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?”

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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!