This past week marks the passing of one of the great advocates of preaching in the twentieth and the twenty-first century, the Reverend Doctor Fred Craddock. His funeral was early this week. Craddock might not be a name that rolls off your tongues and you associate with preaching, but he was one of the greats. He preached in this very pulpit, and lectured in virtually every seminary in North America. I remember going to hear him as a young pre-ordinant, when he came to Halifax to speak on his new book at the time, As One Without Authority – an incredible book! His books have lined the libraries of preachers all over the world, and there is hardly a preacher anywhere that does not count among their volumes something by Fred Craddock. He will be greatly missed, because he brought preaching alive at a time when it was dying, and he needs to be heard all over again.
There is a certain degree of both irony and melancholy about the passing of Fred Craddock. This is because this morning’s lectionary text from the Gospel of John has as one of its great commentaries, and one that I have read in preparation for today, a commentary by Fred Craddock himself. Here I am preaching from a commentary that he wrote about a text that nearly every one of you already knows, wondering where in the depths of Craddock’s great writing I can find something to bring John 3:16 alive before us again. Preaching this hurts, but I also realize that the text itself is about love and memory and conviction. Actually, this passage is about how love hurts.
For those of you who remember the 1970s, you may recall the rock group beautifully named Nazareth, and their song: Love Hurts. In it, there was this incredible verse:
Love hurts, love scars, love wounds
And mars, any heart
Not tough or strong enough
To take a lot of pain, take a lot of pain
Love is like a cloud
Holds a lot of rain
Love hurts......ooh, ooh love hurts
It was the anthem for the broken hearted. But it speaks of a truth that is manifested so clearly in our passage this morning. This is because we find so much about the power of when love hurts.
Craddock said, “This passage from John’s Gospel is a summary of all that Gospel believes, and it follows a conversation with a person.” He points out that often in John’s Gospel Jesus has a conversation with someone. In this particular case, the famous conversation with Nicodemus, but that after there is often a summary of what it means. Again, in this we have a summary of what the Gospel is all about and those famous words in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his begotten Son that whosoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life.“
John 3:16 is a sign that you see held up at ball games and in sports arenas. People hold up John 3:16, and if they know nothing else in the Bible they know John 3:16. There is just something about it, but what is key about it is that it shows the overwhelming power of the love of God, and that love not only hurts, but requires an investment in a human relationship. Look again at the words; break the sentence down a little bit: God so loved -- the world -- that He gave -- his only Son. This was God’s great investment in the world. This was God’s great gift to the world. This was God’s expression of love to the world.
A couple of weeks ago, I was in a grocery store and adjacent to it is an outlet for a bank. The bank is sort of built into the grocery store. It was RRSP time and I was lining up for an instant teller beside the investment desk. This wonderful, love-struck couple, hand-in-hand, were going to make an investment for their RRSP. You could tell that they were young, and that it was probably their first investment, and there was an excitement and a fear at the same time. I saw them sit down and talk to the Financial Advisor. Now, I confess that I might not break all of The Ten Commandments, but I do know that snooping or listening in on people’s conversations should be one of The Ten Commandments – because I am always breaking it! I am listening to the conversation between a very excited investment counsellor – I don’t think he had much business that day –he started to explain to them the difference between low risk and medium risk and high risk investments, and how they are so young they should get into high risk investments, max out if they can on their equities and drive up their portfolio from the beginning. I am listening with great interest as they asked their questions. Finally, my money comes out of the machine, and I don’t know actually what they chose, but I listened to the sales pitch they would go with high risk, high reward investments. I just know that is what they ended up doing!
I think of the ministry of Jesus as a high risk, high yield investment by Almighty God. It was high risk because it required everything of God. God gave his one and only son. But he gave this one and only son, as we are told in John’s Gospel, not to condemn the world but to save it. I think that is fitting, because it shows God’s investment in the world was born out of a true love for it. There are so many people I am afraid who think of God and God’s investment in the world in Jesus as somehow some great terrible, tyrannical, out-of-the-shadows dark God who is always hovering over our shoulder waiting for us to make a mistake and pouncing upon us when we do. So many people I hear talk about God with no knowledge of the Scriptures, but they have an image of God as an unholy tyrant looking forward to their failure.
The opposite is true in the Christian Gospel. Christ did not come into the world to condemn it. But that does not make what Jesus did devoid of judgement. Craddock makes this point: It is all of grace, but in it there is an inherent judgement. The judgement is in the light of Christ; sin and darkness and avarice and disbelief are revealed for what they are. In the sign and the beauty of God there is the very darkness, the underside of human life is revealed for what it is. It is not that Christ came to condemn the world, to say to the world, “You are rejected!” but rather it is that in rejecting God, we reveal who we are and our own disbelief. It is not initiated by Christ; it is initiated by us. The judgement then is brought on us rather than from Christ, for Christ came, it says to save the world, to reconcile the world, to bring the world into God’s covenantal love. Last week, you heard me talk about The Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments was to bring people into The Covenant who had been forced out, so Christ came to do exactly the same thing. Not to condemn, but to restore, not to damage but to heal, not to reject but to bring into acceptance.
One of the most beautiful passages that I ever read was by the writer Victor Shepherd. Shepherd talked about a time when he and his family visited the Yorkshire moors, and how his life was changed by it. I don’t often recite a story from a book, but this is just a paragraph or two that was so beautifully written it says everything that I want to say:
When our family was last in England we travelled to the Yorkshire moors. Everyone has some picture of the moors in their minds thanks to the writing of the Yorkshire veterinarian James Herriot – All Creatures Great and Small. He has not exaggerated its beauty! We walked together upon the moors as the sun was setting. I shall not attempt to describe it. Suffice it to say it was so beautiful as to leave us dumbfounded. The beauty was so exquisite as to border on the surreal. In the next instant the beauty seemed so intense as to make us ache. The beauty surrounding us contrasted so sharply with un-beauty we find on so many fronts in life that this wordless beauty brought with it a particular kind of pain.
In the midst of the unloved we find so many fronts to life, we are startled when we find ourselves loved with a love whose intensity is beautiful to be sure, and whose beauty makes us ache. When we are loved not because we are useful to someone else or because we are needed or convenient; when we are loved for our own sake, loved for love’s sake, this is when we learn what it is to endure the exquisite beauty and the ache of love.
How eloquently he describes what is in fact what we feel about Christ. Jesus says, “If I be lifted up, I will draw people to me. If I be exalted, I will lift people to me.” If Christ be adored, he will draw people. More than that, the exquisite beauty and the love of God is found in the most hurtful place imaginable, for when Jesus was lifted up on the Cross and had nails driven into his hands, it was because love hurts. When the Crown of Thorns was put on his head, it was because love hurts. When his clothes are rent asunder, it is because love hurts. When he is betrayed and people lie about him, it is because love hurts. God gave his only Son because he loved us. Love hurts! It was a high risk investment for God.
It also had a high reward. The high reward is if we continue the economic idea, it brought with it, it resulted in a dividend, and that dividend was peace. What we find in this passage is an overwhelming sense that from now on, because of God’s investment in us, we have peace with God. So often I think we feel like the world does: that God is a tyrant. Even those who believe in him sometimes are ill at ease with God. We are never quite sure what our relationship should be. Does God really love us? Does God really care for us? Is God really on our side? When we doubt is God is still there? Is God in fact part of our lives? Well, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that those who believe in Him might have eternal life” there is your answer! Eternal life! Eternal life is not just a peaceful thing that happens upon our demise in some distant land and place. Eternal life breaks into where we are now because we know that with the Eternal One. We know that eternal life is ours, and because of that we are at peace with God.
How many people I wish to convey that message to who are troubled in their souls and troubled in their lives and ill at ease with their relationship with God! If only they would understand John 3:16 and the power of it, and that God’s love has given itself for them, and in that there is peace, there is relaxation, there is this knowledge that God is there. How many people need that deep in their souls? Jesus didn’t say, “God so loved just a few who would line up in church that he gave his only Son.” God said that he loved the whole world – the Greek word is cosmos – the whole world that he gave his only Son. This was the great gift. This was the power of the self-giving power. It is not only Christ who we lift up; it should be others that we lift up in the name and the power and the love of Christ.
I read the most incredible story recently about a man who died in the late 1950s called Dawson Trotman. Again, not a name that would roll off the tongue or be known by everybody. Dawson Trotman was the founder of a Christian ministry called The Navigators, which did work among young people on campuses. Be that as it may, it was actually in his death that Dawson Trotman made his greatest statement of life and of faith. He was at Schroon Lake in New York with his family. He was swimming – he was a great athlete – and in the distance he saw that there was a boat going by and two young women water skiing. The women, for whatever reason, hit a wave or did something, and they flipped and they came off their skis. Clearly, both of them were in distress. Dawson went immediately to where they were. He dived into the cold waters of Schroon Lake and he managed to get to one girl, who was in a terrible state, and save her. He was able to bring her to a nearby boat. But he realized the second woman was now actually drowning. So he dived again under the water to rescue her, and he did. Aileen Beck was her name, but unfortunately Dawson Trotman in saving her life, lost his own. He couldn’t sustain it any more. He was too weak, too cold, and he drowned. Billy Graham said that of all the people he knew, Dawson Trotman was one who lived as close to Christ as anybody. More especially, The New York Times wrote an article about it and said that above all he wanted to lift people up.
You see, the moment you say, “I believe that God so loved the world that He gave his only Son” then the investment in that world is not only Christ`s once you believe, it is yours. It is yours to lift it up and to support it, to give it life for you are at peace with yourself. Trotman did what he did out of bravery and courage, but I am sure he did it knowing that he was always secure, that he never had to worry about his own future; or fear his own demise. Why? It is because he was secure. When you know you are secure, then it gives you the freedom to be for others. The moment you are secure, it allows you to share in the Cross-filled love of Christ. The moment you are secure, you have nothing to fear.
The bookend of this last week, there was a phone call from a woman who was my babysitter when I was a child, and with whom I have been close for the last fifty-odd years. She phoned me to inform me that her beloved husband, beautifully named John Lord (how’s that for a name?) had died. I was a page boy at their wedding. Secretly, I was jealous of him for taking her away from me, but I loved him anyway. He was a simple and a kind and a generous man. Unlike the Craddocks of this world, he didn’t write volumes that would be on any bookshelves. He did keep a diary though every day of his life. For fifty-odd years he kept this diary going, recording every day from the birth of their sons to their troubles, and to the glories of their family. He was never a man that you would elevate to the point that you would realize he wore his faith on his sleeve. He wasn’t like that. He was a kind man and a good man. He was a holy man, and he was a loving man.
As I thought of him these last few days with a sad heart, for you know love does hurt, it is that security of that second part “For God so loved the world that He gave his only Son that those who believe in him should not perish, but have eternal life” that I realized this overwhelming sense of peace. If only all souls had that in their lives. What a gift! If only all could feel the ache and the love and the glow of that love, what a life we could have if all of us saw in each other that love, what peace in the world we would have! John 3:16 might have been read thousands and thousands of times, but it will always be worth repeating. As Fred Craddock used to say, “Always finish your sermon with the Good News!” The good news is: “God so loved the world!” Amen.