The Vicar's message

When God tries to catch your attention.

With Easter coming up fast, I'd like to talk to you about Nicodemus but first…

One morning 28 years ago, I woke up from one of those dreams. Although I could remember it, I didn't know what it meant, yet I was convinced it meant something.

A year later I became a Christian and the meaning of the dream began to become very clear. A year later both my wife Sue and I were walking in Durham Cathedral and we both had the identical experience, that God was calling me into an ordained ministry… we told no one!

Then a couple of years later, one Saturday morning my then Vicar, asked me to preach at a Sunday evening service. I was reluctant but said I would. That's good, he said - you can do it tomorrow!

Around that time we'd been in the habit of taking our children to one of the annual Christian weekly gatherings called Spring Harvest. About a year or so after 'the sermon' incident, we found ourselves there again. One afternoon I'd arranged to meet my wife outside one of the big tents, where she'd gone to listen to a seminar. As I walked up to the entrance, I peeked into the tent and got the shock of my life (at least - up to that point) because there was Sue, on stage speaking to a crowd of a couple of hundred people!

Then perhaps the next year, again at Spring Harvest, Michael Cole, a vicar from Essex, the then Chairman of the South American Missionary Society asked me, quite out of the blue… had I thought about offering myself for ordination! I just couldn't understand where that had come from. After all, Michael knew nothing about what had gone on before… so how on earth… why had he…  the Holy Spirit, he said, prompted me to ask, he told me.

Everything I thought I knew about God was now up for grabs. God seemed intensely close, sometimes too close for my liking.

We've all watched the scene in a film, where someone's throwing a pebble up to a window attempting to attract a friend's attention, well I think that's what God sometimes does too. The trouble is that, if a pebble doesn't work, he'll sometimes throw a larger stone. And for those who refuse to pay attention to that, then God may well resort to a rock!  For me, my pebbles and stones were the dream and the walk in the Cathedral, then my Vicar's question and the 'tent' episode, oh, and there was another dream in there too… until finally the brick came hurling through the window - God used a complete stranger to issue the challenge.  Now if I were you, this would be a really good time to go and make yourself a cuppa… but do come back!

Nicodemus

This is where I'd like to introduce Nicodemus, a fine upstanding Pharisee leader that Jesus encounters in the 3rd chapter of John's Gospel.  He's probably the type of Pharisee whose career is going well but for some reason, there seems to be a restlessness at the heart of him. We see that this restlessness is enough to make him slip out under cover of night to find this rabbi named Jesus.

John allows us to overhear their conversation… which is fairly  bizarre, in that here's a lot of talk but not a lot of communication going on.  Nicodemus begins politely, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God… We know…  You can almost hear the wily politician in him.  After all, he's a ruler of the synagogue.

But Jesus almost cuts him short when he blurts out, You've got to be born from above, born anew, which confuses Nicodemus completely.  What on earth is that supposed to mean?  So we see poor Nicodemus trying to get a handle on Jesus when he asks him; But how can anyone be born after having grown old? Can somebody go back into the mother's womb and start over?

And then Jesus, as we often see him do, just makes it worse when he says, The wind blows where it chooses, you don't know where it comes from or where it is going.  We can almost hear Nicodemus thinking, 'What kind of god is he talking about?'  Here Jesus is using two of the most uncontainable and uncontrollable phenomena, birth and wind, to talk about God.  

This doesn't seem to be going too well for Nicodemus, for he may well be thinking now, that neither of these two examples of Jesus can be controlled! We can't generate wind, nor can we get ourselves born…. These things happen naturally. Perhaps Nicodemus slowly begins to understand that he can't find God, or the kingdom of God, on his own.  He has to almost begin all over again… be born again. It's not something he can plan into his diary, it isn't something he can achieve on his own.  No it has to come from above, says Jesus, from somewhere (or someone) beyond him.

I think that this conversation was Nicodemus' rock. God finally got his attention in this weird conversation that he'd never forget!  We don't know what happened to Nicodemus after this night-time meeting.  Perhaps nothing much - not immediately anyway. That's often how it happens. God gives you time for it all to sink in.  But something shifted somewhere for Nicodemus, how do we know? Because two more time, he turns up in John's Gospel.  There he is in the Temple when Jesus is being accused by the crowds, who are  demanding that he's arrested.  John tells us that one man stands up to defend him.  That's right… it's Nicodemus.  And at the very end, when Jesus is crucified and dead… there again is Nicodemus beside him, taking away his body to bury it.

Whether it's a pebble, a stone, or a rock, God wants to get through to us, but that's not so easy when we're all so busy.  It isn't easy sometimes, for God to get us to make some quality time for him… to get our full attention… to get us to allow him to take us deeper… so that he can lead us into a different sort of life.  

I think that deep down most people would love to have God change their lives, but they either don't expect it, or are afraid that if it began to happen, too much might be asked of them. When God throws a rock, anything can happen.  The wind blows, the Spirit moves, people begin getting born from above… born into whole new lives.

Pebbles are being thrown in St Catherine's… and around Crook and sometimes the pebbles turn into stones and rocks.  God's trying to grab our attention in more ways than we can ever imagine.  Think about it for a moment… what's the rock in your life? It could be a personal crisis that has send you reeling… but perhaps God's hoping that you'll reel right into his hands…

Perhaps your pebble might be an invitation to do something you might never have thought about, it may well open another door just for you.  Nicodemus had been hit by a life-changing experience of God's Spirit, an experience that just didn't make any sense to him at the time. Yet slowly… he began seeing the world in a completely new way… and he found that he was able to understand and love God in new ways too.

So, have you noticed God tossing any pebbles your way lately?  Or stones trying to get your attention?  Maybe there's a rock coming at you right now.  Our God is a restless God, a relentless God who won't turn us loose.  God wants us to be born again, to let the wind of the Spirit blow through us and fill us. None of us know what God will choose to get through to us: a personal crisis that sends you reeling; a conversation, a book, a friend, a sermon, a hymn, a course, a Lent bible group?

What I do know, is Jesus is right when he tells us that to really know God's love, we have to let go, make room and be ready and willing to be born again… only this time with God at the center.  God wants you, not just a bit of you - he wants all of you.  He wants us all, to loosen our grip, open our hands and eyes, and go where He needs us to go.

I pray that each of you reading this will recognise your pebble, stone or rock when they come flying at you… and don't forget, perhaps I could help when they do.

With Easter blessings,

Your friend,