Yeah, today we have John 3:16. It's one of those readings that, as a pastor, you sort of dread, because what kind of new and fun spin can you put on John 3:16? What more are you going to say about the reading that pretty much everyone knows to death? In reality, there's not too much you can do with it, you know? Not much that you can say that everyone doesn't already know about. This isn't an obscure story about a judge who accidentally promised to kill his daughter, or a story about a king being so fat that when he got stabbed in the bathroom, his fat closed over the dagger. No, this is John 3:16, the 'Bible in a nutshell.' Everyone knows it. It's on tea towels, stickers, hats and jelly bracelets. You can find it on absolutely everything, and it's the one verse that everyone seems to know.
But let's take a quick peek at how it shows up in the overall readings for Sunday. Because the readings have Abram being called by God, and being told that God was going to make of him a great nation, and that his descendants would be like the sand on the beach or the stars in the sky. All good news so far. And Abram, as an old man, does eventually have a couple of kids. Ishmael, and Isaac. Through Isaac comes the lineage of Israel, and eventually the birth of Jesus Christ, the messiah. That means that the words that God spoke came through, that through Abram all the would would be blessed.
But spare a thought for your friend and mine Nicodemus. We like to get a bit smug about this, as people who live in a baptism world, but it's easy for us to look at Nicodemus who asks a reasonable question like he's just a bozo. He asks 'how can a man be born again? Can he go back into his mother's womb when he is old?' Ha ha, doesn't he know about baptism?
Well, no.
Not only does he not know about baptism, which he doesn't, but he also has a realistic reaction. Think about the crowds gathered around Jesus who say 'we are children of Abraham, and we have never been slaves to anyone.' Think about the accusations towards Peter in the New Testament, that he ate with gentiles. The people of Israel were set apart by God for a reason. They were set apart to ensure that they would not mingle with the Gentiles. Not just as a matter of decorum, but as a matter of holiness. The people of Israel saw themselves as distinct, and not just worthy due to their faith, but due to their genes. They could trace their line back to Abraham, and so when they thought of themselves, it was as being of the house of Israel conferred special status according to the flesh that spilled over into the spirit. Paul puts it this way:
If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.
When Paul writes this, he is tapping into a reality, you know. A reality that the people of Israel assumed was 100% there. Because of passages that talked about Abram's seed being a very big deal according to God, the people of Israel assumed that their lineage was evidence of being blessed and chosen by God. This has continued to this day with the phenomenon of secular Jews, who identify as Jews, though not believing in God at all. Because of the ethnic and cultural aspects of Judaism, it is possible for someone born to a Jewish mother to be considered as fully Jewish whether or not they even believe that God exists. So what does that mean? It means that due to a lack of defined faith being required, just as God breathed life into Adam, he would be able to raise up from the stones children for Abraham. And Nicodemus, who knows that Jesus is 'from God' as he says, he's going to want to work out which is the right house and line to be born in. From his perspective, it makes perfect sense. God has blessed the world through one family, but Jesus says you have to be born again. How you gonna pull that trick off when it's clearly too late for you, as you had one shot to be born, and you were born wrong.
But there is a new birth. Every bit as valid as the first, but the new birth is one that absolutely anyone can partake in. There is still a family, you know, and the family of Abram is still the one through which all the world will be blessed. But there is an important, non-genetic component that goes along with this.
Abram believed, and God credited it to him as righteousness.
So let's say that's true. Which is more important after all? Is the story of the Bible a story in which God just happens to like one group of people more than literally anyone else? Is it the story of God arbitrarily choosing one people and saying to them and of them 'these are my people and I love them best' the same way you would do with a dog? Or is it the story of God saving the entire world, and wanting all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth? It seems that it's a key aspect of the teaching of Christ that you have to be born again, not born of the flesh, which you have been, but born of the spirit. Born not into a family of skin and bone, but born into a family of faith, where you believe and it gets credited to you as righteousness.
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