Conversation with Jesus about life’s persistent questions: How can I explore spiritual mysteries when physical reality scrambles my brain?

John 3:1-21

January 28, 2018

King of Glory Lutheran Church
Spirit of Peace Lutheran Church

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

© 2018

Perhaps you remember “Guy Noir, Private Eye” from the more innocent days of A Prairie Home Companion. He was in pursuit of answers to life’s most persistent questions. In their conversation, Nicodemus and Jesus, they are pursuing this question. How can I explore spiritual mysteries when physical reality scrambles my brain? We may think we understand the wind better than Nicodemus did, but like him, pondering the material universe can boggle our minds and interfere with grasping more profound spiritual realities.

Considering the origins of the universe is both fascinating and incomprehensible. Everything from black holes to Higgs boson particles prompt pondering. What was there before the big bang? What is outside of the universe? We ask: How did we get here? How did I get here?

Everything from evolutionary theory to human genome study asks what it means to be human. Who are we? Who am I? Why are we here? Why am I here?

Everything from the expansion of space and the burn out of the sun to climate change anticipates the eventual demise of the universe. What is our destiny? Where are we headed? Where am I headed?

British preacher C. H. Spurgeon (1834-1892) is reputed to have said that John’s Gospel was “Shallow enough for a child to wade in and deep enough to drown an elephant.” Spurgeon’s observation certainly applies to Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus. Jesus explained how being born from above is to live a reality more profound than the most mind boggling research about the material universe yet as simple as wind.

Sometimes Nicodemus is portrayed as timidly sneaking into see Jesus at night and not bright enough to understand Jesus’ spiritual basics. But Jesus called him “the teacher of Israel” (v. 10 – not “a teacher” as in some English translations). Certainly one of the leading teachers among the Pharisees on the Sanhedrin, he was probably checking Jesus out for them, but informally and not officially. I think he picked up from Jesus, this uneducated country rabbi, something deeper than more than a millennium of Hebrew scholarship could grasp. I think he wanted it for himself.

Jesus told Nicodemus that no one can perceive the Kingdom of God without being born “from above.” Nicodemus’ responses indicated he understood Jesus to say “born again.” Jesus was speaking about the source of our birth and Nicodemus about the number of times we are born. The same Greek word can mean both, so here is a play on words. Jesus and Nicodemus were speaking Aramaic that would not have the same play on words as Greek, so whatever went on between them, John captured cleverly. Nicodemus was not so dense as to think Jesus meant physically going back through his mother’s womb, but thinking he was too old and set in his ways, making a spiritual rebirth seemed as impossible as a physical rebirth. He was sure that what he wanted was unavailable.

Nicodemus was a late bloomer or slow learner. When the Sanhedrin began its open opposition to Jesus, Nicodemus spoke up for just and fair due process for Jesus (7:50-52). Along with Joseph of Arimathea, (identified as a disciple in Matthew 27:57; Mark 15:43; Luke 23:50-53 and some women per Matthew 27:61; Mark 15:47; Luke 23:55) Nicodemus assisted with Jesus’ burial, indicating a faith even at the point at which Jesus’ mission and message seemed to have failed. (19:39-40) Only being born from above could bring that insight.

To be born from above is to live a reality more profound than the most mind boggling concepts about the material universe. Scholars continue to debate what Jesus meant when he said that entering the Kingdom of God required being born of water and Spirit. I think the simplest answer is that they describe what is involved in being born from above.

Nicodemus was certainly familiar with the recent ministry of John the Baptist. He called people to show their repentance by being baptized, just as Gentile converts to Judaism were baptized. The religious leadership, of which Nicodemus was a prominent leader, was offended at the very idea they needed to repent and be baptized like an unclean Gentile. To be born of water (from above) is to turn from the life below and humbly begin anew in the life from above.

As the teacher of Israel, Nicodemus knew that in Ezekiel 36:25-28, God promised to sprinkle clean water to cleanse from sin and to put a new spirit within to follow God. Throughout Hebrew Scripture, water is associated with the Spirit of God. The promise of the prophets was that God’s Spirit would one day empower the righteousness that always seemed to elude them.

Spirit brings another word play that works in Greek and Hebrew, where the same word in each language means spirit, breath and wind. Jesus emphasized to Nicodemus the freedom of the wind and the Spirit. The Spirit of God is not limited to a pious or theological elite, or confined to established traditions. The most unexpected people, under unexpected circumstances are born from above by the life giving power of God’s Spirit.

When Nicodemus asked Jesus, “How can these things be?” (v. 9) he wasn’t expressing incredulity but a hunger to know how he could be born from above. Jesus responded with a story from Numbers 21. As punishment for revolting against Moses, poisonous serpents swarmed and bit. At God’s instruction, Moses made a bronze serpent and raised it as a sign for people to look at and be healed. Jesus compared himself to the bronze serpent, pointing ahead to the cross. God’s redemption was a great reversal. The object of punishment became the means of restoration. All that was required was to trust that a simple look brought wholeness. To be born from above, look at Jesus with faith. Those who are born from above find answers to life’s persistent questions.

Who am I? Where did I come from? I am created in the image of God. My life comes from the Spirit of God who lives in me.

Why am I here? What is my purpose? As Jesus gave himself for me, I give myself so others can receive his love too. Jesus did not come to condemn but to give eternal life. My purpose is to invite people to be included, not to decide who’s excluded. Martin Niemöller was one of the founders of the Confessing Church that opposed the Nazis in Germany. After World War II he said, “It took me a long time to realize that not only did God not hate my enemies, he didn’t even hate his enemies.”

What is our destiny? Where am I headed? I am on my way to the Kingdom of God, which Jesus calls eternal life in John’s Gospel. Having been born from above, I am already living eternal life as part of the Kingdom of God, the reality more profound than the most mind boggling research about the material universe.

Good News: Your Time Has Come

Jonah 3:1-5,10; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20

January 21, 2018

Jackson Park Lutheran Church

Milwaukee, WI

© 2018

Good morning. I’m sure you are as surprised to see me here as I am to be here. My name is Norman Stolpe, and I am a retired pastor of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). I won’t try to trace all the steps that brought me to be with you today. Only yesterday afternoon was I asked to fill in for your pastor Fred Thomas-Breitfeld. I assure you, we have spoken on the phone, and he has invited me to help out in a sort of time crunch.

Perhaps you noticed, as I did, that each of the Scriptures for today make a reference to the urgency of time.

Jonah proclaimed, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”

Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “The appointed time has grown short, for the present form of this world is passing away.”

After John the Baptizer was arrested, Jesus picked up with the same message, right where John left off, “The time is fulfilled, and this kingdom of God has come near, repent and believe in the good news.”

Each morning during my breakfast is use a Benedictine discipline known as lectio divina or holy reading with the lectionary readings for the coming Sunday. So  every morning this week, without knowing I would be with you in worship today, I have been listening for God’s word about propitious timing, which has been a central aspect of our experience this past year plus.

My wife, Candy, and I had been in Dallas, TX since 2000. I had served Central Christian Church as their pastor until I “retired” in 2011. Then I did five interim pastorates. During the last of those, in April 2016 my wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and we knew we needed to make some changes. Our Dallas house sold more quickly than we expected, so we came to Milwaukee in February and stayed with some friends of our son David and daughter-in-law Rachel until we could move into a duplex downstairs from Rachel and David and their children Sam and Elizabeth in August. David is an impact teacher at Lane Intermediate School in West Allis.

We left our youngest son, Erik, behind in Dallas. He is a musician, and he has blossomed now that we’re not there to hold him back. Our oldest son, Jon, is an engineer who lives north of Philadelphia, PA with his wife, Leanne, and their children Hannah and Isaac.

Now that we have gotten settled and are feeling at home, I have been looking for some ministry opportunities that work with making every day the best it can be for my wife. I have been telling God I’d like to do one thing a week after New Year’s. Well, last week I conducted a funeral for a family without a pastor. Today I here with you in worship, and next Sunday I’m preaching for the folk of Spirit of Peace Lutheran Church, just four blocks from our home. I’m feeling confirmed in the timing of our next steps.

Besides hoping this helps you know a bit about me, I think this gives you some idea of why we have been paying so much attention to timing this year, and why I resonated as I meditated on the urgency of timing in these passages this week.

Though Jonah preached to Nineveh in a spirit of judgment and hostility rising out of ethnic, cultural and religious prejudice and hatred, his message was God’s good news to the people of Nineveh. They recognized the urgency of timing, turned around, and God was merciful to them.

I don’t know about you, but Paul’s instructions to the Corinthians about how to live given the urgency of their time makes me uncomfortable. Having said that, I found his tone remarkably appropriate this week as Congress failed to meet the deadline for keeping the government running. I don’t want to get overly political, especially with people who don’t know me, but just as this past year was a time of unprecedented transition to a new phase of life for our family, the past year since the last election has brought our country, and in some measure our world, into uncharted, uncertain territory with an urgency of timing.

John the Baptist introduced Jesus and his ministry, which Jesus kicked into high gear after John was arrested. This certainly shocked Herod Antipas who thought he had eliminated John’s troublesome preaching only to hear that Jesus preached the same message, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” Like the game Whack a Mole, Herod got caught in a game of Whack a Prophet.

Many sermons on this passage focus on the pairs of fisherman brothers: Simon and Andrew, James and John. But it also affirms that this is just the time for God’s good news.

God’s good news is that “the time is fulfilled.” The start of Jesus’ ministry was the turning point in God’s plan to redeem humanity. Jesus’ preaching invited people to an unprecedented opportunity to participate in God’s redemptive plan. Whatever they might have been waiting for, the decisive moment had arrived. The rest of the New Testament extends the propitious moment to us.

All through Hebrew history God’s people had been waiting for the Kingdom of God to dawn. They saw a few brief glimmers such as the good years of David and Solomon, but from Moses to Nehemiah and Ezra they mostly experienced yearning and disappointment. Jesus preached that heaven had come to earth for those who would believe in and live in it. For us too, God’s good news is to live in the exuberant confidence of the Kingdom of God regardless of our circumstances.

Repent just means to turn around. Repentance is not about feeling miserable or wallowing in guilt, shame and regret. Repentance is God’s good news that we are no longer captives of our past but welcome home.

John the Baptist had introduced the four fishermen to Jesus so when Jesus called, they received and followed God’s good news! It was their time to embrace God’s new life of unlimited, exuberant confidence.

You may feel your life is in a holding pattern. That tug deep inside that wants more is the Holy Spirit saying, “Now is your time! The circumstances you think are hindrances are God’s opportunity.” The Kingdom of God may seem obscure, but Jesus wants you to know that it has come near, not at an exotic, unattainable distance but in your small daily details. So let go of your regrets and inhibitions, your uncertainties and inadequacies. God is welcoming you to exuberant confidence as a resident of the Kingdom of God, which while hidden from ordinary folk is your most enduring and substantial reality.

With the church I served in NJ, I lead a weekly lunch with worship for street people. Joe was a developmentally disabled man who helped set and clear the table and played a hymn on his harmonica as part of our worship. One day he said, “I’ve been working on something special for today,” and played Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus. A dozen or so unlikely people got a taste of the Kingdom of God! If you pay attention, you will hear Jesus saying, “The time is fulfilled, and this kingdom of God has come near, repent and believe in the good news.” Your time for unlimited, exuberant confidence is here.