In This Way..... (March 1, 2026)

Growing up as a priest’s kid, you hear a lot of Scripture. Yes, on Sundays, but on holy days and at Sunday School, at Vacation Bible School and the dinner table.  The Word was made a foundational text for me. And in Scripture, I have always loved the stories of women and the few stories that actually had girls as characters, but I also had a few favorite male characters: Zacchaeus and Nicodemus. Now, Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he. And that’s why I liked him: I figured we came from the same tribe of Lilliputians (or Laplanders, depending on your national context). But I also loved Nicodemus because he is a person of questions. And I, too, have always had a questioning nature. 

And today’s Gospel shows us that God allows questions. Heck, more than allows, God encourages questions. After all Jesus comes to us in the form of a Jewish person, and Judaism is a way of life where one comes to wider understandings through questions. Not answers; questions.

And today’s reading prompts more than one question for me: 

• Jesus says: “what is born of the flesh is flesh and what is born of the Spirit is Spirit” but what does that mean, exactly? Jesus, according to our teaching, is Spirit born of the flesh. Are we? Or are we flesh that is born of the Spirit? But what Jesus says earlier doesn’t seem to make space for either of those realities; Jesus seems to say you are one or the other. Which is it?

• Like Nicodemus, sometimes I wonder: How can these things be?

• Like Jesus, sometimes I wonder: How can you not know?

• Did you notice that Jesus speaks in the plural? “We speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen….”  1st person plural is the grammatical choice of the Christ in this passage. Does that mean 3rd person plural should be how we refer to God then? And, of course, Beloved, we know that 3rd person plural is They/Them/Theirs.

• What does Jesus think is the difference between earthly things versus heavenly things? 

So many questions. But what I am going to focus on today is this one:

Just what is meant by that infamous verse: John chapter 3, verse 16: “For God so loved the world that God gave their only Son, so that everyone who believes in Them may not perish but may have eternal life.”

This is probably the most well-known Bible verse in America. Just what does it mean? Now, you and I may have different answers: Huzzah! That is okay. But today, together, let’s do some unpacking. Just for fun.

Let’s start with the first word in the verse: “For” It can also mean “Because” or “Since” Since God so loved the world….

Okay. Good start, more unpacking. Let’s move to that word “so” as in “so” loved the world.  The greek word is houtos…..and yes, it can be translated as “so” but what does that really mean—so loved….well, houtos also means “in this way.”  Since God —in this way–loved the world….

Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. But, Beloved, the Greek is not “loved.” Well, it is and it isn’t. You see this word comes from the verb Agapao—where we get the noun agape—but in John 3:16 it is written in the aorist active tense. So it is a verb that has been completed. So “loved.” But aorist active is a verb tense that is a past action that has permanent or lasting results. This means it is a past action that has ongoing, continuous and lasting effects. So it is simultaneously “loved” and “loves” or “is loving.” Since God, in this way, has loved, does love, and is loving the world…..

Yep, the world, the Greek here is Kosmon, where we get the word Cosmos, and it means the world, the material universe, the aggregate of humanity. Aggregate? What’s aggregate? It means the “whole of.” Since God, in this way, has loved, does love, and is loving the Cosmos, the material universe, the whole of humanity, God gave….

And here we  have the aorist active tense again: a past action that has permanent, continual and lasting effects: God gave, but that gave is also does give and is giving….

Since God, in this way, has loved, does love, and is loving the Cosmos, the material universe, the whole of humanity, God did give, does give, and is giving God’s only Son…..

Now, wait just a minute! God’s only Son? I thought we are all God’s children. What the heck? Scripture tells us we are God’s children. Over and over again: Gospel of John Chapter one, verse twelve, 1John 3:1-2, Romans 8:16-17; Galatians 3:36; 2 Corinthians 6:18–you get the picture. So are we God’s children or is Jesus the only one?  The Greek word for “only” is monogene. It has also been translated, like in the King James translation, as only-begotten.  So only Son could mean only Son that came about in this way. That’s a fair understanding. But not the only possibility. The Greek monogene also means “unique” as in different from all the rest…..hmmm I wonder if that word could describe what it means to be Spirit born of the flesh and maybe even flesh born of the spirit and not just flesh of flesh or spirit of spirit…..(shrug)

Since God, in this way, has loved, does love, and is loving the Cosmos, the material universe, the whole of humanity, God did give, does give, and is giving God’s unique and “different than the rest” Son…..

That word, “Son” pinches me. I am not a Son. Some of you are. Some of you are Son and daughter. Some of you are not Son nor daughter, but the spaces in-between, I would suspect. Me? I am daughter (with traits or characteristics of Son, no doubt). But, “Son” does not include me as I understand myself. So, Beloved, let’s go to the Greek so we know what to do with that pinch.  The word is huion (hwee-on). And “Son" is a good translation. But, guess what? It means more than that. The most common, Greek word by far, that is translated as "child" is υἱὸς (huios). It means a "son," and more generally, a "child."  It is a primary noun, widely used in ancient and Biblical Greek to denote kinship. It can also mean descendent.

Since God, in this way, has loved, does love, and is loving the Cosmos, the material universe, the whole of humanity, God did give, does give, and is giving God’s unique and “different than the rest” child so that everyone who believes in God…..

So, wait. Just what does it mean to believe? Like, does that mean without question? Does that mean with absolute certainty….what does that mean? The Greek word is pisteuon. Yes, belief is a possible translation, but it is so much more. It means to have faith which is to entrust one’s life to, or to completely rely on, or to cling to…..it’s not mere intellectual assent, but to have trust and to bet your life on that trust of someone or something.

Since God, in this way, has loved, does love, and is loving the Cosmos, the material universe, the whole of humanity, God did give, does give, and is giving God’s unique and “different than the rest” child so that everyone who entrusts their life to God…..Or maybe we should say, since we are doing all this unpacking anyway: that everyone who entrusts their life to Love may not perish but have eternal life.

You know I gotta do it right? I gotta unpack eternal life. Because we know—we have seen with our eyes—-that no one actually lives forever. All of us, or most of us, in this room have had to deal with the death of a loved one. And they are physically gone from us. Forever. So, what’s this eternal life of which Love speaks? Is there a magic castle in the clouds where they wait for us, presumably in whatever they were wearing at their funeral, and we will see them again?

Maybe? Beloved, I do not actually know. But what I can do is ask the question of the Greek language used…….(and let me add this interesting note that the word translated as “perish” also means to be utterly destroyed or to be brought to nought, to be lost, to be deprived of…..so maybe this is about more than just our bodies dying…..just a thought, but now, back to eternal life…..)

The Greek word is aionion. Meaning eternal, also everlasting, perpetual, indeterminate as to duration…..Some scholars believe it means a long, specific or uninterrupted time, rather than strictly endless…..and it appears that in both Hebrew and Greek Scriptures it can mean “long-lasting, but sometimes limited” time—-like an age or an era or an eon.

Since God, in this way, has loved, does love, and is loving the Cosmos, the material universe, the whole of humanity, God did give, does give, and is giving God’s unique and “different than the rest” child so that everyone who entrusts their life  to Love is not lost or destroyed  but may have long-lasting and perpetual existence.

Even the verb “have” here is not static. It means something like “may be having.”  That everyone who entrusts their life to Love is not  lost or destroyed but may be having long-lasting and perpetual existence.

Existence….hmmm….that means being real or being a reality. So, not necessarily tied to flesh and bones. One can exist, one can be real, without those things, like exist in our hearts and minds…..I mean my momma who died two years ago still exists in me and through me. And in her grandkids and great grandkids—five of whom who know. So, if my mom exists in us, does my mom exist for you? You who know us, me and my kids and grandkids. Is my mom’s life perpetual in us? And so extended to all those who are connected to us…. Today? Still now? For an indeterminate duration………?

And then, there’s the question of just to whom, to what did God who is Love give this Unique, “different than the rest” child? Again we have the aorist active tense—so this giving is something that has been done which continues to have effects……This “gave” in Greek also means bestowed, presented, supplied, was the source of; it means “to exhibit, to consecrate, to devote, to offer in sacrifice…..”

Oh Beloved, when we hear John 3:16 may we never condemn it to a throw pillow or a sign in a sports stadium again….

Since God, in this way, has loved, does love, and is loving the Cosmos, the material universe, the whole of humanity, Love did give, does give, and is giving God’s unique and different than the rest child and descendent so that everyone who entrusts their life to Love is not lost, or utterly destroyed but, instead, may be having ongoing, perpetual existence.

Questions are fun. And necessary. And God not only allows them. God encourages them. Because in the questions we draw nearer to Love’s presence.