Happy Lent!
And I am serious about greeting you that way.
I really want to get beyond that first reaction to Lent
that
it is a time for putting on a glum face.
Lent is a tremendous spiritual resource.
We
have in Lent the opportunity to look at many positive possibilities.
The subdued tone of Lent is meant to foster thoughtful
personal reflection
and
open a door for more careful examination of what is going on inside us.
We can use Lent to get in touch with our deepest longing,
what
brings the greatest joy, the greatest peace in our lives,
what
it’s like when everything is right.
when
life seems its fullest.
This is the home grown, organic, natural Lent.
Everything
is provided for the exercise of a holy Lent.
All we really need is there in the daily stream of events,
the
daily stream of interactions in our relationships,
as
the old hymn, New every morning, puts
it,
“The
trivial round, the common task
will
furnish all we ought to ask…”
Everything we need for practicing Lent is right there in
front of us –
free
of cost.
It’s just a matter of engaging with it.
Good luck on that, you might say,
given
what we are surrounded by in terms of the news,
and
the unavoidable awareness of human suffering
going
on all around us, and in our own lives.
Politically, socially, economically, psychologically,
environmentally
the
world looks all screwed up.
But today you are not going to hear a rant from me about that.
No rant today
not
with a Gospel reading like we just heard.
John, chapter 3 –
the
story of a Pharisee, community leader and member of the Sanhedrin,
Nicodemus,
coming
for a private conference with Jesus,
at
night when it would be safer for him,
when
this conversation wouldn’t have a lot of people listening in,
when
Nicodemus didn’t have a religious/political role to play,
when
he could engage personally with Jesus
about
his own questions and life issues.
And what Jesus says to him
ends
up with the most often quoted Bible verse ever:
“For
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
that
everyone who believes in him
may
not perish but may have eternal life.”
Now there are two words that I
want to tell you today about this whole passage,
-
out of so much that can be said and that I would love to say -
just
two words
and
they are both Greek.
Nicodemus says to Jesus,
“We
know you are a teacher who comes from God.”
No
one can do such signs as you do apart from the presence of God.
And Jesus responds immediately:
“No
one can see the kingdom of God,
without
being born from above.”
My first word is anwqen,
from above.
And notice, this translation does not say “born again.”
The Greek says, born from above, anwqen,
from
what preceded, what is before – from the Source.
In reading, if something is referred to “above”
we know that means something
preceding in the text.
“From above” is like going upstream to the headwaters.
anwqen refers
us to the Source,
to the beginning, to where it
all began.
“In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with
God.
All things came into being
through him,
and without him not one thing
came into being.”
You can’t see, that is to say, you cannot discern, the
Kingdom of God
without
being born from the Source.
If one knows one is in the Presence of God,
then
one is knowing from the Source.
In order to know you must come into new being, be born of
water and Spirit,
from
the Source.
You may have noticed the baptismal font has been placed
here for Lent,
right
in front of us to walk by as we come up for Communion.
This baptismal font is a wonderful visual representation
of the Gospel reading!
Look
at the shape of it.
I hadn’t thought of it this way before,
but
in the light of the words from John, chapter 3,
I
looked at this font differently.
Jesus
says to Nicodemus,
“Very
truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God
without
being born of water and Spirit.
and
‘You
must be born from above.’
This font, its shape is
suggestive of
a uterus a
womb
a
place that prepares us for new life.
We began Lent with the ashes of our mortality.
We will end Lent with the Easter Vigil,
the
number one time during the liturgical year for baptisms,
for
being born anew into the eternal Resurrection Life of Jesus.
The font fits beautifully with John, chapter 3.
Jesus continues with Nicodemus:
“The wind
blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it,
but
you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.
So
it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
And
Nicodemus says to him, “How can these things be?”
There is nothing we can do or understand
to be born from
above, from the Source.
This being born is not something we
accomplish,
just as physically
babies do not accomplish their own birth
or
understand what has happened to them.
When the time is ripe
the mother’s body
automatically goes into contranctions
and ejects the baby,
pushes it out,
even without the
mother’s conscious part in determining when.
When the time is ripe…
The baby that is in the womb
is
not yet ready for the world,
would
not be viable in the world yet.
But there is one big difference between a baby being born
and
being born of water and the Spirit.
In the case of being born from above, anwqen,
the
umbilical cord is not cut.
We are connected eternally to the Source,
to
God’s Presence,
to
eternal life
begun
in the waters of baptism
and
carrying us through the physical death of the body.
The umbilical cord is never cut.
It
is our path back to God when we wander.
It
is a short path, a path of no distance.
Word number two: kosmojœœ, the
Greek word that is translated “world.”
In English we associate the word kosmoj with
the universe,
but
in Greek it has a more specific meaning.
The kosmoj is an ordering or arranging or
adornment
placed
over the natural, naked creation.
Hence
the word in English, cosmetology.
World in Greek refers therefore to
the
political, cultural, economy, religious composition
of
human society within our environment.
It is the embellishment of the earth
with
all our human inventions, philosophies, and ideations.
Now the significance of this word becomes clearer
when
we consider again that most famous Bible quotation:
“For
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
that
everyone who believes in him
may
not perish but may have eternal life.”
Everything
in the world around us,
everything
we have created or invented or altered or ruined,
every
system of knowledge we have come up with,
every
meaning we have applied to life,
every
structure of society,
everything,
it all is included in the Love of God.
Not
just the created earth and we humans, God’s creatures,
but
all we have done to it and to each other
receives
the intervention of God’s love through Jesus Christ
so
that none perish,
so
that world, the kosmoj, will not be condemned.
God
so loved the world.
This
is the Gospel good news for this morning,
what
touches our deepest long,
what
brings the greatest joy, the greatest peace: God so loved the world.
In
the middle of everything that is going on right now,
we
are told that God has infinite love for us
and
all we have done to God’s beautiful creation.
Let
this inform our praying of the confession,
which
as you may recall is now right up front for Lent,
and
fill us with profound gratitude
as
we hear the words of absolution:
Almighty God
have mercy on you,
forgive you
all your sins through the grace of Jesus Christ,
strengthen
you in all goodness,
and by the
power of the Holy Spirit keep you in eternal life.
The
spiritual resources of Lent are right before us.
Oh,
happy Lent!
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
that
everyone who places their faith in him
may
be born into the eternal life that ever flows through Jesus from
the One who is the Source of all that is.
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