As a way of breaking into the text about Lazarus and his death and resurrection we are going to explore the different emotions and reactions in this story; The disciples, Martha and Mary, Jesus, the Jews and also Lazarus.
It seems to be so often the case that the disciples don’t really understand what is going on. When the message comes to Jesus that Lazarus is sick, he pretty clearly explains to them that the end will not be death. But you can’t help but wonder how many of them thought; ‘we’d better get there quickly!’ But they don’t go quickly and the text indicates that Jesus deliberately waited until Lazarus had died so that he could achieve the goal of this encounter. “for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

This is the same goal we’ve heard over the last couple of weeks of Lent in the gospel readings, that on lookers and participants in the narratives might identify Jesus as the Christ or The Anointed one and give glory to God.

I can see why the disciples get confused. First Jesus wants to wait, then suddenly he tells them ‘let’s go to Lazarus because he is asleep.’ Now to be fair this is a common idiom for death, the disciples should have known what he meant. But their first reaction to their impending journey to Judea is not their concern for Lazarus but concern for themselves. They fear death, the fear their own death, they even fear Jesus’ death, as they remind him that last time they were in that area, the Jews tried to stone him!

But Thomas seems to quickly change his mind when they realise Lazarus is actually dead and not just sleeping to regain strength and gives a strange response. One minute the disciples are concerned that being in Judea could lead to their own or Jesus death, the next Thomas proclaims: “let’s go that we might die with him.” It’s as if in one phrase he realises what is going on and is prepared to die with him. We assume the ‘him’ is Lazarus, it could well be Jesus, that Thomas expects to go to Judea and where Lazarus is already dead and by going there Jesus will die and the disciples will follow. But he has obviously jumped the gun, it’s not Lazarus who the disciples will follow into death and certainly not so quickly.

The disciples are confused, and scared, then suddenly ready to go but in the process, they fail to identify Jesus as the Christ, or at least fail to fully comprehend what his identity means.

So the disciples head off with Jesus and seem to just follow along, because they have no further recorded interactions.

Mary and Martha on the other hand have much to say.

Martha is the first to greet Jesus, does that fit with your picture of Martha? Remember Martha is the busy one, getting things done, Mary is the one sitting and listening. It makes sense then that Martha runs out to meet Jesus, maybe she has learnt from their previous encounters that Jesus is priority number one. Or maybe she is in her ‘get things done’ mode and rushes out to meet him, in the hope that he would comfort her, but she doesn’t sound like a woman looking for comfort.

I can just imagine Martha and her meeting and greeting Jesus. How do you picture it, is she gentle and subdued or is she really telling Jesus that he has failed her? Perhaps she made herself as big as possible got up in his face and demanded; ‘Lord if you have been here my brother would not have died.’

And she is correct. Jesus could have healed her brother.

How often do we have that same reaction to God, or others? If you had been here… this terrible thing would not have happened. This is the accusation of a hurting and burdened person. Someone who is angry with God.

But even though Martha is angry with Jesus, his words to her should be a greater comfort; ‘I am the resurrection and the life.’ In this story of Lazarus and his sisters and Jesus raising him from the dead, the family and bystanders are getting a glimpse of what is to come. It is like a pointing to Jesus own death and resurrection. And a pointing to their own resurrection, the resurrection of the listeners and participants in the story, Martha, Mary, Thomas, the other disciples, and even the Jews who watch and join in.

And it is a pointing to our resurrection with Christ as did our opening verses in today’s service from Romans

¹¹ If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

Just like Lazarus coming out of the grave alive with his body intact, and just as Jesus came out of the grave alive with his body intact, we too will rise with our bodies intact. We will not be just unembodied spirits floating around with God, we will have a body and a spirit, it will be a return to our intended state before the fall.

In Ezekiel we hear of the vision of the dry bones. The Hebrew word that is translated as ‘wind’, ‘Spirit’ and ‘breath’ in that passage is the same word. The wind blows the spirit into the bodies and it becomes breath. To have wind, breath or spirit is to be alive. Just like when God created Adam from the dirt, he breathed into him and he was alive. We still do the same today, when someone has stopped breathing, we breathe into them in an attempt to give them life. As it is in the New Testament, a different language but the words Spirit, wind is the same word. So without God’s spirit we are dead.

But we do have God’s Spirit, he has been poured out on us, blown into us. An internet image depicts this well, in that picture; A person had opened the bible, behind the bible was a glowing face, blowing his spirit into the reader. That is what God’s word does, it brings the Spirit and so brings life. When we hear the word the Spirit comes on us to give us life.

And we know we have the Spirit; we know that we belong to Christ because he has claimed us as his own in our baptism. We can be assured that in baptism his Spirit blew into us, giving us life, taking us through death into new life.

Shall we go back to the emotions of Lazarus’ resurrection…

Martha and Mary experienced anger, disappointment, Jesus failed them. They trust, they know who Jesus is, what he can do, but he didn’t get there in time.

What about Jesus emotion–

Jesus hates death

Jesus hates sin that causes death

Jesus hates the pain that death creates

Jesus hates the fact that even though Lazarus is going to live (even that Lazarus is going to see Jesus die) Jesus hates that Lazarus will die again also.

We know God hates death for he had the Psalmist proclaim; Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Psalm 116:15 (ESV)

This story is filled with emotion from Jesus, he is here identified as truly human. He shares in human emotion and pain. The sadness of losing a loved one, the distress of not being with them as they suffered, and the anger He displays because He knows that it is sin that leads to death, the fallen nature of humanity.

Then we have the Jews lurking around, watching the proceedings, wondering what it might mean. Some believing that Jesus is the Son of God, others going off and telling the leaders what Jesus has done. And the reaction of the leaders, who wonder ‘what are we doing’ scared that they might lose their place of power should Jesus actually lead a rebellion, absolutely oblivious to what Jesus knows he will have to do and yet by the power of God still able to prophesy in John 11:50 ‘that it is better that one man should die than the whole nation.’

The main player, the person who has his name on the title of this story, Lazarus, the man who actually dies and is brought back to life, what of his reaction. He has no speaking or acting parts, so how can we know, it would be pure speculation. His death, his reaction to his own death, and new life is of no consequence to John. It is all the other people that show their true colours by their reactions. That is often the way with death, it is the loved ones, those who are left behind that have the biggest emotional struggles, the strongest reactions to death come from the siblings, the spouse, the children or the parents.

That’s why we have Christian funerals, to comfort the living, with the good news that Jesus Christ has overcome death by his death and resurrection. It is not to glorify the person recently deceased, it is to glorify God and point mourners to Jesus the Son of God.

There are a range of reactions to Lazarus’ death and subsequent new life. From anger and disappointment to confusion and trust. But we need to see that Lazarus’ resurrection is not foreign to us. Just like Lazarus we also die in baptism and rise to new life. We could even say Lazarus’ resurrection is like baptism, he dies and then is called out of the grave to new life. We die in baptism, that is our flesh, as Paul describes it, is put to death so that Jesus can call us out of that death (sin) into new life. He calls us out like he called out Lazarus; Come out into new life with him.

Jesus says I am the resurrection and the life; Come out of your death in the flesh into your new life in the Spirit. Amen!

The Text: John 9:1-41

 

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 4:19-26 (NRSV)

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.”

Today’s text is part of our Gospel reading from John chapter 4 where Jesus is talking with a Samaritan woman at the well.

I read again from verse 19:

‘Sir’, the woman said , ‘I can see that you are a prophet. Our Father’s worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.’

Jesus declared, ‘Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation comes from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when true worshippers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks.

God is Spirit, and his worshippers must worship in Spirit and in truth.

Let us pray. Lord Sanctify us by the truth, Your word is truth. Amen.

If a strange man asked you for a drink of water and then started talking to you about water that would quench your thirst forever, what would you do?

Would you ask for a drink of his thirst-quenching water?

If this foreigner, whom you do not know, then revealed your deepest darkest secrets, cutting your conscience to the bone, exposing your guilt, what would you do?

Would you recognize that this foreigner is someone special who has been sent from God?

Would you try to steer the direction of the conversation to something lighter and less threatening?

Maybe you would prefer to talk sport or politics or dare I say it even religion?

Well, this is what our Samaritan woman does.

She decides to talk religion. 

At first she didn’t recognize that this man was Jesus – the Messiah!  She saw him simply as a Jewish prophet. But in their discussion Jesus did something that only a God who knows each of us personally could do. He cut to the bone of her secret problems and revealed her broken relationships, her promiscuity and all that troubled her conscience.

To have our hurts and weaknesses revealed is one of the most humbling experiences that any human can face. We would all prefer to put on a brave face and pretend nothing was wrong by changing the subject. We may be able to hide the truth we don’t want others to know, but nothing is hidden from God.

Yet to try and turn the subject away from her deep dark sins, the Samaritan woman starts a conversation about religious matters. She highlighted one of the big issues that separated the Samaritans and the Jews.

The issue concerned the correct place of worship. You see, the Samaritans believed the only correct place to worship was on Mt Gerazim. (Gera-Zim) The Jews believed the only correct place of worship was at Jerusalem on Mt Zion. So the Jews and Samaritans lived as two separate nations.

The Samaritan woman was looking for an answer to this long standing division. But the answer which she got was radically different to what she may have expected. It cut deeper into her problem.

Jesus revealed that the key issue was not where we worship

but who it is that we worship, and how!

In the coming of Jesus, the time had come when true worshippers would worship God as their Father. Jesus said: They will worship the Father in Spirit and Truth.

But what does this mean? What does it mean to worship the Father in Spirit and in truth?

Created as God’s chosen children we are called to worship God as our Father. He provides for us, he cares for us, he guides us.

We are to fear him, love him, serve and obey him just like we are to fear love, serve and obey our earthly parents.  Just as we trust our earthly parents to provide for us in our childhood so we are to trust God to  provide for us as we journey to the promised land, for he is our creator and he has made us his children.

Today we have come together to worship God our Father in Spirit and in Truth. We called on the name of our God – the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

When we call on the name of our Triune God we acknowledge that we belong to the eternal body of Jesus Christ.

In the body of Christ we are joined with all saints of ages past, present and future and all saints on earth. We are joined with the saints in our neighbouring churches and the churches all over the world.

Most importantly, the Holy Spirit joins us with Christ Jesus.

It is only through Jesus that we can come to our Father.

Jesus is the Truth. He is the word of God in the flesh. The Holy Spirit gathers us together in Christ Jesus – and together we worship our Father. Together we receive our Father’s goodness, and we give thanks to him for his great love for us.

Then, having received our Father’s blessing, he sends us out as his restored people to be a blessing to others in our community, to serve him by serving one another.

We first entered the true place of worship when we were baptized. At our baptism the name of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit was spoken over us and we were welcomed into the body of Christ. At Baptism we received God’s Spirit and the Spirit continues to build faith in us and continues to bring us back to Jesus’ body where we worship our Father in Spirit and truth together with all God’s people.

Now imagine for a moment that you were the Samaritan woman, and you wanted to change the topic of discussion away from the guilt that has been revealed in you; what religious question would you ask Jesus?

In the church on earth there are many issues that threaten to divide or trouble the church. Maybe you would ask Jesus about the styles of music that often divide people in worship. You may say, we prefer organ music in our worship, and others prefer guitar music.

Maybe you would make a comment about the many different forms of worship and orders of service in the church. You may say, I prefer the order of service straight from the hymnal, while another person might say, I prefer the more casual family service, or charismatic , or a reflective service.  

Maybe you would talk about the different ways we praise God. You may say, Some people praise God by singing beautiful hymns. Others praise God by singing sacred songs. Some praise God with movement, others praise God with a sturdy stance.

The Samaritan woman steered the conversation away from herself by asking Jesus about the right place of worship. Today we might do that similar. You might say I think it is better to worship in a small congregation, another person might say, I prefer to worship in a big congregation.

We can so easily think that it is the forms, the music and the place that makes true worship. But these things are only instruments that are useless on their own. It is when the Spirit works through and beyond these instruments that there is true worship!

So often we concern ourselves with issues that are actually irrelevant – as if our salvation depended on them.

The real danger is that the music, or the forms, or the people and the building become the focus of our worship time. It is possible that these things can become barriers that stop people from starting or maintaining a relationship with God as their father. These matters can also distract us away from God our Father who is to be the true focus of our worship.

So often we lose sight of who it is that we are worshipping and how many different ways we can truly worship him. We get caught up in petty issues, and personal hobby horses and lose sight of who it is that we are worshipping.

But Jesus clears away our agenda. He reveals that he wants to restore our relationship with God our Father through our worship experience!

Just like the Samaritan woman, we are sinners with a history. When we come into the presence of God our masks are cut away and God exposes us for who we really are. Naturally we will want to hide our shortfalls and our broken relationships behind pious words. But we can hide nothing from God. He sees everything.

But in a show of eternal love the one true Jesus comes to us, he shows us that he has died for us and introduces us to our Heavenly Father just as he did to the Samaritan woman.

Jesus makes it possible for people like us and the Samaritan woman, – people who are abused and condemned to be able to worship God the gracious Father.

God the Father has sent his Son to walk with sinners to overturn the practices, the forms, the music and the temples that demand us to sacrifice ourselves in order to be saved. And Jesus paid the price for this radical action. He offended many who worked to try and gain their own salvation. Finally, Jesus was put to death on the cross.

And there on the cross, Jesus shed his blood to wash us clean so that we can stand before God as our Father and worship him forever!

At our Baptism God gave us his Holy Spirit to transform us who were unholy and unclean sinful beings into holy spiritual beings. Now the Holy Spirit empowers us to gather together to worship God the Father through Jesus Christ – in Spirit and truth.

Because of Christ, worshipping God the Father is not a matter of forms, sacrifices or styles. Worship is about our relationship to God our Father.

Through the Spirit we are brought into fellowship with Jesus Christ who is the truth. And through Jesus we can stand before God our Father and worship him.

Like the Samaritan woman, we can rejoice that Jesus is the Saviour who restores our relationship with God the Father. Amen

And the peace of God which passes all understanding keep our hearts and mind safe in Jesus Christ to life everlasting. Amen.

The Text: John 3:1-17

Nicodemus came at night!

 

A pastor had a discussion at a youth meeting about this fact; that Nicodemus came at night and there were a few suggestions as to why this may have been.

Some suggested that he might have come at night because he was a member of the Pharisees and didn’t want to be seen with Jesus by the other leaders or by other members of the ruling council the Sanhedrin. Some theologians don’t accept this premise.

Another suggestion was that Nicodemus was nocturnal, a bit like a possum! Now while this gave us a good laugh apparently it might be closer to the mark than we thought. Nicodemus being a Pharisee was a theologian, but a theologian was not a job where you could earn a living so the majority of the Pharisees would have worked during the day, leaving only the night time for theological discussion.

Now another suggestion was that Nicodemus came at night so that he could have a decent conversation when others wouldn’t be harassing Jesus, it seems if that was his goal then he got his wish.

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, living like a parasite, 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.

The Text: Matthew 4:1-11

The temptation of Jesus    

Today’s gospel reading deals with the realities of sin and temptation, grace and faith. Our gospel reading identifies Jesus’ faith in the word of God. His faith was demonstrated in the face of temptation.

As Christians we believe that sin has power – a deadly power that comes from the evil one. We also believe that faith has power – a life-giving power that comes from God.

In our lives we experience a struggle between these two powers. Martin Luther often spoke about Christians being saints and sinners at the same time.

When we put our faith in God we can be sure that Satan will want to throw a temptation or two our way. For example, we all have a dominant life value that we unconsciously base our decisions on. For some this might be the desire for fun or comfort or safety. It might be the desire for power or pleasure or to please others.

Satan loves to play with these desires and to lead us to think that we are the most important people in the world and that everything should revolve around us.

Satan loves to challenge our faith and seeks to twist the truth to lead us away from serving God.

When natural disaster or personal tragedy comes our way, Satan will try to tempt us into believing ‘God doesn’t love me. God is punishing me.’ If you ever experience this, stop! And remember what the scriptures say.

In the scriptures we will find a completely different explanation to disaster and tragedy. Romans 8:22 says. We know that all that God created has been groaning. It is in pain as if it were giving birth to a child. The created world continues to groan even now.

Scripture makes it clear that there will come a time when there will be a new heaven and a new earth and the old order of things will pass away and death will be no more. Regardless of what happens in this world, will you keep your faith in God’s promise that he is making all things new?

Even when disasters and tragedies leave us feeling as if we are small and powerless, will we keep the faith?

There is an old Scandinavian legend that explains this so well. It is about the mighty Thor and how one day he visited the land of the giants.

When Thor arrived there he found that the giants were engaged in various contests of strength. They asked him if he would like to take part in their games. He said yes. So they proposed three tests of strength for him.

First Thor was asked to drink all the liquid in a large two handed drinking bowl. He tried to drink it. And he drank as much as he could. But only a tiny portion of the liquid in the bowl had disappeared. Finally he had to put down the bowl and admit defeat. To him the giants seemed sympathetic – and they proposed something a bit easier for his second test.

A black cat was walking by and Thor was instructed to lift it up. He grabbed hold of the animal, thinking it should be easy to hoist it up. He strained and tugged as hard as he could but he couldn’t even begin to budge the cat.

By this time the giants were beginning to be openly amused at Thor’s predicament.  “You are supposed to be strong”, they said, “but it seems you are not. Well…we will give you something even easier for your third test.”

So for the third test the giants challenged Thor to a wrestle with an old woman. With every bit of strength that Thor could muster he grabbed hold of the old woman, but all his pushing and pulling and twisting was in vain. He simply could not meet the challenge.

As Thor, humbled and dejected, left the giants to head back home, one of them went with him for a part of the way and told him that there was magic in the contests. He said:

“The cup contained the sea and who can drink that? The cat was the evil in the world, and who is able to lift that up and take it away? And the old woman was time, and who is able to contend with her?”

When it comes to sin and its effect on the world, we are truly living in the land of giants. The sin of all people causes the world to groan in pain. We are tempted to give up in despair – feeling that nothing we can do will make a difference; believing that there is no help or hope for us or our world.

Maybe this is the greatest temptation of our time. Maybe our greatest temptation is to give up hope. This might just be the greatest work of Satan in our world – tempting people away from putting their hope in God and his Holy word.

But friends, we have within us: one who is stronger than the world; one who is greater than the tempter; one who has triumphed over evil both in life (as we see in Jesus’ temptation today), and in death (as we see in Jesus’ death and resurrection).

Most people dwell too much on the negative side of things. They see the problems but they don’t take hold of the solution. That solution is that the good news of salvation that is unconditionally offered to all.

In our life we so quickly fall into despair on account of the giants we face: we forget the stories of hope that God gives us, like the story of David and of how one small stone in his hands brought an end to Goliath who threatened his nation and caused even Saul and his mighty army to give up hope.

So too, we have a saviour: one who remembers who we are; one who loves us as a father loves his children; one who seeks to nurture us as a mother nurtures her baby.

This saviour has ventured into the same troubled waters that we live in each day. He has battled the currents – fought the enemies – and shown that he is able. He also shows us that when we ‘swim’ with him – we are able too!

Our saviour remembers who we are and he loves us, and seeks the best for us. He knows that we are weak swimmers in the deep waters of sin. He knows that we will flounder and thrash, grow tired and sink. He knows the waters we are in. And he does not ignore us.

Our saviour reaches out to us

– he calls out to us.

– he seeks to guide us and help us – and like all good parents

– he forgives us and does all that he can to make sure that we start each day anew, refreshed and surrounded in love.

Even though we have fallen, we have a saviour who has been proven to stand firm even in the face of temptation. He alone can rescue us.  May we look to Jesus for he is our hope and our salvation.

Amen