 |
slent205
What
Kind of Love Is This? draivers s3
Text:
John 3:1-17
Date: The Second Sunday in Lent 
2/20/05
Once
every three years, namely this year in the Series A lectionary,
we have the wonderful opportunity to experience the wisdom of the
very earliest days of the Christian Church. For the appointed readings
from the Gospel of Saint John are the very ones used since the earliest
times for the formation and making of new Christians, new disciples
in what is called the catechumenate. “Catechesis” simply means “teaching.”
Jesus commanded his apostles, his Church, to “ make
disciples of all nations.” One of the earliest successors of the
apostles, the North African Bishop Tertullian (160-225) said, “Christians
are made , not born.” By that he meant that the
drawing and conversion of sinners into saints is something that
happens from outside of us, namely, from God Himself working through
his Word. The highest priority of what the Church is to be doing,
therefore, is preaching and teaching and proclaiming the Word of
God, the Gospel of Christ through which the Holy Spirit works faith
when and where he wills in those who hear the Gospel. Probably the
most frustrating part of that definition from our Augsburg Confession
is the “when and where he wills” part, because that means, while
the work of teaching and baptizing is what we are to be doing, the
results of that work are quite out of our hands.
Faith
happens only by the Holy Spirit working through the Word of God.
Where there is no Word of God the true, saving faith does not happen.
That's why, in the Gospels of these four Sundays during Lent, today
of Nicodemus, then the Samaritan Woman at the Well, then the healing
of the Man Born Blind and, finally, the Raising of Lazarus, we have
the images of darkness, wind, spirit, water, light, sight and resurrection.
We cannot “make” anyone believe. I cannot “prove” to you the Bible
is the Word of God. All we can do is introduce people to the Author.
The question before us beginning today is, have you truly been made
a Christian disciple? And, if you have once been taught the doctrine
of Christ, is that faith still alive and being fed?
One
pastor wrote, “In a real sense, we don't keep Lent and Easter. Lent
and Easter keep us who we are: God's holy people, washed with water
and the Holy Spirit, and sent on mission and witness. We keep Lent
only to be prepared for Easter: for the making of new Christians
and the remaking of old ones.” Our members have to be in the Divine
Service especially in these Sundays in Lent. Otherwise the Word
will have no effect in them and faith grows weak and can even die.
This is also the real intent of our upcoming “movie night” next
Sunday evening when we will be seeing the movie “Luther.” This is
meant to be only the first of ten Sunday evening meetings where
all our members together with folks that you invite to attend with
you will handle the scriptures, learn and re-learn the fundamental
teachings or doctrines of the Christian faith. Can you commit to
this important series of Bible studies for your own spiritual awakening?
Can you invite someone to experience the miracle of faith worked
through the Word? I invite and challenge you to do both.
Nicodemus,
a teacher of Israel, came to Jesus at night. The practical reason
may have something to do with not wanting to be seen by his peers,
the Pharisees. But in John's Gospel “night” and “darkness” always
have the connotation of the ignorance of unbelief. There is a lot
of spiritual darkness, ignorance and unbelief around still today.
Take the latest quote from my most unfavorite “comedian,” Bill Maher,
who said this past Tuesday, “I think that religion stops people
from thinking. I think it justifies crazies. I think flying planes
into a building was a faith-based initiative. I think religion is
a neurological disorder.” (Doesn't that last sentence sound like
the old Communist canard of religion being the opiate of the masses?)
You know, it's funny, but in a way this is the same sort of darkness
and ignorance where Nicodemus was coming from. That is, he was supposedly
an intellectual, a “teacher of Israel,” a leader of the synagogue.
He presented himself as someone “in the know.” “Rabbi, we know
…” are his first words to Jesus. “We know that you are a teacher
come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless
God is with him.” “We know,” claims Nicodemus. Jesus says, “No,
you don't know! Nobody knows anything about God unless one is born
from above, born of water and the spirit.”
Notice
what happens to this “teacher of Israel.” He is perplexed. Confused.
“How can this be?” he asks. Nicodemus was hoping to get this “Jesus
thing” nailed down to fit into his prepackaged religious philosophy
or system. But Jesus answers him in words that cannot be categorized
or tamed, but launches out into the wild, unexplored, unpredictable
territory of “wind” and “spirit.” “Do not marvel that I said to
you, ‘You must be born again.' The wind blows where it wishes, and
you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where
it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” The
preacher William Willimon imagines Nicodemus then responding, “Teacher,
do you mean [the Greek word] pneuma in the theological sense of
‘spirit,' or in the more ordinary sense of ‘wind'?” Jesus answers,
“Yes.”
| |
