Month: March 2026

The Text: John 11:20-44
For You, Jesus Is the Resurrection and the Life
What do you value most about other members of your life? What do they value
most about you? What changes have you noticed in them? While some things
always stay the same in most of us, other parts of our character change over the
years.
In today’s Gospel we see how two sisters face a family tragedy differently, namely
the death of their brother Lazarus. The home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus was a
favourite place of retreat for our Lord. This family is referred to as His friends rather
than His disciples, a friendship Jesus deeply treasured. We’re told that “Jesus loved
Martha and her sister and Lazarus”. Even now and today, Christ’s love is both for
each of you individually and also as part of your families. He cares for you when
you face life’s tough times like serious illness and death.
The account of how two sisters faced a death in their family has given us Christians
immense help when death intrudes unexpectedly into our own lives. Here we see
how deeply our Saviour is affected by what happens to us. “Jesus wept” is often
called the shortest verse in the Bible. But at the same time it has become the
longest in terms of comfort for those of us who too weep over the death of a loved
one. We don’t find it easy, do we, to talk about death. Talk of it makes us
uncomfortable. We all know it’s out there somewhere for us, but we’re reluctant to
discuss our own death or that of anyone else before we have to do so.
We often think differently about death after we’ve had to face the death of a
family member for the first time. The Christian faith we share began as a death-
conquering belief. Jesus’ own death and resurrection has made all the difference.
To a world lacking any certain hope of life beyond death, the Christian Church
proclaimed the sure and certain hope of the resurrection unto life eternal through
Jesus Christ. Because Jesus wept over the death of Lazarus, we can say to those
who are crying their eyes out with grief: “It’s okay to cry. Keep on crying. Jesus cries
with you.”
Before Lazarus had died, his sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love
is sick.” What an insightful message. It focuses on Jesus’ love for Lazarus, telling Jesus
what’s upsetting them without telling Jesus what to do. In any crisis we need the
assurance of our Lord’s love for us, despite whatever tough or puzzling
circumstances we’re facing.
Next we’re told that Jesus delayed His trip to Mary and Martha’s home in Bethany
for two days. Our Lord’s timing often puzzles us. Often it seems as if He’s delaying His
response to our prayer petitions. Our Lord responds to our cries for help, but in His
own time and on His own terms. Even if Jesus had come to Lazarus’ home
immediately, Lazarus would have been dead for two days by the time Jesus
arrived. Today’s Gospel reassures you and me that Jesus cares for us more than we
could ever imagine. He says,
“’My ways are not your ways’ says the Lord (Isaiah 55:8).”
He cares for you by bringing you into a caring community where fellow Christians
can visit you when you’re unwell and pray for you. “For your sake” Jesus says, “I am
glad I was not there, so that you might believe (v15).” That is, believe that death
cannot be victorious over He who is “the Resurrection and the Life”. Jesus let
Lazarus die so that He could show Himself to us as the Lord over life and death.
Jesus challenges you and me to trust in His good plans for us and their positive
purpose which can often only be seen in hindsight.
A mother and father’s only daughter was playing on the front lawn of their corner
block home. Some young lads couldn’t’ make it around the corner in their car. The
girl was hit and killed. Her parents were inconsolable. At the time, they saw no
purpose in this terrible tragedy. But then they were asked to become foster parents
to some orphaned children. They came to see the hand of God in giving them the
joy of caring for these parentless children. As a result, the children they fostered
have grown up thanking God for their foster parents, who led them to Jesus.
Now when Martha heard that Jesus’ arrival was imminent, she went to meet Him.
We now see a changed Martha. Previously when Jesus was at their home she did
the meal preparation on her own, while Mary sat at Jesus’ feet listening to Him.
Martha now engages in a learning exercise with Jesus. Here we see how her faith
grows as she enters into a theological dialogue with Jesus. Martha is an active,
outgoing woman, who is less distracted by relational crises than is her sister Mary.
When Martha meets Jesus, she says to Him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother
would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask
of Him (John 11:21-22).” That Martha can still believe and give tribute to Jesus
despite His late arrival is evidence of the convincing power of Christ’s presence. She
clearly still hopes for much from Jesus. She refers to Jesus as Teacher to indicate her
willingness to be taught by Him.
Jesus delays in responding to our pleas in order to bring us a blessing. Jesus’ delay in
coming to Martha didn’t weaken her faith in Him. Her words “if only you had been
here” are an expression of how much she missed Jesus. She believes that her
brother will rise again on the Last Day. In response to this assertion, Jesus now gives
her His most comforting declaration. He says to her, “I am the Resurrection and the
Life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who
lives and believes in me will never die (11:25).”
These words from Jesus have brought us unsurpassed comfort and hope when
we’re dealing with death. Jesus wants Martha to see that new life, life lived in the
light of Easter is possible now, in the present, before we die. Jesus uses the presence
tense: “I am the Resurrection.” Christ, your contemporary, can enable you to live in
the light of Easter now. In Christ, there’s the true possibility of a richer, fuller now,
before we die.
Jesus points to His own Resurrection as the guarantee of what He says. In response,
Martha makes one of the greatest confessions of faith in the New Testament when
she says, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the One
coming into the world.” God grant that we too can enthusiastically respond
similarly to Martha. What astonishes us is that she responds to Jesus with these words
even before her brother returns to life! Despite her sister Mary’s slow response to
Jesus’ arrival, she’s still told the good news, “The Teacher [Jesus] is here and is
asking for you (v28).” Wonderful words! They could be written on the back of every
Church pew: “Jesus is here and asking for you.”
Mary is thrilled to know that Jesus wants her. When He sees her crying her heart out,
Jesus is deeply moved and visibly distressed. Then we’re told, “Jesus wept.” Seeing
the tears of those we love deeply rarely leaves us unaffected. Tears pour from our
eyes in order to keep our souls from falling apart. Jesus isn’t ashamed to weep with
us. His tears hallow our own tears. In the garden of Gethsemane on the night before
His own death, Jesus’ fear of death means that He can understand firsthand our
own fear of death and therefore help us when we too are afraid of death and
dying. We read in Hebrews 5:7, “In the days of His flesh, Jesus offered up prayers
and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the One who was able to save Him
from death, and He was heard because of His reverent submission.”
“Amazing love, how can it be / that you, my Lord, should cry with me?”
Jesus wept because He shares the emotions of those He loves. He also wept
because He had come face to face with the impending reality of His own death.
Jesus gives us life that is stronger than death, but at the cost of His own life.
“Lazarus, come out”, Jesus calls with a loud voice. One day you too may hear your
Lord call you by name to enter the resurrection and the life that can never end. The
good news of the resurrection, Christ’s resurrection and our own resurrection makes
our mortality bearable. When we walk through ‘the valley of the shadow of death”,
Christ, the Good Shepherd, is there with us to comfort us, to strengthen us and to
console us as only He can.
Some of life’s greatest moments occur when we face death with Him who is “the
Resurrection and the Life.” Before Jesus raised Lazarus from his tomb, Jesus prayed
aloud in order to draw all who heard His prayer into the intimacy and confidence of
His relationship with His Father in heaven. Let us never forget that “Precious in the
Lord’s sight is the death of His faithful ones (Psalm 116:15).” Your Lord showed how
precious you are to Him by dying for you, dying with you, and by His eager desire to
share the Resurrection with you in His good time. Until then, remember that
“whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s (Romans 14:8).”
Amen.

The Text: John 9:1-41
Grace and peace to you from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
Today we are going to focus on our Gospel reading from John chapter 9:1-41 in
which we heard how Jesus healed the man born blind and how the Pharisees
investigated the healing. It concluded with Jesus speaking about our spiritual
blindness.
This story about Jesus healing the man born blind is a dramatic gospel presentation,
filled with heated exchanges and clever dialogue.
There is the dialogue between Jesus and his disciples, and Jesus and the blind man.
There is also the dialogue between the blind man and his parents, his neighbours
and even a divided group of Pharisees who wanted to condemn Jesus.
What makes this healing miracle stand out from the many other healing miracles
that Jesus performed is the fact that this blind man did not approach Jesus asking
for healing. Rather, Jesus approached him.
This blind man had been blind from birth. Jesus took pity on this man and on the
society that had to support him.
So Jesus gave to this man something that he had never experienced before – he
gave this blind man the ability to see!
Before we can understand what sight is, we must try to understand what it is to be
blind. Close your eyes for a moment. Now imagine how different life would be if
God had created people without eyes to see. Imagine if everyone was guided only
by the ability to touch, taste, smell and hear.
Without our eyes we have no way of comparing colour or light. Without eyes there
would be no such term as blind; for there would be nothing to compare blindness
with.
But the blind man in our Gospel reading certainly knew that he was blind. From the
time that he could understand speech his parents and friends probably told him
that he was blind. The blind man had no way of understanding sight – yet he
longed to be able to see. If he could see he would be able to stop begging and
start working. The ability to see would change his life.
So when Jesus came to the blind man, Jesus changed the life of the blind man
forever by giving him the ability to see.
When he was blind, he did not understand what it meant to be blind for he had
never experienced the ability to see. Once he was blind, but now he could see.
The reading gave us a detailed description of the healing: Jesus came to the blind
man. He took a handful of clay, spat on it and worked it in his hand. He then put it
on the blind man’s eyes and told him to go and wash in The Pool of Siloam (Si-lo-
am). He did this and amazingly he came back seeing.
With his new ability to see, he now understood what it meant to be previously blind.
Now he is able to see for the first time! It’s hard to imagine what that first moment
of sight would have been like!
He rushed to tell people of his new found sight. He told people whom he thought
were able to see clearly too!
He thought they would be so happy for him – that he could see like them! Instead,
they wanted to have little to do with him.
There seemed to be something different about the sight that Jesus had given to this
man compared to the sight of his family and friends.
The sight that Jesus gave was more than seeing in the ‘physical’ sense. Jesus also
gave him the ability to see in the ‘spiritual’ sense. He gave to this blind man the
ability to see spiritually – Now what might seeing spiritually mean?
Jesus gave the healed man the ability to identify that the person who healed him
was Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the living God; the one God promised to send to
be the saviour of the world.
To see spiritually is to see what God already sees. It is to see what God is doing!
Today, let’s call this spiritual seeing – spiritual vision.
The Pharisees had a real problem with this miracle because it had taken place on
the Sabbath – a day when no Jew could do anything that could be interpreted as
work.
So the Pharisees interrogated this man several times about who it was that healed
him. And each time the healed man was interrogated, his spiritual vision became
more focussed.
His explanation of who Jesus is became clearer. The healed man’s spiritual vision
became so focussed that he even boldly claimed to be a disciple of the one who
healed him. To this the Pharisees replied: ‘You are this fellow’s disciple! We are
disciples of Moses! We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we
don’t even know where he comes from.’
To this the healed man answered: ‘Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where
he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. Nobody has ever heard of opening the
eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.’
But the Pharisees eyes were still blinded. And they could not recognise that the one
who healed the man was the Son of God. It was as if the Pharisees had been
blinded by their religion to the point where they could no longer recognise God at
work in this person’s life. They did not have spiritual vision.
Just like the blind man in our story and these Pharisees we are all born with spiritual
blindness. This is because sin is part of the world. Because of sin we are born into this
world without the ability to see spiritually. On our own we cannot see God or
recognise his works amongst us.
Because of sin none of us are born with spiritual vision.
God alone can give us such vision.
Through baptism God begins to grow our spiritual vision. He makes it possible that
we can see in ways that we could have never dreamed of. In our baptism God has
washed away our sin so that we may grow to see spiritually.
In Baptism God washes away our sin and sends us the Holy Spirit who gives us the
faith to see that God is with us – to see in the spirit that Jesus is our saviour – to see
that we will live with him forever in perfect relationship.
Spiritual vision allows us to be able to recognise our sin. Spiritual vision also allows us
to see how the crucified Jesus comes to us and gives us the forgiveness and the
new life that he has won for us. With Spiritual vision we can see that Jesus heals our
hurts and makes us whole. With spiritual vision we can see God at work in our lives
guiding us with his Holy Spirit until we arrive at our heavenly home.
Spiritual vision is very different to our physical vision. Often our physical vision
deteriorates with age. But our spiritual vision if cared for and nurtured can develop
with age.
This happens as we continue to receive God’s gifts to us. When I think of caring for
our physical vision: I remember the old saying: “Eat your carrots – that way you will
be able to see in the dark!” Yes our food helps us grow physically strong and
strengthen our physical vision.
But eating carrots and other healthy foods will not grow our spiritual vision! There are
other gifts God gives to grow our spiritual vision.
God gives us his written and spoken word and the Body and Blood of Christ that we
receive in his Holy Meal. Through these means the Holy Spirit is at work growing our
spiritual vision.
Spiritual vision allows us to see the world in a new light. It allows us to see the world
as God sees it. We can see and identify God with us and working through us to
others and others to us.
Spiritual vision helps us to celebrate what God is doing amongst us. With a healthy
spiritual vision we can see Jesus at work shaping our lives and the lives of those
around us. A healthy spiritual vision will enable us to see every person as special to
God. It will help us to value and respect, to love and to serve each other at the
point of their greatest need, just as Jesus has come to serve us according to our
need.
Ultimately a healthy spiritual vision leads us to worship Jesus as our Saviour. Those
who have a healthy spiritual vision are the ones who give glory to God by loving
and serving those around them.
As our spiritual vision matures and becomes more focussed we are able to boldly
proclaim the name of Jesus Christ crucified until he comes again. We will live in the
light and show our love for God by loving one another and turning away from sin.
God is growing our spiritual vision. The spiritual vision that he is growing in us will help
us see ourselves the way God sees us—forgiven, redeemed and healed by the
blood of Jesus. Our spiritual vision will help us see who Jesus is and what he has
done for us. With spiritual vision we will see his light, we will see our sin in a new light.
We will daily drown the old sinful nature and trust in Jesus alone. May this be true for
us all. Amen.

The text: John 4:5-42
5 So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground
that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and
Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her,
“Give me a drink.” 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy
food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew,
ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in
common with Samaritans.)[a] 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift
of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would
have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The
woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep.
Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our
ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks
drank from it?” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water
will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink of the water that I will give
them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them
a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him,
“Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep
coming here to draw water.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” 17 The
woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You
are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five
husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you
have said is true!” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a
prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you[b] say
that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 Jesus said
to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship
the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You worship
what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from
the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true
worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks
such as these to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him
must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that
Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will
proclaim all things to us.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I am he,[c] the one who is
speaking to you.”
27 Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was
speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or,
“Why are you speaking with her?” 28 Then the woman left her water jar
and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29 “Come and see a
man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the
Messiah,[d] can he?” 30 They left the city and were on their way to him.
31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat
something.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not
know about.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has
brought him something to eat?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do
the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. 35 Do you not say,
‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around
you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. 36 The reaper is
already receiving[e] wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that
sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds
true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which
you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into
their labour.”
39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the
woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” 40 So
when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them;
and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of
his word. 42 They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what
you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we
know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.”
Today’s Gospel reading this morning begins by telling us that Jesus had to pass
through Samaria to get to Galilee. This isn’t entirely true, at least not as we read it.
In fact, as Jesus was leaving Jerusalem, there was a well-worn path that all Jews
would take that went around Samaria, they’d walk this road so that they wouldn’t
have to pass through Samaria at all. Such was the animosity between Jews and
Samaritans that even being in the same region was taboo.
To put it in perspective, for Jesus’ disciples it would have felt like walking through the
roughest neighbourhood at night. No one wanted to be there. And yet we begin
this story with the statement in verse 3 that Jesus had to pass through Samaria.
What drove him there? Was it the people or person he would soon meet?
Jesus takes his disciples into Samaria and sends them to get food while he sits alone
at a well on the outskirts of the town.
In the heat of the day a woman comes, on her own, to draw water. The stage is
set.
It is a curious thing, this woman coming in the middle of the day. It would be normal
to draw water first thing, to prepare for the day’s work. It would be normal to draw
it in the cool morning. Practically speaking it does not make sense to come in the
middle of the day. Unless you want to avoid everyone.
This woman comes at a time when she knew she’d run into no one.
Now we need to be careful about jumping to a conclusion why. The story doesn’t
tell us. What we do know is this woman is ostracised from her community and
prefers the discomfort of the middle of the day, over against the discomfort of
being around others.
Already you can see a stark contrast in the setup of this story, to the previous one in
the gospel of John. In John 3, Nicodemus: a well to do, highly respected Jewish
man, a teacher, comes to Jesus wanting to speak with him. In John 4 we have an
unknown woman, a Samaritan and cut off from her community, surprised at Jesus
speaking to her.
This transition from John 3 to John 4 shows the breadth of the reach of the Gospel.
In most respects we have polarities in the two stories. The common factor is that
Jesus directs the conversation in both cases to where the person needs to be.
Let’s read the story:
A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”
Immediately the conventions are broken. She knew she should not talk to Jesus,
Jesus knew he had to talk to her. It stuns her, she effectively accuses Jesus of being
inappropriate. She says, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a
woman of Samaria?”
Jesus invites her to himself. She puts up a wall and he dismantles it. If you knew
who I was, you would have pursued me for a drink. You would have asked me, you
would let all your fear, shame, discomfort, fall away and you would have done the
unthinkable for the sake of the prize that I offer you.
And how does she answer this highly personal invitation and offer? She argues
theology What an amazing response!. You would not expect Jesus, after telling a
woman in her position to break every social convention, to be met with a debate
on buckets, the well and what the great-great-great-great, very great grandfather
did.
What’s she doing?
She’s deflecting. Jesus has offered her an amazing gift, but it opens her up to
vulnerability – can she be seen talking to, going to, a Jewish man in the middle of
the day? Isn’t it interesting how Nicodemus, in the last chapter, hid behind the
comradery of being a teacher and Jesus challenged his theology? In this story the
woman at the well wants to hide behind theology and Jesus calls her to an
uncomfortable familiarity.
She deflects the conversation but Jesus sees right through her. He is not here for a
theological debate, but to invite her to worship in spirit and truth. When she
deflects, Jesus brings it back.
You are looking for a drink, whoever drinks of the water I offer will never be thirsty
again. All of a sudden he’s not talking about water. He promises eternal life,
welling up from the soul. This invitation – a hazy telling of the gospel for sure – cuts
through and all of a sudden she is captivated. Is she sick of drawing water, is she
sick of working through her own broken world left on the outer, enduring life cut off
from community?
Jesus draws the conversation away from physical water to living water of the
presence of God.
In Jeremiah 2:13, The Lord himself paints this image for his people:
for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns that can hold no water.
This is why we need to be careful about how we view this woman. She is not unlike
us – she is like us in so many ways. We all ‘drink’ of many things that leave us thirsty.
Which is as we listen to Jesus and Jeremiah means nothing other than forsaking
God and pursuing other gods. It is when we treat anything as if it has the power
meet our deepest needs, that we rob them of the good they can provide and
make them something they can never be – the thing that saves us.
Jesus calls himself the living water – the one who can truly quench our parched
souls, but we prefer to find the answer ourselves. It is the story of humanity: that we
continue to believe that we can earn true satisfaction; that our best efforts can
deliver what we know is missing. We may not be able to articulate exactly what
that gap is, but certainly we all have said at some point in our lives ‘if only…’ and
you can fill in the rest yourself… And once we have placed that unrealistic
expectation on anything in our lives, no matter how good that thing is it will never
truly satisfy. The more we want it to live up to our expectations, the greater our
failure will seem – it will only leave us thirsty for more.
That’s what happens when we live without grace. Jesus stands directly in contrast
to that. He has come to this Samaritan woman to divert her attention from meeting
her own needs and to draw deeply from him. She can never achieve for herself
that which Jesus is offering to her without cost. And whilst it’s the kind of thing you
can’t adequately describe in words, we can see the effect soon enough, by the
end of the story in fact. But we’re not there yet.
This is what Jesus means when he says that he is living water that will truly satisfy. He
will take the place of all these idols and he can meet our deepest need. And that’s
precisely what he offers the woman.
But just when she begins to get an appetite for this living water it seems like Jesus
completely changes the subject:
She says ‘give me this water’ Jesus says ‘go get your husband’.
How on earth do these two things go together? It would seem that Jesus jumps to
an illogical request. This discourse has more digressions than the average sermon!
Does this living water require a husband? Or has he hit the mark on the very thing
that this woman has chosen to try and fill her need?
‘Sir I don’t have husband.’
‘I know’ he responds, ‘you’ve had five and the man you’re now with isn’t.
And where does she go? Back to theology. “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.
Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place
where people ought to worship.”
He gets too close again, she pulls back. He knows! She changes the subject to
talking about the temples.
Now I don’t know about you, but if someone laid out in front of me a personal
history like that, my first thought would not be about places of worship. Her secrets
have been laid bare, will it hurt, and will it drive him away? Does the truth ever hurt
our chances with God? Does it ever drive him away? Jesus cannot truly satisfy until
he can reach to the depths of our human need and prove the power of his love in
the places where we doubt anyone ever could see and not reject us.
Instead Jesus offers a new way. “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when
neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.”
In the gospel of John, ‘The Hour’ is always pointing to the cross. Jesus promises this
woman living water, he delivers it to her, and the world, on a day when he thirsts,
when his mouth and his heart runs dry. The Samaritan woman, and we along with
her, receive a whole new life, with our deepest needs met by God himself because
Jesus took on the ultimate thirst of being separated from God.
And this promise hits the mark for this woman. Remember again how the story
starts? She comes out on her own, choosing the heat of the day over the
discomfort of being around people. How does the story end? Jesus tells her to get
her husband, she doesn’t. She gets the whole town! This woman who had had 5
husbands and now living with a man who wasn’t, runs back to the people she
wanted to avoid and declares: Come and see this man I met!
You can almost imagine people rolling their eyes, ‘here we go again’. But she is not
ashamed, she has a new message: Meet the man who told me everything I ever
did. Now let’s pause there for a moment. Is that true? Did Jesus recount her life
story? Of course not, but he reached into the most hidden place, the most tender
spot, the thing that caused her guilt or shame, the thing that led her to avoid
people.
And he met that place of bondage with grace and freedom. By ‘everything I ever
did’ she means ‘the things I wish people didn’t know’. But Jesus knew it and loved
her. It did not exclude her from the living water.
What does this mean?
It means we need not be afraid of God or being honest before him. The living water
fills those dry and barren places in us and brings life in him.
The change she experiences, that Jesus knew the worst in her and still blesses her,
transforms how she views herself. If Jesus knows and does not condemn her, than
she cannot condemn herself either. If Jesus does not condemn her, but sets her
free, then the opinions of others do not matter. By grace now she is not afraid of
people, but now cares for them. The same people she avoided because of their
opinions of her are the people she first goes to, to announce the messiah!
Jesus came to her and changed her life, he became the one who truly made her
whole and quenched her thirst. We receive the same grace from him too.
Let’s pray.

The Text: John 3:1-17

Nicodemus came because he wanted to make sense of the something. A
common question for the Pharisees in their theological discussion was; how and
when will we see the kingdom of God?
Given we are going to talk about things that we can’t understand by our own
reason perhaps you might consider some of the thing that don’t make sense to
you.
There are many things do not make sense to us!
Why are sheep so stupid? Why does my dog keep running away? Why does God
allow suffering? Why, why, why?
And then we come to the how’s.
How did God create the earth and is our modern science close to finding out? How
does a car work? How do computers work? How am I going to manage in this life?
Many of these things have perfectly legitimate answers, others just don’t make
sense.
Nicodemus wanted to make sense of something and it seems he only got more
confused. His question related, we can assume, to the kingdom of God. When and
where? When will the kingdom come? Where will the kingdom come?
He doesn’t come straight out and ask Jesus this but Jesus pre-empts his question
and sees through his preliminaries to get straight to the point. Nicodemus doesn’t
even get a question out – only a comment about Jesus having God with him,
before Jesus gives the answer to his un-asked question. ‘If you’re looking for the
Kingdom, you are not going to see it unless you are born again’.
Now if Nicodemus was confused before, he’s really baffled now. Born again? Born
once is confusing enough to understand, how we can be born again? A man can’t
climb back in where he came from so that he can come out again! It was hard
enough for your mother the first time when you were an infant – how painful would it
be to birth an adult!
But Jesus is not talking about physical birth, he’s talking about birth with water and
the spirit. Not water, and then the spirit, as if you can be re-born again, and then
again, but water and the spirit together creating a new being. This new being is not
driven by its flesh as the old being was but is now driven by the spirit who resides
and does the good that pleases God.
Lutherans straight away think this relates to baptism. And why shouldn’t we? It’s not
even a big stretch. And here in this passage the active work of God in baptism is
highlighted.
During your birth I’m pretty sure you didn’t do much. You didn’t participate in the
conception, that’s a miracle of God and your Parents. You were passive through
gestation, fed as your mother ate, and then through your birth your mother once
again did all the hard work and you probably just cried when it was over. So if you
were passive and receptive in your physical birth, how much more are you passive
and receptive in your new birth?
We are passive in our life of faith. You don’t start by looking for God.
As much as we could say well Nicodemus came to God, so we must also come to
God. Verses 16-17 tell us that God has come to us. If God in Jesus were not on this
earth Nicodemus would have had no one to seek out.
Same goes for us, God seeks us out now by the Spirit blowing wherever he pleases.
Blowing through parents who know that it’s a good thing for their child to get
baptised. Blowing through families who want good things for their children even if
they cannot explain or put a name to them. Blowing through friends and
neighbours who do the good deeds of the spirit because he resides in them leading
their friends and neighbours to come and ask how and why are you doing these
good things.
This passage must definitely be about baptism. Baptism where the participant is
passive and God is active. Using water, word and spirit to get the job done to re-
birth a person of the spirit.
If Nicodemus didn’t understand, how can anyone of the flesh get it? We just don’t
and can’t understand how and why God does these things. We need to refer back
to the catechism where we learnt that ‘I cannot by my own understanding… …but
the Holy Spirit, calls, enlightens’ and so on.
Nicodemus couldn’t by his own understanding. Maybe he did get it eventually
because he went with Joseph to help bury Jesus. Abraham couldn’t by his own
understanding comprehend how God could call him to be the father of many
nations in his old age, but he eventually came to believe and have faith in the
promise of his God. So Nicodemus could be seen as a real son of Abraham who
came to believe, have faith in what God had told him.
We also can come to believe, we may not be able to understand for ourselves, but
the Holy Spirit calls and enlightens us, the Holy Spirit gives us faith to believe that; we
are reborn in baptism by water and the spirit. That we enter the kingdom in our new
birth, that we have the spirit. That we are included when Jesus tells us that God sent
his son for the whole world, for US.
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for coming into the world as Saviour. May we believe in you
and be born again.
Peace…Amen.