That reading contains one of the best-loved Bible verses. John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” The verse that comes after it, John 3:17, is not quite as well-known, but to me it’s just as important: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
In fact, it seems to me that to really make sense of John 3:16, we need to do what we did today: read the verse in the context of when Jesus said it. Jesus said this to a man named Nicodemus in the context of saying what it takes to see the kingdom of God. And Jesus said, as you just heard, that to see the kingdom of God, we need to be born again.
Nicodemus, of course, did not understand this. And we struggle to understand it sometimes, too. Some people understand being born again as meaning we have to have a big, dramatic conversion, that we have to know the exact date and time at which we felt the spirit of God come into our lives.
Now, if that’s your belief, I’m not here to argue with you. I’m just telling you that it’s not my belief. I know some people have had that big, dramatic moment, and that’s great. It’s a wonderful thing. But I think it’s also possible to be born again through a process that lasts over a period of time, and that never involves that one big, dramatic moment.
I think what Jesus was trying to say here is that his coming, his life and his coming death, changed everything. Before Jesus came, people looked at salvation as something that came through following rules. The rules were based on the Old Testament, but also involved lots of explanations and interpretations. If you belived in God, then it was your duty to follow those rules. People thought if you followed the rules perfectly, God would smile upon you and you would see the kingdom of God. If you did not, well, you were in trouble.
What Jesus was saying about being born again is that what matters is not how well we can follow the rules. What matters is what’s in our hearts. What being born again means, really, is having a change of heart. It means having hearts that love God and want to serve God. It means having hearts that love the people God created and that want to serve the people God created. Being born again means that we don’t act out of duty, but out of love.
We need to act out of love because that’s how God acts. God does not act out of duty. A duty, after all, is something we’re required to do, whether we want to or not. God is not required to do anything. God is God. God does what God chooses to do.
But the thing is that God loves us. God will always love us. Not because God has to love us, not because God is required to love us, but because that’s who God is. There will never be a day when God does not loves us, because God is love. And every action God takes is a reflection of that love.
And of course, that includes sending the divine Son into the world. That has to be one of the most loving things God has ever done. God sent the divine Son into the world. Why? That’s why John 3:17 is so important. It tells us why. God did not send the divine Son into the world to condemn us. God sent him into the world to save us.
And that may be the biggest change of all. Remember, before Jesus came, people were scared of God. Think of all the verses in the Old Testament, even in the Psalms, that talk about the fear of the Lord. That’s why people were trying to keep the rules. They were scared of what God would do to them if they did not.
Jesus said we don’t have to be scared of God. God is not looking for reasons to condemn us. God loves us. God wants to save us. That’s why God sent Jesus into the world. It was an act of love, maybe the ultimate act of love.
God wants us to do good things, of course. God wants us to treat each other well. But God does not want us to do that because we think we have to. God wants us to do that because we want to. God wants us to act out of love, because that’s how God acts. And God wants us to feel the joy that comes from acting out of love, just as I think God feels joy from the love God has for us.
It seems to me that, in this time of Lent, this is an especially important thing for us to remember. Lent is the time we ask for God’s forgiveness and re-dedicate ourselves to being the people God wants us to be. As we do that, let’s re-dedicate ourselves to loving God and loving the people God created. Because when love God and love others, that’s when we are truly born again. Because when we love God and love others, we are truly created in the image of God.
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