For God So Loved the World…

(I wrote this sermon for Sunday, January 25, 2026. Because of a major snow storm, worship services were canceled, but I wanted to share the sermon anyway. The sermon is in response to John 3:1-21).

Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night.

John tells us that detail for a reason.
Night is not just the time of day. It’s a spiritual condition.

Darkness is where things are hidden.
It’s where we can’t see everything clearly.
It’s where people conceal what they don’t want exposed.

Darkness is where people cover themselves.  Sometimes literally, sometimes metaphorically. So no one will recognize them when they act in ways that are illegal, shameful, cruel, or violent. Darkness offers anonymity. It offers plausible deniability. It whispers, No one will know.

And yet, the light shines anyway.

This pulls us all the way back to the opening of John’s Gospel:

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

John 3 is not a new idea.
It’s a continuation of the same claim: that God’s light does not ask permission from the dark. It enters it.

Nicodemus is curious, but cautious.
Drawn to Jesus, but not ready to be seen with him.

And Jesus meets him anyway.

That matters because this story is not about bravery versus cowardice. It’s about how grace shows up before we are ready, and what happens when light insists on shining.

Then Jesus says words we know so well that we often miss their weight:

“For God so loved the world…”

Except, this sentence doesn’t actually start here.

In Greek, the word translated as “for” functions more like “therefore.”
Because of everything Jesus has just said… therefore… God so loved the world.

You don’t need to read Greek to understand this. John is telling us that verse 16 is a response, not a slogan.

Therefore, God loves the κόσμος (Cosmos in English).

Not part of the world.
Not the deserving part.
Not the righteous or respectable part.

God loves the whole thing.

The messy parts.
The economically distressed parts.
The parts that protest cruelty.
The Allison Hills of the world.
Immigrants. Outcasts. The ones pushed to the margins.

All of it belongs to the world God loves.

And this is where the tension sharpens.

Because while God is busy loving the world, human history tells a very different story.

Another shooting.
Another life ended with precision and intent.
Another act of violence dressed up as order.

And underneath it all is an ideology that so loves itself that it believes other people are expendable.

Christian Nationalism.
White supremacy.
A twisted Christianity that insists on a white Jesus cloaked in empire, rather than the brown-skinned Jesus of history, executed by empire because he threatened its power.

Historian Erika Lee names this clearly in her book America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States.

Her argument is simple and devastating.

First: this country practices intentional amnesia. We forget on purpose so we don’t have to repent. Indigenous peoples are erased. Black Americans are marginalized and excluded. Whiteness is recast as “native.”

Second: the arguments against immigrants are not new.
They are recycled. Lazy. Easily disproven.

They were used against Germans.
Then Irish.
Then Italians.
Then Chinese and Japanese immigrants.
Against Africans.
Against Muslims.
Against Latin American immigrants.

Different targets. Same fear. Same lies. Same deadly consequences.

“For God so loved the world…”

And then Jesus says something even more unsettling:

“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

That verse should stop Christians in our tracks.

Because we have entire theological systems built around condemnation.

Rapture theology that celebrates escape while the world burns.
Prosperity theology that blames the poor for their poverty.
Supersessionism that erases Jewish people from God’s promises.
Eternal conscious torment used as a threat for “wrong belief.”
Holy War and Just War theologies used to sanctify violence.
Biblical justifications for slavery.
The Inquisition and witch trials.
Extreme patriarchy disguised as God’s design.
Anti-LGBTQIA+ theology that denies people’s humanity.
The Doctrine of Discovery that blessed the theft of land and the genocide of Indigenous peoples.

These are not footnotes.
They are heresies because they deny the purpose of Christ.

Jesus did not come to help us condemn more efficiently.
He came to save a world that does not know how to love.

And then John names the real judgment:

“This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light…”

The judgment is not God’s hatred of the world.
The judgment is our refusal to step into the light.

Light exposes.
Light names what is being done.
Light removes cover.

That’s why it’s resisted.

And yet some step into it anyway.

We see it in protests against cruelty and tyranny.
We see it in an Episcopal bishop telling priests to prepare to put their bodies in harm’s way to protect others.
We see it in a Catholic bishop reminding soldiers they have the right to disobey immoral orders.
We see it in three Catholic archbishops publicly rejecting the reduction of peace, dignity, and human life into partisan categories.
We see it in the 100 clergy in Minnesota who were arrested for joining protests—choosing visibility over safety, light over darkness.

John tells us:

“Those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

Not everyone will see.
Not everyone wants to see.

Remember, there will always be some who make excuses for cruelty and tyranny.  Always. 
Some, if they encountered Jesus today, would crucify him again, using his name while rejecting everything about him.

But the good news remains.

Jesus does not wait for Nicodemus to be brave.
Jesus does not wait for the world to deserve love.
Jesus shines the light anyway.

Grace keeps showing up.
The light keeps shining.
And the darkness does not get the final word.

So we are called, not to condemn, but to stand in the light.
To love what God loves.
To tell the truth.
To let our deeds be clearly seen, not for our glory, but as signs that God has not abandoned this world.

Even now.
Especially now.

Amen.