I have taken some liberties with this story… but I want to tell it
to you anyway!
This guy, who was one of the leaders of his religious group –
the Pharisees - comes to Jesus at night.
Nicodemus came to Jesus at night because he didn’t want anyone to see
him go to Jesus. The Pharisees weren’t against
Jesus because he hugged children, or because he talked about God loving people. They didn’t like him because he talked about
God’s new Kingdom, which didn’t include keeping the status quo! They were not about changing the system - they were about keeping the established order!
Nicodemus says, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher, and you come
from God…. ” [He said “we” and not “I” – “We know you are a
teacher, and that you come from God.”] …because
no one can do the signs you do… apart from God’s presence!” The only way someone could do these things… -healing people, -making people whole
again, -restoring them, helping them
find their places back into communion again… is if God is with them!
Jesus eyed him – “No one can see the kingdom of God without
being born from above.” Nicodemus, if
you didn’t see these things for yourself, if you didn’t know what all this
meant, you wouldn’t be here asking me
about this! You see this, don’t you? You know what all this means, don’t you?
“How can a person be born again??” I mean, c’mon!?!?
Jesus looked at him again.
“You can’t enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and
Spirit…” but you already know this, don’t
you Nicodemus!
“What’s of the world, is of the world. What’s on the surface stays on the surface. But what’s created from the Spirit… what
comes from the Spirit…. That’s a deeper place!
This shouldn’t surprise you when I say, ‘you must be born from above’. The wind blows where it blows, and you
hear the sound of the wind. Sometimes it’s
a gentle breeze, and sometimes it’s a strong rushing wind. But you don’t know where it comes from or
where it goes to. That’s the same with those
born of the Spirit.”
Nicodemus said, “This doesn’t make any sense!”
“You’re a teacher of Israel, and you don’t understand what I’m
saying?” Nicodemus, it’s not meant to
be confusing. This isn’t hidden
stuff! Here’s the secret… “We tell you
about what we know! We tell you about what
we’ve seen! Let what I’ve seen about
God, let what I’ve witnessed about the power of God be my testimony to you –
let t be my testimony to the world.” It’s
all right there Nicodemus, plain as day.
“But if you don’t believe me when I tell you about God’s power in the
world, if you understand that… how are you going to believe me when I tell you of
God’s power in the work of the Spirit?”
------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------- ------- ------ ------- ------ ------
That’s what struck me:
Let what I’ve
seen about God… let what I’ve witnessed about the power of God… be my testimony
to you and to the world!
So what have you seen about God?
What have you witnessed about the power of God?
What would you say?
What can I tell you about God?
Use to be, before I went to seminary, I could tell you a lot about
God. I don’t mean seminary made things too
complicated or anything. Before Seminary,
before being an Army Chaplain, before getting to a church and being with average everyday people in their lives & hearing about people’s faith-stories – I mean
taking time to consciously talk with people about their life-journey and God
and their life-experiences. Used to
be, before being with people as they died, I used to know a lot about who and
what God was.
I started to more intentionally notice what I saw and heard and
witnessed – over these last 20 years or so – about the power of God in people’s
lives.
When I was doing prison ministry, I met Kevin, at one of the men’s
prison in Jessup, Maryland. He was an
inmate that told me a story; when he first arrived in prison, he was angry –
angry at the judge who convicted him, angry at the judicial system in general,
angry at God also! He was angry at
everyone! He ended up having a
come-to-Jesus prayer his cell one evening not long after he arrived. He prayed – he prayed –boy did he
pray! He prayed, he talked it all out
with God that evening. And that night as he tried to sleep he said he
saw a bright light at the other end of the tier. That
bright light made it very hard for him to sleep.
The next day he asked around to see if others had seen that
bright light and what it might have been.
No one had seen it. No one. To others, there was no bright light. It was just there for Kevin. Kevin told me he had come to believe that
light was God.
There is a woman in my congregation who’s daughter was born with
a deformed foot. She told the story of holding
her daughter one day, and praying that God heal her daughter. As she held her daughter in her arms,
wrapped in a blanket, she prayed. And
as she prayed, she felt her daughters foot move under the blanket. She felt something happening. She felt
her daughters foot re-shaping itself. Then
she knew – she knew her daughter was being healed. She
knew.
I’ve felt healing energy go through me into someone else’s body - I've seen people get healed.
I knew an inmate over in one of the prisons in Hagerstown,
Maryland, a number of years back. He told me he’d been raised in a racist
home. He had all the tattoos to prove it
too; he had swastikas and “White Power” all over him. He said he’d been in the Ku Klux Klan for a
while. But he didn’t want to be that
way anymore. He came to our church
services on the inside because he wanted to start new! He wanted to be a better person. With God’s help, he wanted to live free of
hate and anger and racism. He came to
our services faithfully. Then for a
few weeks I didn’t see him. More weeks
went by, and he didn’t come. Then he
came back. He told me he’d almost lost
his battle. He said he’d been assigned
a new cell-mate, a black north African Muslim.
And this troubled him. His whole
past came back again… and again. And
he struggled with this, he said. There
he was, in the same cell with someone who he was raised to hate. He was
black, and not only not a Christian, but a Muslim. His past came up so strong. He told me he prayed and prayed that God
help him through this. He told me he ended up having a discussion
with his cell-mate. He said, “you know
what my past is like, you can see it on my body. That’s who I was, not who I am, not who I
want to be. But it’s not easy to
change. I’ having a lot of trouble with
this. But I want to be different,
better. If you teach me about your
faith, I’ll teach me about mine.” And
that changed things for him.
What can I tell you about who or what God is? I used to be able to answer this question
so easily. Then I saw and heard and
witnessed the power of God.
…The power of God that led our daughter to us. She
was born in West Africa, and raised in a village. We saw her for the first time in 1999 in
this village. My wife and I went there
with no plan to adopt, just visit. This notion to adopt was totally unexpected! She became part of our family in 2000.
…The power of God that led our son to us – when we thought that
door was closed to us. He’s not
adopted, but we’re keeping him anyway. And
he too was totally unexpected!
…The power of God leading us… sometimes one tiny step at a time…
sometimes one giant shove at a time.
…The power of God leading others – I’ve heard stories of people
being led by God… how God has led them, and is leading them still!
…The power of God being there when my friend Marty died in 2008. He’d been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer
less than a year prior. I’d been with
him the evening before he died. He couldn’t
talk by that point - all he really did as sleep. I was just there
with him, sometimes praying, sometimes talking to him, sometimes just being
there with him and his soon-to-be widow.
He’d already stopped going
upstairs to bed a few weeks prior. He
just couldn’t negotiate the steps. Then he got to the point where he wasn’t moving
at all. The evening before he died,
his wife did again what she’d been doing every night by that point… she slept next to her husband down
stairs. That next morning, she woke
up, and talked to her husband – even though he couldn’t respond at all – he wasn’t
even conscious any more. She talked
quietly, greeting him, telling him she loved him. She was about to get up and get ready for the
day… when she stopped! She said something
had changed in the room. She felt
it! Something Sacred had made its
presence known to her. She said it was the
Holy Spirit. And she knew…. She knew
the Spirit had come to guide her husband to his next life.
About five years ago I’d been invited to a Men’s Gathering led
by a Native American leader. He
invited men to come gather and talk about God, to come and pray together in the
traditional ways. I’d arrived a little
late, so by the time I’d gotten there, most of the men were there already. As I walked towards the group, the older
man – the leader – called out to me. In
front of all those men, he yelled out … “Hey Chad… you’re a pastor… what’s God like?” I was caught off guard, but I knew enough
to say… “I don’t know!” I know
there’s something! I know when it’s there! I don’t know where it comes from and I don’t
know where it goes… but I’ve seen and heard and felt the power of the Spirit!
I can let what I’ve seen about God… I can let what I’ve
witnessed about the power of God…
be my testimony to you
and to the world!
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