6 This is the one who came by
water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and
the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the
truth. 7 There are three that testify: 8 the
Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree. 9 If
we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the
testimony of God that he has testified to his Son. 10 Those who
believe in the Son of God have the testimony in their hearts. Those who do not
believe in God have made him a liar by not believing in the testimony that God
has given concerning his Son. 11 And this is the testimony: God
gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever
has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
This week I had trouble getting my bearings: water, blood and
Spirit, and if I never hear the word “testimony” again it will be too soon. What
did they mean? Was I hearing and reading this rightly? This text turned me
sideways until I remembered two very important features of Bible reading: 1.
The artistic and creative – this is a text that seeks to envision the Biblical
story with creative images – it’s more art film than a “Dear John” letter; 2.
The Joshua Park principle - Joshua loves to joke with his parents that every answer
to Don’s children sermon questions is “Jesus.” (Christocentric reading of
the Bible). The mystery of the Christian faith is not something that is obscure
or too difficult to understand. No, the mystery of the Christian faith is that
its central truth that God has saved us from our sins through his son Jesus, is
endlessly understandable, endlessly illustratable, and endlessly expressed. It
is simply inexhaustible.
1.
This One
came . . .
John reminds us right off the bat that Jesus is “the one who
came.” Prior to Jesus, people awaited a figure who would come – an oft-cited
name for the messiah was simply the “coming one.” In the Gospel of John when
Jesus performs the miracle of the fish and the loaves – feeding 5,000 people
with five loaves of bread and two fish – the people declare, “This is indeed
the prophet who is to come into the world” (John 6:14). Martha will say to
Jesus’ claim that he is the resurrection and the life by responding, “I believe
that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world” (John
11:27). In all four Gospels – the crowds greet Jesus by shouting Psalm 118:26:
“Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” And this notion of
coming was connected to God himself – “the true light” who “was coming into the
world” (1:9).
So on the one hand, John is telling us that we no longer have
to wait for one that is coming – he came. And talk of God moves out of the
world of abstract mythology, ethical platitudes, and fancy guess work and right
into the middle of history. This one, Jesus, who came, by water and blood, is
God in the flesh. This is the point of vs. 10 where John states that “those who
believe in the Son of God” are in contrast with “those who do not believe in
God.” Jesus and God are intertwined and connected. They are one. And this truth
– God’s salvation through Jesus was too important to leave to human agents. God
has come himself, John tells us, and born witness to himself through his Son
“by water and blood.” Water refers back to Jesus’ baptism and the beginning of
his ministry when the Father declares, “this is my beloved Son, with whom I well
pleased” – to his teachings about God and God’s kingdom, his reign, to
miracles, to walking down dusty roads with a group of followers sharing food,
stories, jokes, etc. Blood refers to Jesus’ work of redemption on the cross –
dying for us to save us from our sins. And the Spirit of Jesus came to enliven
us to those two truths – so all three agree. His teaching of faith, salvation,
nonviolent resistance, was reflected in his dying, and the Spirit was at work
giving life to those who believed in his death. But all this begins with the
reality that “he came,” “it’s done.”
Illus. When I was sixteen and Walt Mizell invited me to his
cabin to hunt with his co-workers. They arrived first and were talking tough,
smoking, cursing, looking at inappropriate literature. And then Walt’s car
pulled up. When he came – everything changed.
Friends, you don’t have to hide because he comes. You don’t
have to go away because you’re unworthy, or sinful, ashamed. You don’t have to
go and find him, climb some mountain, clean yourself off. He has come and won.
And he will come again and all will be made right. And so we pray, “Come, Lord
Jesus.”
2.
This One washed
and bled like us . . .
It’s important here, I believe, to remember that John is also
addressing a group of people who claimed that Jesus was not truly like us, not
flesh and blood, not capable of either dying or let alone bleeding – a group
referred to as gnostics. Jesus did not have a body, they taught, – bodies are
bad; he could not suffer, they said, – he was divine; he was not born physically,
they wrote; – that would make him
unclean because women are unclean. No, John says, you’re wrong. In fact, you
make God out to be a liar. The testimony of Jesus is quite different – he was
like us in every way. So “water and blood” don’t simply point to Jesus’
divinity – the God who comes - but also his humanity. Water and blood reveal
Jesus to be like us.
Heidi Neumark, a Lutheran pastor who ministered a
congregation in the South Bronx, amidst the terrible drug violence and poverty
of the 1980s, visited a megachurch in Las Vegas that featured a communion
service with no mention of blood. The pastor explained that “seekers,” people
unfamiliar with church traditions or people who’ve found the church irrelevant
in the past and are searching for spiritual meaning in their lives, would be
turned off by the mention of blood.
The pastor continued to explain how we needed to take
people’s culture and context seriously. On that note, Neumark agreed, but where
they differed radically was on what that means. “Is bloodless Communion really
so culturally relevant?,” she wondered. “What culture would that be? People in
Las Vegas don’t’ bleed? I know that most of the architecture is fake, but it
seems an insult to imply that the people are, too.”
None of us in this life can avoid blood – the frailty of
suffering and death. It is a human condition. But, blood is also more than mere
pain and suffering– blood is life. It courses through our veins. And Jesus’
blood affirms our humanity. The cross, John tells us, isn’t simply about death
and loss, and there is no mention here of forgiveness of sin. Believing in
Jesus, this one who died and rose again, is about finding life: gaining that
life that triumphs over death yet also discovering that victory that doesn’t
dismiss my pain and that God himself intimately understands our struggle, my
struggle. The testimony of blood assures us that God doesn’t cheat – the
victory of God that we experience can’t simply dismiss the sorrow and suffering
of our world. If God is to take full responsibility for us – it’s all or
nothing. God’s love then is not sentimentality, not a divine “oops”, nor a
“Sorry you guys screwed up but you are so darn cute. Have a cookie.” No, some things
in this life have to die.
So John is even making a more startling point: God’s love is not
martial victory but martyrdom and Jesus is God’s martyr. Whoa, that’s a loaded
term. BUT every time John writes “testimony” in our text that word in the Greek
is martyria. God’s answer to sin is
not “Let’s strap on a suicide vest and kill everyone who has wronged us. No,
God’s answer to our fundamental problem of being human is to strap on our
humanity, his own creation, so that he can kill death with his divine life - to
take on our blood so that we can take on his Spirit. We don’t have to spill
blood to get to God, Jesus reveals. God has spilt his own blood to get us.
So water and blood also refer back to John’s account of
Jesus’ death – when the soldiers pierce Jesus’ side at the crucifixion, it is
said that “blood and water” flowed from it (19:34). Jesus – God’s agent, God’s
emissary, God himself, as a human being, truly hung on a cross, gasped with
ragged breaths, shuddered in pain, and suffered horrible shame and a torturous
death.
And this was the culmination of his saving mission. It wasn’t
a mistake, an oversight, a failure, a travesty, or a surprise. Salvation came
with Jesus – the coming of God in the flesh, and it was not accomplished
without his death. Indeed, Jesus himself speaks the words that guide our
interpretation when he says from the cross, “It is finished” (19:30): his
saving mission is brought to its fulfillment in his death. After his death,
Jesus also gave the Spirit and through the Spirit we are born anew so that we
are children of God. Without Jesus’ death the Spirit does not come, there is no
life without water and blood.
3.
This One
has life
So, Heidi Neumark is right:
“Jesus’ blood made him human. Without it, he’s no
better than a molded action figure. Our faith is that he died in the fight for
life – and that he didn’t die in vain. His blood doesn’t call us to lie down
and rest in peace, but to rise in strength.”
We should not miss the startling claim being made by our passage
that salvation, trusting in Jesus, is not primarily about escape from evil or
even forgiveness of sin. It is about life. But this isn’t meant to be a
conjured life – something I will for myself through hard work and effort,
reaching up and conquering heaven itself. No, the hard part is surrendering,
receiving and not grasping. I am not fundamentally asked to be Jesus – God has
already given us his son, he has already come – I am asked to receive him.
I crave that integration of these words of grace with my
daily life; to know the Son and his life in this life. I long for his life to
fill mine, to walk unafraid, to love with no fear of death, any death, to be
transfused with his Spirit. And it’s happening to me – slowly, sometimes
painfully. Sometimes my spiritual self feels like a leg that has been asleep
slowly regaining blood flow. Friends, no one wants more life for you than Jesus
himself.
I believe the verb tenses here are very important – not “had
life,” or “will have life” but “have.” God calls to us at every moment, and God
is life, found in this life [eternal life – is a quality of life more than a
quantity of life, e.g. ] Radical change remains a possibility within us and others
right up to our last breath because his Son has come and gives life. At any
moment – we can surrender ourselves to this God who testifies of himself
through Jesus.
Only the one who has the son has life – so it doesn’t have to
do with whether you’re good looking, successful, happy, or well-balanced. Life
is found in this one, this person, who truly lived, really died, and actually
rose again. Life happened this week: a foreign-exchange student spent Noah’s
week with us – “I have never seen such life,” she told me. After she left, Pam
Beebe shared that she became a Christian because of what she saw and heard this
week at Noah’s. She told Pam, “The best part of my time here was Noah’s.”
