Hoby 17-02-08
Sunday Sketch Jesus and Nick the Vic
Cast: Narrator 1, Narrator 2, Jesus and Nick the Vic
Narrator 1: Our reading is taken this morning from John 3: 1-21 – and is a slightly freer translation than you’d get in the Message or in the Living Bible
The story starts off with Nick the Vic, a prominent leader among the Jews and a Pharisee coming late one night to Jesus and Nick started the conversation by saying:
Nick: "Rabbi, we all know you’re a teacher who speaks words straight from God. No one could do all that you are doing if God wasn’t in on the act."
Narrator; Jesus replied
Jesus: "Nick, you’re spot on mate. Take it from me: Unless a person is born again, it’s not possible to see what I’m pointing you to—to God’s kingdom."
Nick: “Jesus, what are you talking about? You make about as much sense as the Archbishop of Canterbury did this week.
How can anyone be born again – when he’s already been born and grown up? You can’t go back into your mother’s womb and be born again. What’s this ’born-again stuff” about"
Jesus: "Nick, you’re not listening. Read my lips.
I’ll say it again. Unless a person submits to this original creation—the ’wind-hovering-over-the-water’ creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life—it’s not possible to enter God’s kingdom.
When you look at a baby, it’s just that: a body you can look at and touch.
But the person who takes shape within - is formed by something you can’t see and touch—the Holy Spirit—and then they become a living spirit.
So don’t be so surprised when I tell you that you have to be ’born again’.
I know it’s out of this world, so to speak.
You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that.
You hear it rustling in the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it’s heading next.
That’s the way it is with everyone ’born again’ by the wind of God, the Spirit of God."
Nick (puzzled now): "What do you mean by this? How does this happen?"
Jesus "Nick, you’re a vicar and you don’t know these basics? Listen carefully because I’m telling you the truth.
I am talking about what I know from experience. I have seen with my own eyes. There is nothing secondhand here. Yet instead of facing up to the evidence and accepting it, you are procrastinating with your questions.
If I tell you things that are plain and simple to see - and you don’t get it, what use is there in telling you more complicated things of - things you can’t see?
"No one has ever gone up into the presence of God except the One who came down from that Presence, that’s me -the Son of Man.
In the same way that Moses lifted the serpent in the desert so people could have something to see and then believe, so it is necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up—and everyone who looks up to him, trusting and expectant, will gain a real life, eternal life.
Narrator 1: Jesus went on to say: “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And why: so that no one need be destroyed.
By believing in him, which means putting his teaching into effect in your life and following him anyone can have a whole and lasting life.
God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world to right. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; Anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one and only Son of God when introduced to him.
Narrator 2: Jesus went on to say further
This is the crisis we’re in: God’s light has streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for cover in the darkness. They went for the darkness because they were not really interested in pleasing God.Everyone who makes a practice of doing evil, addicted to denial and illusion, hates God’s light and won’t come near it, fearing a painful exposure.
But anyone working and living in truth and reality welcomes God’s light so the work can be seen for God’s that it is." (I have taken some slight liberties with The Message)
SERMON
Story: Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson went on a camping trip.
They set up their tent and fell asleep.
Some hours later, Holmes woke his faithful friend.
"Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see."
Watson replied, "I see millions of stars."
"What does that tell you?" Holmes asked
Watson pondered for a minute.
"Astronomically speaking, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets.
Astrologically, it tells me that Saturn is in Leo.
Horologically, it appears to be approximately a quarter past three.
Theologically, it’s evident the Lord is all-powerful and we are small and insignificant.
Meteorologically, it seems we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. “
Then after a pause, Watson says: “Well, Holmes, What does it tell you?"
Holmes was silent for a moment and then he said.
"Watson, you imbecile, someone has stolen
our tent."
My text this is taken from John 3:1-12 and I want to focus on Jesus’ words to Nicodemus:
I tell you in truth, no one can see the Kingdom of God, unless he is born again.”
Nicodemus was a bright cookie.
We read that he was Israel’s teacher.
He was a Pharisee and also a member of the ruling Jewish Council – the Sanhedrin.
In other words, he was no intellectual slouch!!
He obviously recognised the authority Jesus had - by the signs and miracles Jesus performed.
Yet he could understand what Jesus was saying when Jesus said: You must be born again
Yet I wonder if Jesus felt the same frustration with Nicodemus as Holmes did about his friend Watson.
Nicodemus couldn’t comprehend that the key
to eternal life was the need to be born again
I. Background
Nicodemus came to Jesus by night secretly.
Have you ever wondered why he came to Jesus at night?
i) Was it because he wanted to speak to Jesus in quiet and not be disturbed?
ii) Or was it because he did not want it known - that he was speaking with a Galilean carpenter?
Nicodemus is a perfect gentleman.
He is very polite when he says to Jesus:
"Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him". (John 3:2).
Jesus’ reply is to toss him what I can only call an intellectual hand grenade.
"You must be born again".
Not: "Well thank you very much, Nicodemus for your kind words. So what can I do for you?
A bombshell. " You must be born again"
Have you ever wondered why Jesus seemed to speak so abruptly to Nicodemus?
I think it is because Jesus knew his man.
He saw behind Nicodemus’ question.
Nicodemus - like many earnest Pharisees in his day - was looking for the day when the Kingdom of God would come.
So Jesus got to the heart of the matter:
If you want to see the kingdom of God - You must be born again.
II. What was Jesus trying to do?
Jesus wanted to challenge Nicodemus’ whole mind-set. And so Jesus gave him a conundrum to go away and think about.
Jesus was challenging the whole way of thinking of the Pharisees.
They thought that they made themselves fit for the Kingdom of God - by keeping the Law of Moses.
And in effect Jesus was saying - No, you don’t. The only way is that : You must be born again.
In other words, Nicodemus, you can’t earn salvation, it is a free gift of God.
And that is as true today as it was for Nicodemus.
Just like Nicodemus and the other Pharisees, there is a danger today that people think that they can earn a place in heaven - simply by going to Church and being nice people?
But you can’t – you must be born again
As Robert Leroe once put it:
If you’re born once, you die twice.
If you’re born twice, you die once!
III. So what does being born again mean?
From what Jesus said to Nicodemus, it is clear that being born again was a direct result of faith in Jesus’ death and Resurrection.
This is something that we experience – just
like physical birth is.
But unlike a natural birth, it is something we
receive when we ask Christ to come into our lives.
Many of us have our own personal story of how we experience this birth.
Story: John Wesley, founder of the Methodist church was 35 years old when he came into contact with the Moravian missionaries in London, who showed him the way to Christ.
He had even been ordained a priest in the Church of England year before he was born again.
His conversion experience was in a meeting hall where he discovered his spirit being "strangely warmed." as he recorded in his journal.
Story: I too had an experience of being born again when I was 16.
In Dec 1971, I went to a Christian camp called the Oxford Conference, which was held in Wycliffe Hall Oxford.
I had been thinking about the Christian faith and one evening I went into my room and said to God:
If you exist like my friends Gerald and Mike say, I want to know you.
And as I said that, I felt the presence of God in that room there and then.
IV Conclusion
Jesus’ challenge to Nicodemus was that he needed to be born again.
Despite being a great theologian –Nicodemus didn’t understand what Jesus meant.
However, Ibelieve that Nicodemus went away thought about what Jesus said – for a very long time
I personally think that in time he became a believer.
My reasons are circumstantial – but I think not unreasonable.
i) Firstly, the next time that Nicodemus appears in the Bible (Jn 19:39) we read of him asking - together with Joseph of Arimathea- if he may bury Jesus’ body.
I don’t think he wouldn’t have taken the political risk – unless Jesus had become special to him.
ii) My second reason is more circumstantial.
There is no account of any one else being present at this interview with Jesus that we have just read about.
So how did John find out about what happened?
Jesus might have told John, but I doubt it. That wasn’t Jesus’ style to betray confidences.
I myself wonder if this encounter didn’t form a significant part of Nicodemus’ later Christian testimony?
When Nicodemus had for himself experienced being “born again”
