©Thomas B. Cundiff
A Vision of God in
the Temple
6In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne,
high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. 2Seraphs were in
attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces,
and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. 3And one called
to another and said:
‘Holy, holy,
holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.’
4The pivots* on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. 5And I said: ‘Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!’
the whole earth is full of his glory.’
4The pivots* on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. 5And I said: ‘Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!’
6 Then one of the seraphs flew to
me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of
tongs. 7The seraph* touched my
mouth with it and said: ‘Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has
departed and your sin is blotted out.’ 8Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I
send, and who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I; send me!’
INTRODUCTION
TO SCRIPTURE
Nicodemus was a Jew and a Pharisee. He enjoyed getting together with Jesus to
talk – but as you will note in our lesson today, only under cover of
darkness. Many Pharisees didn’t
think it PROPER to be seen talking openly with this radical man named
Jesus. They enjoyed meeting
together. Jesus and Nicodemus were
friends.
Now imagine you are observing a
conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus – like watching a stage play. It is night and Jesus is sitting next to a warm
fire deep in thought and prayer when Nicodemus approaches him and sits down for
an evening of conversation. There is no
radio or computes or television to watch. Not enough light to do much of
anything except talk.
Again imagine these two men a couple
of thousand years ago on a cool mid-Eastern evening simply spending some time
together as friends talking about something important to them both: God!
God’s Word from John 3: 1-10 (instead of 1-17)
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a
leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus
by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi,
we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these
signs that you do apart from the presence of God.’ Jesus answered him, ‘Very
truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God kingdom of God Israel
I. BORN
AGAIN?
Thinking back
several years before all the enhanced security in local airports, I remember encountering
some Hare Krishna type of people with
long hair dressed in white robes – I guess back then we called them Hippies or
Jesus Freaks! I don’t know why, but they
seemed to enjoy accosting weary travelers.
Thinking
back, I remember being asked once by one of these robed accosters:
Have you ever been cornered by
someone with this question? Lest I
become to judgmental, I want to be careful!
There may be someone here who has asked this question of a friend or
neighbor (though I don’t think I can
imagine seeing any of you at the airport wearing long white robes accosting air
travelers.)
Kidding aside, for many this is a serious
question. HAVE YOU BEEN BORN AGAIN?
In our reformed or Presbyterian way of
thinking, this question doesn’t traditionally carry a lot of significance. So what do Presbyterians say about this idea
of being born again?
Simply, we don’t depend
on this need to feel we have been born again -- because we recognize being born
into this world—flesh and spirit. For
those who chose to become part of a church are baptized and confirmed professing
our faith as members of the Body of Christ.
Yet again, while this is slow developmental process of growth, for some
coming to believe in Jesus is a dramatic, life-changing experience that cannot
be denied!
I was raised in a family within a
Presbyterian Church, a church like this church where a dramatic earth-shaking
conversion didn’t depend on a specific date or a feeling of being born again. For me, I can remember several times in my
youth making the very personal decision that I believed in Jesus as Lord. While I have never felt the need to identify
a special experience or a special date, I can think of two occasions that were
life-changing!
I remember as a teenager attending a Billy Graham Crusade
in the Denver
I also remember a time as a teenager at a Young
Life Camp making a private, personal commitment to Christ and decision to
become a minister. I am sure I have mentioned this before, the
weeks upon weeks after that retreat that I walked back and forth up and down
the hall in front of the pastor’s office
finally getting up enough nerve to knock on the door to share with him my
thinking about a career as a minister – and this was when I was in Junior
High. I don’t have the dates all these
things happened. For me, coming to faith in Jesus Christ,
was not a singular ZAP BANG
event but more of a gradual, developmental process in aligning my life with
this man named Jesus.
I recognize there is the possibility,
even after joining the church, that some of us may still be searching for what
it means to have a close and personal relationship with Jesus. Do you struggle with what it means to live
with God in your life? It comes back to
your story – in what ways is God, through Christ, shaping who you are and plan
to become?
II.
Getting back to Nicodemus and the
image of his casually sitting with Jesus by a fire: What did it mean when Jesus started talking with
Nicodemus about being “born from above”? We
quickly learn in reading this scripture that Nicodemus wasn’t quick to get or
understand what Jesus was saying. I can
imagine Nicodemus listening carefully and thoughtfully to what Jesus was
saying. In my mind Nicodemus was going
through a process of “faith development” deciding for himself just what he
believed. Just as we all grow physically
-- developmentally, we also grow spiritually – developmentally! This is to remember what Jesus and Nicodemus
are talking about: God and God’s
Kingdom….what do we believe!
For Jesus in this conversation with
Nicodemus, in order to truly grasp what God and God’s Kingdom are all about is
to grapple with the idea we are born from above – born from God. Something special happens – something
spiritual – when we first open our hearts to God and receive God in our lives. Which again takes me back to the question: What is your story? When did you first feel or have an awareness
of a divine presence of God in your life?
In digging deeper into this
conversation, Jesus is making the distinction between that which is:
physical – of the flesh
and
spiritual
– of the heart
because the decisions we make that
address only our physical needs don’t help us connect, spiritually, with God! We live in a world where it is dangerous to
live only “of the flesh”. For Jesus,
being born of flesh and spirit makes us whole – particularly when it comes to
nurturing a closer relationship with God.
Example: What
is begotten of the flesh is to be trapped in living only of this world….for do
you live and work only to succeed and make more and more money? Addicted to things, worshipping the stuff –
the toys – the things we all enjoy having?
With this attitude everything we are ever going to need can be found in
this world and in earthly things alone.
This conversation between Nicodemus
and Jesus helps us transition into the realm of thinking not about “What is begotten of the flesh or the world”
but rather, “What is begotten of spirit connects
us with God!” Life isn’t just about what we have,
physically, but what God gives us spiritually!
Jesus wants us to understand God needs
to become more integrated into our day-to-day lives. God needs to be the center of life….not
earthly things or possessions.
If we were to have an opportunity to
sit with Jesus he would be telling us that life in focusing more on the spirit
of God, born from above, makes it easier to grasp and understand God’s Kingdom!
So returning to the question we all
should be asking as though we were sitting with Jesus next to us: What is your story? Is God part of your story?
Where are you in your journey as a
Christian living by standards set out by Christ throughout his life? What are your struggles and are you
addressing your struggles as Jesus would have you address them?
As a pastor I ask another key
question: What can we be doing as a
church to help you along the way? In
what ways can we, together, support and encourage each other to grow and
develop our faith in God?
Following our service today we will
have a conversation about the future of the church. We will look at the “physical, statistical, earthly” factors that impact where we are in
this world as a church. The more
important question for me, putting aside where we are as a particular church,
where are we in our faith? What has God
giving us through faith in Jesus Christ that can help us get through
anything?
So in concluding this message: let’s take time in our personal devotions to
sit down next to Jesus to grapple with what he says to us. In our minds, let’s talk with our Lord. Let’s pick his brain. Let’s discover on a spiritual level, what it
means to live not of the flesh but the spirit of God. What we will discover is something John talks
about in giving us another lesson, following Jesus’ talk with Nicodemus, when
he says in John 3:16
‘For God
so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes
in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
Our hope is in Christ Jesus our Lord
– and believing in him! Again, let’s spend time with our Lord…learning
to distinguish between that which is of the flesh is flesh – and that which is
of the spirit leads directly to God.
Amen
[1] Before going into scripture
I give credit where credit is due. In
talking about the faith formation of Nicodemus I give credit to the Reverend Dr. Susan M. Elliott, whose work has
helped me with several points I will make in this message. She is pastor of the Zion Lutheran Church Sterling , Colorado
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