Sermon at Whaddon Roman Catholic
Chapel – Sunday 22 May 2016
Exodus
3:1-15; John 3:1-17
May I speak in the name
of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen
I have an immense empathy for Nicodemus, a member of the
Jewish ruling council in Jerusalem and therefore, we can assume, was a very
learned and well respected individual within the hierarchy of the Jewish
religious order. A man well versed in
the Scriptures with a great knowledge of the Law as handed down by Moses. We might almost say an “enlightened” man – a
man like those who later challenged the word of God from a scientific point of
view – requiring tested proof of what was being asserted in Scripture.
I have to say again that I have a great empathy with Nicodemus
because like him, I once could never get my head around the term “born again”.
I was brought up on a diet of Anglican tradition, doctrine
and dogma. Baptised at the age of 2
months and later confirmed by the Bishop of Lincoln at the tender age of 13,
having the Bishop lay his hands on my head I believed that it was him, and no
other, who could impart (a good Charismatic word) the Holy Spirit on a young
believer like myself. I went through
stringent confirmation classes with the local priest before that special day,
oddly the date being 6th June 1966 (66/66!!), and thought that now,
as a fully-fledged member of the Church of England, I’d done all that was
necessary for my salvation. I’d now “bought
the teeshirt”, so to speak!
Having left my home town in Lincolnshire, I later found
myself studying law in Liverpool and was enticed by one of my fellow law students
to join the University’s Students’ Christian Union where I first encountered
more evangelical and charismatic Christianity.
A question everybody seemed to ask me when I first arrived at their
meeting was “When were you born again?” and,
like Nicodemus, I really didn’t understand what they meant by that term. I had only been born once I told them. “No”,
they responded, “when did you accept
Jesus as your Saviour and receive the Holy Spirit?”
“Well, I guess that was
when I was baptised (I
think I used the word ‘christened’) and I
received the Holy Spirit from the Bishop of Lincoln” I replied.
It seemed to satisfy them for the moment although they said
that I might not have been properly
“born again” in the way they meant. I
was distrustful of these so-called “born again Christians” and although I
continued to be a member of the Christian Union (with a good friend who is now
a Baptist minister encouraging me to stay) I still felt a bit of an outsider
because I hadn’t been “born again” as many of them who, like Charles Wesley,
could give a date and a time for their second birth. Was I missing something here? My Christianity had grown over a long period
of time not a sudden conversion with the seeming obligatory requirement to
speak in tongues! My family, my mother
in particular, although not a regular church goer, had instilled good Christian
values and she had held herself out as a Christian. So what was all this
nonsense about being “born again”?
When I first read the passage in John concerning Nicodemus’s
questioning of Jesus, I felt reassured that here was another lawyer seeking to
understand what this was all about.
Jesus’s answer confused me even more but confirmed to me that because I had
been splashed with water at my christening and had the Bishop lay his hands upon
me at my confirmation I had been baptised by both the water and the spirit – so
I was okay. However, during a service
given by the Christian Union in a Baptist church in the Toxteth area of Liverpool
I did remember feeling, for the very first time, something rather odd and much
deeper and spiritual than I had ever felt before which, in itself, affirmed to
me that the Holy Spirit really did exist. But was it truly within me?
It is interesting to read that Nicodemus does not doubt the
authenticity of Jesus as a teacher. He
addresses him as “Rabbi” – a mark of respect for a Jewish teacher; but it is
also clear that Nicodemus feels that his position and own authority could be challenged
by such a visit in that he seeks to come to Jesus by night – interestingly in
subsequent mentions of Nicodemus in scripture he is always referred to as “…he who came to Jesus by night”. Nicodemus
asks all the questions we would have asked I am sure. “How can a man already born of
a woman be born again? Can he go back into his mother’s womb?”
I felt the
same, I felt that my own authenticity as an Anglican was being compromised in
some way because I hadn’t felt the same degree of spirituality as these others
had. Did that make me any less a Christian.
Indeed, I probably felt slightly superior because, unlike many of them,
I had been properly baptised and confirmed in the established church – not
dunked in some river or swimming pool by a non-Anglican pastor!
I continued to read my bible – the one great thing was that
through the Christian Union I acquired a translation of the bible which I
could, at long last, understand – and I tried to figure out this whole thing
about the Holy Spirit. Jesus I understood,
God, his father, the Creator, I understood, but the Holy Spirit was quite
mysterious.
It was to be many years later that although believing and
accepting the concept of God, Three in One, the Trinity, I again felt the
presence of the Holy Spirit in a big way. It was whilst undertaking a spiritual
awareness exercise, a visionary prayer session at Spring Harvest that I felt
the Holy Spirit really come upon me for the first time. A real feeling of serenity and joy and a
clearing of many doubts and misunderstandings from previous scriptural
readings. What Jesus said to Nicodemus
suddenly made a great deal of sense. I
was born again in the form of having such a better understanding of what Jesus
meant when he talked about the Kingdom of Heaven; something which is here and
now and not somewhere else at a different time.
The Holy Spirit had moved me but in a quiet and gentle way.
We so often think of scripture in terms of historic events,
or in the context of the Book of Revelation, future predictions or prophesies,
but the great thing I found after my experience at Spring Harvest and
subsequent call to ministry, was the wonderful discovery of the relevance of
scripture to today’s world. I felt a
strong call to preach the gospel today for today’s people. Hence this and all my sermons are published on
line for others to read electronically.
Jesus says this to Nicodemus.
He is telling him that he is here for today. He explains to Nicodemus that despite all his
knowledge and profession as a teacher, he can’t begin to fully understand the
heavenly (or spiritual) side without believing that Jesus has come from Heaven
to Earth and will die (“be lifted up”) so that all may have eternal life.
In our first reading, Moses also doesn’t quite understand
what he is seeing – a bush burning but not being consumed.
Just as Nicodemus challenges what he is
hearing, Moses challenges God to understand what is being asked of him. He needs to know the name of the living God
so that if he is to try and free his people in Egypt he wants the name of the
authority by which he seeks to do this. The answer is equivocal “I AM WHO I AM” you must say that say that
“I AM” has sent me to you.” As we
know, I AM has been translated as YAHWEH or JEHOVAH. Moses is now expected to go back to a country
where he is wanted as a murderer and appeal to Pharaoh to set free all the
Hebrew slaves. His only authority – “I AM has sent me”. What a challenge is that!
I am sometimes asked why it is that I believe what I do. I can only say that I have the faith I have
because I have felt God’s presence in my life so many times now and more
recently during a bad patch in my life.
We are all called to be Trinitarian Christians; to believe in the
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I
think that the Holy Spirit gets a bad deal being left out too much yet, only
last Sunday, we celebrated Pentecost.
Last Sunday churches throughout the world celebrated the coming of the
Holy Spirit to the apostles and all believers. Up until that point the Spirit
had been bestowed upon single individuals for specific purposes.
Following Jesus’s ministry on Earth, he left
us with the Holy Spirit which is here and now; a freely available gift for us
all. It costs nothing yet gives us
everything. I was in Winchester Cathedral
last Sunday evening at a multi-cathedral event called “Your Kingdom Come”. The Archbishop of Canterbury gave a homily
simultaneously to the congregations of five English cathedrals. In Winchester there were 2,000 people inside
the building and another 2,000 outside on the green. During the course of the 2-hour session
thirteen people were baptised and confirmed.
The place was thick with the Holy Spirit. A warmth and love which if replicated would
heal many of this sick world’s woes overnight.
Jesus spoke wisely to Nicodemus. Be born again! That means repenting, quietly if like me
that’s your style, turning to God through Jesus and embracing the Holy Spirit
who is here to give us the power to break through the Kingdom of Heaven on
Earth for ourselves and future generations.
There is a lovely chorus to the hymn “There is a Redeemer”
which frequently comes into my head when I think of the Holy Spirit. It scans
as follows:
Thank you O my Father
For giving us Your Son
And leaving your Spirit
Till the work on Earth be done
There is still much work to be done but by embracing the
Spirit which he left us, we can carry it out.
Amen
MFB/78/19052016
