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John 3:1-17
Trinity Sunday B
We visited part of Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus back in Lent. But back then, we focused on verses 14-21 and we didn’t get Nicodemus’s great question for Trinity Sunday in verse 9: “How can these things be?” Of course, Nicodemus is asking about how it’s possible for humans to be born from above or again,…
John 3:14-21
Lent 4B
What would Lent be without at least one Sunday focused on confession and repentance? This is that Sunday. We plop right into a conversation in verse 14, though it’s pretty much Jesus talking from here on out to Nicodemus. Even more disorienting, we start with this reference to an Old Testament story from Numbers 21….
John 3:1-17
Lent 2A
The fact that perhaps the most well-known bible verse, John 3.16, is part of this philosophical and ontological mind-bending conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus never ceases to fascinate me. Nicodemus is a leader of his faith community and he comes to speak with Jesus in the quiet and solitude of the night. I’m not sure…
The Seeker
In the last 25 years or so a new word has become very prominent in the American church scene. The word is “seeker.” We are a nation of spiritual seekers. People everywhere are looking for that spiritual lift, that tie to something deeper that will provide some meaning in this crazy world. Many churches have…
Lent 4B: Out of the Night
Few people would dispute the assertion that John 3:16 is the single most well-known verse in the Bible. Children memorize it in Sunday school, the Gideons traditionally have placed this verse on the front page of their Bibles (usually printing it in dozens of languages), missionaries often use it as the starting point for evangelism….
John 3:1-17
Trinity Sunday B
I wonder what Nicodemus was thinking about when he walked home that night. My guess is that it wasn’t the Doctrine of the Trinity! Yet this is the Year B passage assigned for Trinity Sunday. So what did he ponder? No clue. John doesn’t tell us. That’s ironic seeing as, according to John’s reportage at…
John 3:14-21
Lent 4B
This commentary originally appeared as my regular blog post on The Twelve on March 2, 2021. If you wish to see a slightly different take on this passage, you can click here to view my sermon commentary from 2018. Johnson&Johnson&Jesus If you have gone to most any news or newspaper website in the last…
John 3:1-17
Lent 2A
In John 3 Jesus does something quite unexpected: he reaches back to Numbers 21 from the Old Testament and evokes the image of that bronze serpent Moses lifted over the people as a cure for snakebites. The Israelites had to look at an image of the very thing that was afflicting them, and somehow doing…
John 3:1-17
Trinity Sunday B
I wonder what Nicodemus was thinking about when he walked home that night. My guess is that it wasn’t the Doctrine of the Trinity! Yet this is the Year B passage assigned for Trinity Sunday. So what did he ponder? No clue. John doesn’t tell us. That’s ironic seeing as, according to John’s reportage at…
John 3:14-21
Lent 4B
John 3:16 may be the most famous Bible verse in the world but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to understand. As Frederick Dale Bruner points out in his commentary on The Gospel of John, this entire chapter is fraught with mystery. The story takes place at night, the meeting seems to be done somewhat in…
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