When John 3:16 Isn't a Cliché

John 3:16

New International Version (NIV)

 ¹⁶ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

The scripture above is probably the most quoted of any among the followers of Christianity. It is popular enough to have become a tad cliché to people like me who've spent years and years as members of the faith. It is to the point where last week, the Easter holiday, I actually rolled my eyes at people who posted pictures of Jesus on the cross or updated statuses with "He is risen!" I thought that people's interjections were so obvious, expected and just cliché. What does that even mean to us? I questioned. I surfed the cable channels and I found a few showing The Passion of the Christ and I quickly advanced the dial thinking that I really don't need to watch that gruesome movie ever again.

As the week progressed though, I felt it laying heavily on my heart that I was losing understanding or appreciation for what that verse is really saying. In this world that we live in, it is very unpopular to be a religious fanatic. You can have faith, but you have to be progressive and cool about it. In the vast majority of western culture, morality is a loose and sliding scale. In my generation and the younger ones, we value inclusivity, and have a greater dialogue going on the negative impact of bigotry and fanaticism. Here, I wondered if my progressive and inclusive modern Christian thinking was leading me to forget or compromise my fundamental beliefs. So, the story is that God sent Jesus (The word) to earth to be born of a virgin (to become flesh) and grow up to live among us, only to be innocent but accused, eventually being crucified like a criminal for all of our sins. These are some of the verses that tell us why Christians believe that Jesus' crucifixion lead to our redemption:

2 Cor. 5:21, "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."

1 Peter 2:24, "and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed."

Rom. 8:3-4, "For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, 4so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit."

And so there are several biblical references that tell us of Jesus' feat for man on the cross. A flesh-and-blood man, yet the incarnate God, came to earth, willing to be brutalised for the sins of man, that we might live eternally. What does it mean? I was beginning to struggle with that because as adults walking around, breathing, and even living relatively successful lives, it isn't always easy to grasp. It isn't always real to me, as in something that I can understand or walk in that I was going to die, or that I was going to live in total separation from God (and from true liberty) if Jesus didn't symbolically die in the ultimate sacrifice for my sins, years before I even existed.

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I said to myself, okay, so where does that leave me, then? What does Jesus's death on the cross mean to me? This was the point where I began reflecting on John 3:16. Here is what I got: understanding the weight of my sin for judgment, especially in this "all things are permissible" world that we live in, is more difficult but understanding that the human fate is to perish, is easy. What I mean is, the world we live in today doesn't make it easy for us to even consider punishment for our bad choices. I mean that there is very little point of reference in this world to think that just bad behaviour, just less than pristinely moral, could lead to any valid judgment. These days, you could argue that it is bigoted intolerance if anyone puts any kind of value judgment on another's everyday behaviour. Even laws, which are generally the only still accepted judgment, can be challenged to suit the empowered people of today (e.g. abortion, gay marriage, the right to bear arms and kill another in "self-defence").

My point is just that there is not a lot of evidence to suggest that there are any consequences to making choices based solely on your own personal agenda. If you aren't breaking any laws, and you aren't hurting anyone, then what's the problem? I know that this is the place that a lot of people today are coming from, and so I wonder then, how we can still receive from a verse that says God sent His only son so that we would not perish but have everlasting life? I realised that while it is harder to grasp that "the wages of sin is death", it is easy to see that if you don't believe in anything, then you perish. In my own life, I perish in the moments where I don't see purpose, when I see suffering and experience hopelessness. In my life, Jesus is my redeemer from the moments where I wonder nihilistically. For me, belief in a God who is supreme, who loves totally and understands all things brings me back to life, where I would have perished. And so, what if one of the ways that this verse stays really relevant is in the fact that to continue in our selfish little lives the way we're used to, to become consumed with the regular, run-of-the-mill life that we see in front of us is to perish?

Here's what I think: If we don't have belief that we are redeemed, if we can't hope that our own human stupidity isn't permanent or a deal-breaker to a future life in paradise; if we can't even look forward to a future in paradise, then we all perish. In the world we live in now, we are plagued by our own imperfection. We get into relational drama, we lose our focus, we change our minds, and we make poor choices. I think this is the exhausting part of being human, and if we can call this an effect of sin, then that scripture becomes completely relevant to our world today. Today, we all perish as a result of our sin this way. We all suffer as a result of our imperfection, and to consider that Christ, my redeemer, died on a cross to carry the burden of my sin, (this sin), is to have my aha moment, is to say okay, that is real today and that is life-giving. Christ offers the cross on a daily basis to me for my sin-burdened life.

In this view, it isn't someone else making a judgment of what I've done, to tell me I am unclean and living immorally, it is me taking a good long look at my own heart and life, and saying "Oh! This is hard and heavy." This is me looking upwards for redemption from my personal burden. While I can repent of what I did yesterday, everyday I sin, and everyday it burdens me, but Christ offers eternal life - He can take my burden. The image of the cross is my lighthouse; where I become sick on a sea of my own sin-burdens, I can look for the light (which is Christ) and say "I believe in You, God."  If Christ offers a shift from the burden of a sin-based life to a spirit-based one where I find communion and comfort in relationship with Supreme, All-knowing God, then excuse me everyone, while I update my Facebook status to John 3:16.