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The Second Sunday In Lent
O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from thy ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of thy Word, Jesus Christ thy Son; who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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The Second Sunday In Lent
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Scripture citation(s): John 3:1-17; Genesis 12:1-4a; Romans 4:1-5
A Sermon by
Fr. Spurlock
on
John 3:1-17; Genesis 12:1-4a; Romans 4:1-5
✛
Is that all there is?
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A few summers ago, on a very hot Sunday afternoon, having made a hospital visit to a parishioner at Beth Israel, I began my return trip uptown. The subway station was a furnace. The heat, combined with my black suit, and plastic collar all conspired to make me feel like I was wearing a plastic bag. I was so uncomfortable and hot, I wanted to tear at my clothes. By the time the train arrived I looked and felt a mess. When the doors opened I stepped in hoping for relief, but instead was met by a young man at the subway pole I adhered myself to. He was wearing a larger than normal wooden cross around his neck and had a look on his face that said that I was the answer to his prayers; finally, someone he could argue with.
“Hi brother!” he said. I said, hello. He asked what church I ministered at. I told him Saint Thomas Episcopal. He looked disappointed for me. Then he asked me for my testimony. My what? I’m thinking. So, I tell him, “What can I say? I am sinner, and I have been saved, and hope to be saved by my Lord Jesus Christ.” [There is an awkward silence between us.] “Is that it,” he asked? “What more is there?” I asked back. “Haven’t you been born again,” he said, “received the baptism of the Holy Ghost, or had visions, and revelations from the Lord?” He said that he had, and then we pulled into the next station. The doors opened, he slapped me on the back, and said, “Brother, I feel sorry for you; that testimony’s just not good enough— you’re going to have do better than that.” And he walked off the train leaving me a wilted, sweaty, frazzled-looking spiritual mess. For crying out loud, I just wanted to go home; I didn’t know there was going to be a test.
Later I was reminded that Saint Paul had to deal with folks he facetiously called super-apostles. (2 Corinthians 11) As Paul travelled preaching the gospel, he was followed by others claiming that the gospel he preached was inadequate in some way and needed to be supplemented. These super apostles still exist, and you might meet them some time. They’re alive and well in this town, but they are descended from a longer line of super-apostles than even Paul had to contend with.
In about the eighth century BC there was a Syrian army commander by the name of Naaman. He suffered from leprosy, and when he sought out the prophet Elisha hoping that he might heal him, Elisha sent a message to Naaman telling him to go dunk himself in the Jordan River seven times and he would be healed. But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper. Aren’t there mightier rivers in my own land I could have washed in? So he left in a rage. But his servants came near and pleaded, Naaman, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldn’t you have done it? How much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean? (2 Kings 5) But, no, being healed isn’t so simple as just believing, is it?
Think of the incident recorded in the book of Numbers (21.6-9) having to do with the plague of serpents that Jesus alludes to in today’s gospel. Is it unreasonable to suspect that many Israelites who were poisoned by snake bite reasoned within themselves at the absurdity of being cured simply by looking at a bronze serpent set up on a pole? They might have reasoned thus until they died. Faith, it’s a stumbling block to Jews, foolishness to Greeks, but to those who were cured of their snake bites, that was the power of God.
Isn’t it the same with the cross of Christ? By one man [Adam], sin came into the world, and every one of us ever since has been poisoned by it, and dying for want of a cure, and then God sends his only son in the likeness of a Man, differing in nothing outward and apparent from you and me, but without sin inwardly. (Romans 4, 5) And just like the bronze serpent on the pole, this man is raised up on a cross in the midst of all mankind, and we are enjoined to believe in him, and be saved. And I’ll be, if we don’t sit around reasoning within ourselves saying, it can’t be that simple. And some of us reason thus and die with the cure staring us right in the face. A stumbling block to Jews, foolishness to Greeks, but to those of us being saved it is the power of God.
Think of father Abraham. He was no king, he was no warrior, he was no miracle worker. Abraham was an old man with an old wife who didn’t have any place to live and they had no children. God told him to move to a new land, and start having children. And Abraham believed God, packed up, and had two sons. And the moving and begetting are not Abraham’s greatest achievements. Abraham’s greatness derives from his believing. God himself reckons that faith to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15)
Simplicity is something Nicodemus may be struggling with as he speaks with Jesus during their night visit about things both earthly and heavenly. Nicodemus confesses that Jesus must be from God in order to do the miracles that he is doing, but Nicodemus has not arrived at the spiritual place that permits him to confess that Jesus is God. Our Lord begins to tell him earthly things, saying that Nicodemus must be born again. That presents Nicodemus with a difficulty because he doesn’t understand what this operation entails, so he asks, you don’t mean going back to the womb again do you? Jesus says, no, he’s speaking of a rebirth by water and spirit. Spiritual regeneration is a notion so completely disclosed in the Old Testament that Jesus chafes at this ruler of Israel presenting himself largely ignorant of his own tradition.
Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts:
and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean:
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Create in me a clean heart, O God;
and renew a right spirit within me. (Psalm 51)
God will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean. A new heart he will give you, and a new spirit will he put within you. He will take away your heart of stone and he will give you a heart of flesh, He will put his spirit within you, and cause you to walk in the paths of righteousness. (Ezekiel 36; Isaiah 44; Jeremiah 31)
The psalms and the prophets, the chronicles of Israel are shot through with stories, songs, poems, and prophecies having to do with God’s intention to wash and spiritually renew his people.
When Nicodemus asks how can these things be? Jesus tells him, Nicodemus, you don’t know where the wind comes from, but you see its effects don’t you, so you know the wind is real. So it is with the spirit, stop trying to discover the spirit’s mysterious origins, it comes from where it wills and it goes where it wills and it transforms what it wills, just believe that the spirit is real and be receptive to its presence, and it will do its work within you.
Despite its inscrutability, spiritual rebirth is real, as real as the wind itself, and our Lord has said it is indispensable to entering into the kingdom of God. We cannot think to stand as neutral witnesses to being born again. We must be partial and render a verdict, and pass a sentence on whether we believe it or not. Until we learn to accept that washing and the transformative power of God’s spirit in our lives is indispensable to salvation (God’s earthly operation on us), how can we truly understand the heavenly things that God seeks to reveal to us. And that heavenly operation is that God loves you so much. Do you believe that? He loves you so much that he gave the only son he had, his only Son, to be shamefully raised up in front of everybody. To those who do not believe, it’s just a cruel spectacle, and they are condemned already. (John 3.18) To those who reason within themselves that it just can’t be this easy; this is too simple a thing to do anybody any good; we must pray they don’t reason too long and die with the cure within sight. But to those who do believe, who simply believe in him, he is their cure, their salvation, and their life.
Is that it?
You tell me, could there be anything more?
