It’s March Madness time, and the rituals of the season are well underway.  Brackets are filled out and we are well into the second round, so some of us are still alive in our final four picks, others already ruined by poor choices or surprising upsets.  The thing about filling out a win/lose bracket for sixty four basketball teams is that you are never going to make every choice correctly.  There are too many variables.

People even admit to making their choices based on premises that have nothing to do with games won or quality of play.  Some people choose teams based on geographic location of the school, or color of the uniform, or whether or not they find the mascot charming.  I always choose an underdog here and there, hoping for a Cinderella story.

Friday evening, right behind the head of the player at the free-throw line – the camera angle just caught it; the March madness moment I was waiting for.  This week’s lectionary text popped up on the screen.  There it was:  the square piece of cardboard, hand lettered “John 3: 16.”  I couldn’t help myself.  The very sight of the placard engaged my memory and I recited to myself just the way I learned it in Sunday School!

“ForGodsolovedtheworldthathegavehisonlybegottenson        thatwhosoeverbelievethinhimshouldnotperishbuthaveeternallife.”
Can I have my prize now?”

It would seem there isn’t too much to be said that hasn’t already been said about this verse – except that it is written in a kind of foreign language – that being the peculiar vocabulary of John’s gospel – and we might want to at least hear the translation.

This verse could be said this way:

For God so loved the world, that he sent the only one who has ever been exactly like God in character and substance, so that whoever obeyed the son would not perish even while living in this world; but would, even while living in this world, participate in the everlasting life of God.

This paraphrase clears up a couple of misconceptions:  First, belief is not about intellectual agreement with the premise of Jesus – for John, belief is about obedience to the way of Jesus which is self giving love.  Second, eternal life is not just about staying alive after you die, but about participating in God’s unending life even while living in this world.

The gospel of John has a unique quality – while dealing in nuances and shades of gray, it also makes use of either/ or propositions all the time.  The ultimate concern of the gospel writer is this:  either you are with Jesus or you are against Jesus.

Why do some choose not to follow; not to believe?  Because, Jesus tells us in this passage, “the light has come into this world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.”

I want to name two things about this passage before we explore together this idea of darkness.  First observation:  Jesus never says that the people who love darkness are evil.  He only says that their deeds are evil.  Second observation:  Jesus never says in this passage that God intends to judge and condemn the world or anybody in it.  He says “God sent the Son in order that the world might be saved.”

So when it is the gospel of John that is recruiting you, you are being recruited by a God who loves and who wants to save you from what is evil.  You are being recruited by a God who will not put you into competition where the best team wins – but who intends that all be saved and brought to the light that Jesus brings into the world.  These are the “credentials” so to speak, that would encourage you to choose this God to obey and trust.

And still, people love darkness rather than light, because our deeds are evil.

I’ve been thinking all week about darkness.  The darkest places I remember from childhood were the closets in our old house, which had no lights at all; and the attic and the basement of that old house.  As a grown up, the darkest place I’ve seen is the north woods at night, when you are in an area with no ambient light and there is no moon.

I have to tell you that I am ambivalent about this kind of darkness.  You never know what is hiding in the darkness.  Is it mice in the basement; bats in the attic; spiders in the closet; a wolf in the woods?  Is it better to turn on the light and see that they’re there; or leave the light off and leave well enough alone?

The darkness which John condemns is the darkness of rejecting Jesus.  The light is the light of faithfulness.  But there is plenty that keeps us preferring to reject Jesus.  We have our own versions of creatures of the dark lurking in the dark places of our souls.  We have our evil deeds that we prefer to keep hidden.  Some are subtle and not too visible, and we are very good at pretending that we have turned on the light.  Others are obvious and not so easily hidden, and everybody can see that we’re stumbling in the darkness.

Sometimes, we make our way bit by bit into the light.  A candle here and a candle there, until we find ourselves more and more living in the light.  Other times, we are truly consumed by the darkness and lost without hope and it feels like everybody turned out the lights and forgot that we were wandering in the dark.

Either way – we are called to notice that Jesus hasn’t come to condemn our darkness but to save us into the light.  And frankly, sometimes, we really do need emergency life-saving grace.  Our life is chaos.  Our relationships are shattered.  An addiction has consumed us.  Abuse has wounded us.  A problem has overwhelmed our coping skills.  We’ve had enough.  We’re tired of blaming it on others, and we want our life to change and change for the better.

One of the most famous stories of this life saving kind of insight comes from the life of William Griffith Wilson, known to Alcoholics Anonymous as Bill W.  After a series of cycles between sobriety and drunkenness, Bill W. found himself stealing from his wife and selling possessions to buy alcohol.  Introduced to a spiritual support group, he had a powerful spiritual experience.  In his autobiography he says. . . “with neither faith nor hope, I cried out ‘If there is a God, let him show himself.’  The effect was instant, electric.  Suddenly my room blazed with an indescribably white light.”  Bill goes on to describe details of the experience, rich in spiritual imagery and then says, “Then came the blazing thought, ‘You are a free man’ – I became acutely conscious of a presence which seemed like a veritable sea of living spirit.  I lay on the shores of a new world.”

Bill W. had lost almost everything.  His fortune.  His ability to earn a living.  His marriage.  But he took his last drink in 1935; wrote his book on the twelve steps in 1938, and lived married to Lois until 1971, when he died on their fifty-third wedding anniversary.

Here’s the thing about Bill W.’s story.  He was not magically delivered that day from his addiction to alcohol.  He had to continually choose the light over the darkness of his addiction.  Anyone who has ever been involved in any one of the dozens of Twelve Step groups which have their roots in Bill W.’s method knows that one must choose every day to rely on a power greater than themselves.  One must rely on the spiritual disciplines of prayer and confession and care of others.  Bill W.’s method – like that of other great spiritual teachers, takes sin seriously.  It take seriously the attraction we have for the darkness in which we seek shelter from true self awareness and from authentic love of neighbor.

The gospel of John is life saving good news.  Whenever I see those placards on TV at a sporting event, I wonder, “does anyone ever go home and look that up and their salvation begins because they saw that sign?”  I wonder this, too.  Did anybody come here today, needing to be saved?  Is anybody ready to hear this good news?  Has anybody had enough darkness?

We’re so often afraid that if we let Christ into our darkness, we will be judged harshly.  But hear the good news:  God sent his son into the world not to condemn, but to save.  Hear the good news:  God didn’t so judge the world – God so loved the world.  Hear the good news:  God doesn’t hate you or me – God hates what we hate – the evil deeds that are stealing our lives from us.

And the choice whether or not to be saved is ours.  To choose to live in the darkness is to reject God’s saving presence in Jesus Christ.  To choose light is to choose faithfulness.  Daily.

At our best, this is who we can be as a church.  A community of people who begin our relationship with one another this way:  “My name is Deb.  I love the darkness.  But today, I choose the light.”  We are called to be a life-saving community.  And saving lives is hard, time consuming, intense work.

We are called to do saving work.  But each must choose to be saved.  Today, tomorrow and the next day.  The choice to be saved takes courage.  Vulnerability.  Commitment.

And if you want to see what that looks like, pay attention to Jesus between now and Good Friday.

This is not a single elimination tournament.  If, at the end of the gospel story, you are not among those who see the risen one who is the light of the world, you weren’t eliminated.  You dropped out along the way.  The places you’ll go with Jesus are not easy.  But they are life saving.

The places you’ll go with Jesus are exactly the same as the places Jesus will go with you.  Into your darkness.  And when Jesus comes into your darkness, he brings the light of the world; the invitation to live in the everlasting life of God – right here.  right now.  today.