Jesus offers Nicodemus a new way of seeing the world and a new life. Our attempts to make new life easy strip it of its true substance.
Jesus’s gospel of redemption
Lent 4B | John 3:14-21
This morning, we read from the gospel of John. Chapter 3, verses 14 through 21. And this story contains one of the most famous verses in modern Christianity. A verse that a crazed evangelist would paint on a sign to hold up at sporting events in the 1970s and Tim Tebow wrote on his eye black.
But not the verse itself. The signifier. Signs saying: John 3:16. Just that.
This story is anything but simple, however. And these attempts to use this one verse to evangelize the world—well…they offer us a snapshot into the foolishness of an easy faith.
Here’s what we’re going to do today. We’re going to break apart the simple idea, to reveal why it is much more complicated. And then, how we are entrusted to make sense of it anew.
Sound good?
Alright. Let’s start with the gospel itself, then we’ll contrast theologies before we build it back up…
The full text may be found here.
For a limited time, you may find the audio here.