2 Lent

February 17, 2008

THERE HANGS GINA

by John Christianson

 

John 3:1-17

 

3Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. ²He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” ³Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” ⁴Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” ⁵Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. ⁶What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ ⁸The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” ⁹Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” ¹⁰Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? ¹¹“Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. ¹²If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? ¹³No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. ¹⁴And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. ¹⁶“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. ¹⁷“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

 

What a powerful text this is!  So full! 

• You have the fascinating figure of Nicodemus, whose name occurs only in the gospel of John six times, and three of them are here.
• In the original Greek you have a wonderful three-fold pun about the wind blowing, the breath breathing and the Spirit inspiring.
• You have John 3:16, “the gospel in a nutshell.”
• And you have this confusing parallel that Jesus draws between Moses’ serpent on a pole in the wilderness and the cross of Jesus.

That’s four sermons.  Today we’ll look at just the fourth one.  The serpent on the pole and Jesus on the cross.

Most people prefer a story to a sermon, so I’ll tell you three of them.

 

I.

Nathan Soderblom was a great Swedish archbishop.  During the twentieth century different Christian denominations began fighting less and cooperating more.  It’s called “the ecumenical movement.”  That was largely the work of Nathan Soderblom.  In 1930 he won the Nobel Peace Prize.

 

When Nathan was a young pastor his clergyman father died and he found himself temporarily filling the pulpit in his father’s church.  His text was the exact text that we have in front of us today, and Nathan was having a hard time with the serpent on the pole / Christ on the cross.  It didn’t really make sense to him.  Just then, , he looked up and saw his father’s cleaning lady walking past the open door of his father’s study.  He called her in.

 

“Gina, can you tell me, what does this passage mean to you?  I can’t understand it.  ¹⁴And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

 

“Oh yes,” Gina said.  “You remember, the Hebrew children sinned in the wilderness.  So God sent poisonous serpents, the very symbol of sin, to bite them, and they were dying.  Then they were sorry and they repented.  So God told Moses to make a bronze serpent and hang it high on a pole, and the people just had to look at it and believe that God had destroyed their guilt,  like that serpent was destroyed, and they would live.  That’s all they had to do – just believe.

 

 “And that’s how it is with Jesus too.  The Bible says, ‘For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.’” [2 Cor. 5:21]   Then Gina pointed at the crucifix hanging over Nathan’s father’s desk, and she said.  So Jesus was lifted up on the cross, and when I look at that, I say, ‘There hangs Gina; here stands Christ.”

 

Later, Nathan said, “There, from the lips of my father’s cleaning lady, the Word of God became the Word that brought me eternal life.”

 

II.

Our second story comes from the pen of another Swedish Nobel laureate.  Pär Lagerkvist wrote his novel, Barabbas in 1950 and the next year was awarded the Nobel prize for literature.  His novel was made into a powerful play and into a movie.

 

Of course, it’s about Barabbas, the criminal in the Bible, probably a terrorist.  His first name, curiously enough, was Jesus.  His last name, Barabbas means “Son of the Father.”  So among the prisoners standing in front of Pontius Pilate on Good Friday morning, were two men named Jesus.  Jesus Barabbas (son of the father), and Jesus Bar-joseph (son of Joseph).  It was Passover, so Pilate followed the practice and offered to release a prisoner.  He proposed either one of the two men named Jesus.  The crowd said, “Free Barabbas and crucify Jesus.”  So he did.  [John 18:40]

 

Lagerkvist’s novel picks up where the Bible leaves off.  What happens to Barabbas when Jesus is killed on the cross meant for him?

 

Well, Barabbas watches Jesus die on the cross.  At first he’s understandably thrilled with his own good fortune and contemptuous of this weakling Jesus, who doesn’t even fight back.  Then Barabbas begins to feel guilty.  His guilt grows when he discovers that his girlfriend has become a follower of Jesus.  She and the other followers are overcome by love for Jesus because he “died in their place.”  Barabbas is totally confused.  HE’s the one in whose place Jesus died.  Jesus died for Barabbas, not for all these other folks.

 

Finally, after nearly forty decades of toil and trouble – struggling with the knowledge that Jesus died for him, he finds himself in Rome when it burns down.  He decides Jesus is really Lord and this is the beginning of the end.  He joins in spreading the fire, he’s arrested with the Christians, and Nero has them all crucified.

 

The lesson that Barabbas, all his life, needed to learn?  “There hangs Barabbas, here stand’s Christ.”

 

III.

The third story is very much like Gina’s story and even more like Barabbas’.  Meet Nicodemus.  We first see him in our sermon text.  We’re told that he’s a Pharisee and a leader of the Jews.  He has an image to uphold.  He has to be careful about being seen with the wrong people.  So he comes to Jesus at night – when it’s dark and he’s less likely to be seen.  He’s curious; he’s fascinated; he’s attracted to Jesus.  He calls him Rabbi!  He’s the one that Jesus talks to about the bronze serpent on the pole in the wilderness.  You can count on it.  Nicodemus understood that.  The other part he would remember, but there’s no way he could understand it yet: so must the Son of Man be lifted up.  That’s Nicodemus in the third chapter of John.

 

We meet him again in chapter seven.  What is changed about him is that now he’s not such a wary come-by-night seeker.  A group of Pharisees are eager to arrest Jesus, and Nicodemus speaks a cautious word on his behalf.  “Our

law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?” [John 7:51]

 

Finally, it is evening of Good Friday.  Jesus has been crucified.  The Son of Man has been lifted up.  Has Nicodemus put it all together?  You bet your life he has, because now we meet the new Nicodemus, the Nicodemus of John 19.

                ³⁸After these things, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission; so he came and removed his body. ³⁹Nicodemus, (Nicodemus!) who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds. ⁴⁰They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, according to the burial custom of the Jews. ⁴¹Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. ⁴²And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.  [John 19:38-52]

 

Finally, Nicodemus had come out of the shadows.  His attitude toward Jesus had turned from curiosity to love.  Extravagant love!  Remember when  Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. [John 12:3]  Judas complained that it must have cost a year’s wages and Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.”   Now it is literally the day of his burial, and this time Mary, sister of Lazarus doesn’t come.  Instead, it’s Nicodemus with the costly gift, a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds.

 

What caused the big change?  Obviously, like Gina, Nicodemus had figured out the relationship between the serpent on the pole and Jesus on the cross.  He must have sensed that this was something huge in salvation history, but more than that, he must have really seen what it meant for him.  I wonder, when Jesus said, “It is finished” [John 19:30] if, whether or not he put it into words, he didn’t have a feeling that whispered, “There hangs Nicodemus; here stands Christ.”

 

And it’s like that for us too.  The word of God that became the word that brought eternal life to Nathan Soderblom is confirmed when we say, “There hangs John, there hang you; here stands Christ, multiplied.  Amen.

 

(Comments to John at john.christianson@stjohnsofmound.org )

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