the here and the now, God Almighty! What should be the Christian response to a world gone mad and caught up in the grip of the Nothing? This is the world God loves! What is the Christian response to a world off track, breaking up, and going away? This is the world God loves! Jesus Christ, God’s Son, calls us out of darkness, out of the madness, out of the nothingness of this world. Precious Lord take my hand; lead me out of the madness of this world. Liberate us and set us free and give us that contagious freedom to share with others so that they may also be free.
Now, John 3:16 comes alive for us! Jesus takes us out on the one hand then helps us back in on the other. And He sends us back to the world of madness, sin, and death, back to the world of oppression and fear. He sends us back to a society of hatred and bigotry, back to a world of madness and destruction. He sends us back to the danger zone where it’s cold and dangerous and we get cold to the slave master or the jailer. It’s dangerous because of the watch out over the dungeon. He sends us back where the power of the Nothing rules strongly.
Yet we go back for one big difference. Hallelujah! We go back free with the fires of Peter in our bones. We are now, as Martin Luther King would say, a man of justice doing justice. Jesus tells us to fear not, fear no one, and be not afraid. Several have lifted up this one at First Avenue Baptist Church where we were preparing to have a mass meeting to march in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in justice and discrimination and segregation. Again let’s open the door and look up. All of this mass of people they had clubs, they had cattle prods, they had guns, shotguns, and they had dogs. And not long for them to go down on a road with five other ministers and there were a whole bunch of folks behind us. My legs started shivering; I got weak in my knees. I thought I couldn’t stand up. But I heard the voice of Jesus, “Be not afraid. Fear not.” You know, the Bible is loaded with these “fear not's” and “be not afraid”.
Jesus has set us free. The Son set you free. You are free indeed! God’s Son! Did you hear .that? Hear the knock at the door? Fate answered—no one was there. We are free to show and tell the world the significance of John 3:16. Are we beginning to hear it now? Are we beginning to feel its power and majesty? Show and tell the power of the Nothing which expresses itself through the structures, the principalities and powers of our society. All systems and institutions who free that oppression, fear and domination are in the powers that be. God so loved the world—show and tell them we are one whom God has sent. We bear no weapons; we are non-violent. We come to show and tell you about John 3:16.
Someone might say, “What’s love got to do with it anyway?” Everything! Love is the way it is! As Scott Fitzgerald said, “And the way it is, is the way it is now because it’s not the way it is going to be or ought to be but the way it is now.” And if we go against that love, we are going against God. A woodcutter has a plank and he just rubs his hand down the grain, with the grain and everything okay, but if the person starts going against the grain, that person will get splinters. And if we go against God’s love travels in one direction. And if we go with God, all is well and good. But if we go against God, then that love of God is experienced as wrath, the wrath of God because we are going against the love of God. Are we talking about, you know, what’s going on in the world today? All of the ugliness, all of the stuff, murder, and all of the stuff that happens in our world—war—and all of the stuff that’s going down and we are caught up in all of this stuff. Why? Because we are going against the grain; we are going against God’s love. And when we go against God’s love, we will suffer the consequences.
God demands that we love one another—even our enemies. Love your enemies because that is the only way the world will work! Your enemies, you’ve got to love them. We’ve got to love them. Let us care a little bit more about this world that love is so extravagant with. Not only is the world suffering from madness and nothingness, it is on its deathbed, sick with the fever. You know you can be sick, but once you get a fever with that. The world is blind and can’t see very well because of cataracts and glaucoma from greed and poverty, war, sexism, racism, and inhumanity. It sees light as darkness and darkness as light. It sees evil as good and good as evil. It clouds out the light, but death muffles its voice. Yet it continues to gasp for breath and life. The world wants to live. Give the world Jesus Christ; He is God’s good news for a world breaking up and blowing away.
Jesus Christ is the light of the world. We are called to share this light and this light must be validated by the way we live in the world. World, we have good news for you. That’s the truth, that’s us! Are we so caught up in the badness and the nothingness of the world that we can’t function? World, we have good news for we have John 3:16. However, the world is not quite convinced and is pressing its point. One of our underdogs of the world, the disposed and the disinherited people of the world, the poor, the hungry, the hopeless, and the wretched of the earth—what about them? Yes, this is us! Yes, this is God! Yes, this is Jesus! Yes, we are aware of them, but are you hearing us world? We are love whom God has sent. If you can grasp that world, we bring you John 3:16: God so loved you, world, that He gave His only son. (Some of transcript lost due to tape change).
What manner of love is this? A love that will never die and live without us! Can you imagine that? Let us look at Jesus close up in John 3:16 for a moment. Jesus slipped in through the backdoor of the world born in a cow pen where He identified with you from the very beginning. Most of the world’s babies are born outside of the confines of luxuries and niceties of this world. Jesus grew up to be a strong man. He was a tough Jesus. He loved with a tough love and also with a tender love. He was justice and righteousness but also tenderhearted and merciful. He was good news for the underdog; bad news for sin. He hated oppression and loved the oppressor and loved the oppressed. He loved justice and hated injustice. He was peacemaker, but also agitator. Jesus loved people for the sake of people and people were His number one cause. He loved supremely. He was so extravagant with His love for his brothers and sisters He stayed in troubled waters. One day the waters overpowered Jesus. The powers that be arrested Him, brought up some trumped up charges against Him, found Him guilty and sentenced Him to death to die by crucifixion. And the word itself sent chills down His spine.
They were in fact saying, “This is what we do to those who would dare stand for something other than that which has been sanctioned by those in power.” Kill Him, crucify Him. They put Him in jail, in prisons, in dungeons. They put Him on a horse. The soldiers took Him to a garbage dump outside the city walls of Jerusalem for crucifixion between two thieves. Jesus—a good man! How strange this good man was not liked any better than the robber who was crucified with Him. The Roman government called Him a traitor. The Pharisees called Him a heretic. And the zealots called Him a coward. And people and members of His own family thought He was out of His mind. This good man!
There are two kinds of people in the world—the very good and the very bad, those who fail to meet this status quo and those who rise above it. What a paradox! The same government that killed the robbers killed Jesus. Respectable, law-abiding people killed Jesus. People who we trained and educated killed Jesus. I could take it much better if Jesus had been killed by gangsters, kidnappers, robbers, and murderers. I could take it a little better if Jesus had been killed by a man like Hitler, Al Capone, or Jesse James. But this is not the case. No, good people killed Jesus. The constituted authorities killed Jesus. Pilate, the powerful of Judea, the juries of the Sanhedrin, the High Priests, scribes and Pharisees all had a hand in crucifying Jesus. Now executioners placed Jesus’ hand on a crossbar and took a nail or nails and a hammer. Can you hear the hammer ringing? Surely He died on Calvary! We get in on the last nail being hammered into the flesh of Jesus.
Jesus died. Jesus is dead. It’s all over now. They took His body down and put it in a tomb or grave and rolled a huge stone to close it. Then they sealed it to secure it. The sound of silence said to be continued. And it is not over yet! Three days later Jesus broke through from the bony hands of death. Stood and looked at the beautiful world and had all the power. Give it unto me. Oh death where is thy sting? Grave where is thou victory? Nothing, where are you? Madness, victory!
The 15th chapter of the Book of Revelations and God speaks of a great assembly where they will celebrate the victory. And they go on to say that all of our struggles, all of Satan’s ages are caught up, all things caught up in the vast eternity of God. And I see a glass mingled with fire with the harps of heaven being struck and a great organ of eternity striking the Fantasia note. The redeemer, the Lord caught up in the victory of the lamb and they cry out, “Glorious and marvelous are thy works, oh Lord. The Lord God magnificent reigneth and He shall reign forever and ever, King of Kings and Lord or Lords forever and ever and ever. The madness has been transformed into joy and gladness and the Nothing has been transformed into something, something beautiful and delightful. Heaven rejoices and the people of God shout for joy. God is still in control of this world whether you know it or not. And He’ll be in control forever and ever. “God so loved the world that He gave His only son to save it.” John 3:16 testifies that fact. Amen.
E-mail Comments to: Reverend Dan Sinkhorn