3.10.2024 | ...SO LOVED... | Rev. Andrew Chappell

John 3:14-21 | Confirmation Sunday

 

It’s not just about believing God is who God says God is. It’s about believing and trusting and having confidence that God can do what God says God can do. 

 

Movie Quote Trivia.

If you don’t know this about me, I’m a big movie fan. For some reason, I can remember movie lines better than a lot of other things. Often, I can remember movie lines after seeing a movie once better than I can remember what my wife just said to me ten times this morning. (Something about the trash.) 

 

But I love movies, I love movie quotes. I love good lines. And growing up, my family loved to play movie quote trivia. And all that is, is simply, in the middle of a conversation, you could be doing anything, and something makes you think of a quote from a movie, and you just call out: Movie Quote Trivia! And then follow with the movie quote, seeing who might name the movie it comes from first. That’s it. It’s not much of a game. But for anyone who loves a game, or trivia, or sudden interruptions…it’s great. 

 

Let’s try it… see if you can get a few. 

 

Movie Quote Trivia: Some people are worth melting for. (Frozen)

Movie Quote Trivia: If you build it, he will come. (Field of Dreams)

Movie Quote Trivia: To infinity and beyond (Toy Story)

Movie Quote Trivia: There’s no crying in baseball. (A League Of Their Own).

Movie Quote Trivia: Remember who you are. (The Lion King)

Movie Quote Trivia: Show me the money (Jerry Maguire)

Movie Quote Trivia: When life gets you down, you know what you gotta do? Just keep swimming. (Finding Nemo)

 

Some of those are pretty easy. Others may be more difficult for you. And I think if the Bible were a movie, John 3:16 would be one of those easy ones, one of those unforgettable lines. Most could get it, right?

 

AND, if I were to yell…

BIBLE QUOTE TRIVIA: “The time is surely coming…when the one who plows shall catch up with the one who reaps and the treader of grapes with the one who sows the seed”...that’s harder isn’t it? Because not a lot of folks read the book of Amos.

 

How about, BIBLE QUOTE TRIVIA: “Like a city breached, without walls, is one who lacks self-control.” Maybe a little easier, because it sounds like it would come from PROVERBS.

 

But if I were to yell out 

BIBLE QUOTE TRIVIA: For God so loved the world…

I think many of you could name it: John 3:16.

 

Those words were a part of my growing up. That was probably the first verse I ever memorized (other than John 11:35 - Jesus wept). John 3:16 is the most famous verse of scripture, the most popular, and I’m sure many of you could quote it. 

 

Harder to recall though are the details surrounding that verse. Who Jesus is talking to, and what the subject of the conversation is. And until recently, I had no memory about the snake thing that we just read. 

What is that??? What is Jesus talking about there? 

 

A Snake in the Wilderness. 

(Well confirmands, I’m glad you asked!)  Jesus is in the middle of one of his more famous back-and-forths, in which he tells the Pharisee Nicodemus that he must be born again, not literally, but reborn by water and the Spirit. His inward, his Spirit has to be transformed. And Jesus reprimands Nicodemus for being a teacher of Israel and not knowing this. And then Jesus makes a weird reference to Moses.

 

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life. 

 

And to any of us who don’t know Moses or the stories from the Torah – the first five books of the OT – this is a bizarre reference. And one that we often don’t even remember. 

 

I felt that way a few years ago when I traveled to the country of Jordan, and I visited Mt. Nebo, where Moses is said to have looked out onto the promised land. And in present day, at the lookout point, placed by the historical society, is a huge bronze statue of a snake on a stick. And as I got my picture next to it (because how often do you see that?!), I remember thinking, I do NOT remember this from seminary. (Probably because trying to study and cram the book of Numbers at 11pm at night is not the best way to read that book).

 

In the book of Numbers, Moses and the people of Israel are wandering on the road, and the people get angry at both God and Moses for continuing to allow them to wander and not enter the promised land.