God So Loved the World

A knock at the door after dark. A man in the fine robes of a religious leader glances over his shoulder, then slips inside. He does not want to be seen. But he has to ask.

It is Passover in Jerusalem, and Jesus has caused a stir. He has driven the traders and money changers out of the temple courts, and he has done signs that have people talking. Nicodemus is a Pharisee, a careful student of God's law, and a member of the ruling council. He has seen enough to know there is something about Jesus. So he comes at night, perhaps to avoid being noticed, perhaps simply to talk without the crowds. Rabbi, he says, we know you are a teacher come from God. No one could do these signs unless God were with him.

Jesus answers in a way Nicodemus does not expect. Unless someone is born again, born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus is puzzled. How can a grown man be born a second time? Jesus explains that he means a new birth by God's Spirit, like the wind that blows where it wants; you hear its sound, but you cannot see where it comes from. Then Jesus reminds Nicodemus of a story from the wilderness, when Moses lifted up a bronze serpent on a pole and all who looked at it lived. Just so, Jesus says, the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

And then come the words that millions of people know by heart. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Notice what love does here. It gives. Not a little gift, but God's only Son. And notice who it is for. The world. Not only good people, not only one nation, but the world. And whoever believes, anyone at all, is welcome. That is why the Son was born in Bethlehem. Because God loved, and so God gave.

God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, the passage goes on, but that the world through him might be saved. And then a picture Nicodemus, sitting in the dark, would have understood. The light has come into the world. Some people love the darkness more, because they do not want their deeds to be seen. But whoever does what is true comes to the light. Nicodemus has come to Jesus in the dark. Will he step into the light? John's Gospel tells us that later he did. When Jesus died, it was Nicodemus who brought spices to honour his body.

The bronze serpent Jesus mentioned comes from the book of Numbers. During Israel's journey in the wilderness, the people were bitten by venomous snakes. God told Moses to make a serpent of bronze and set it on a pole. Anyone who had been bitten and looked at it lived. Jesus used that well-known story to explain what he had come to do.

God So Loved the World. You'll find it in John chapter three, verses sixteen to twenty-one. This is the reason for Christmas, told in one sentence: God loved, and God gave. So here is a question to carry with you. If God's love is for the whole world, what would it look like to step out of the dark and into his light?