A Lord's Day Message for Sunday, March 6, 2011

(© by Rev. Larry A. Langer, First Presbyterian Church, Jasper, IN, March 6, 2011)

“7 Churches: Brickbats and Bouquets”

“7. God’s Message to Laodicea: The Delusion of Self-Sufficiency; the Solution of Christ-Sufficiency”

Revelation 3:14-22 and Luke 16:19-31

“For you say, ‘I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing.’ You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked.” (Revelation 3:17)

And Jesus said, “Ptui!”

We preachers are encouraged to begin our sermons with a vivid, attention-grabbing illustration. I know of none more attention-getting than, “And Jesus said, “Ptui! I know your works; you are neither hot nor cold. So, because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I am about to spit you out of my mouth. For you say, ‘I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing.’ You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked. Ptui!”

Lest you think I exaggerate Jesus’ words here, rest assured this is exactly what he meant: “Ptui.”

As we know from Jesus’ teachings while he was on earth and from his letters to the other 6 churches to which he had letters written, Jesus uses common, everyday illustrations to make his point. The “Ptui” is no exception.

The physical problem that the town of Laodicea had was that they had absolutely lousy water. They didn’t have any wells of their own, either by choice or necessity, but they had built an aqueduct six miles long to bring water in from the town of Hierapolis. The water came either from hot springs and was cooled to lukewarm or came from a cool source and warmed up in the aqueduct on the way.[1] My guess is that especially if it came from the hot springs is that it had a very high sulfur content and smelled and tasted like rotten eggs. We can imagine what it would be like to smell and taste tepid, rotten egg water. (And we think it is bad when Patoka Lake turns over!) Ptui!

Do you think this example would get the attention of the members of the LCC, the Laodicea Christian Church? Something had to, and this was the strongest example Jesus could use. If we look back at the other six churches Jesus had John write to, no letter was as strong as this.

To the church at Ephesus, the letter was about returning to their first love. To the church at Smyrna, the letter spoke of being spiritually rich in their economic poverty and standing firm in their trials. To the church of Pergamum, the letter was about expelling those in the church who were falsely teaching heresy. To the church at Thyatira, the letter was about expelling from the church “a Jezebel” who had been teaching satanic stuff. To the church at Sardis, the letter was about waking up and being an alive church once again. To the church at Philadelphia, the letter was about going out through the “open door” that God had given them and evangelizing in the name of Jesus.

As direct as these letters were, none was as harsh as being compared to the tepid, stinking water that would cause a person to vomit, that they were forced to drink. Why would Jesus dictate such a letter to church people? Listen to this:

These Christians have become lukewarm because they perceived virtues within themselves, and because of that confident self-understanding, they were blinded to the steady deterioration that had already turned them into hollow shells reaching out to hollow shells. Here is the tragedy of a person who has gone soft and indolent by overestimating his or her wealth far too long. It is the person who has always intended to get started and was certain that time was on his or her mind. . . What we have in this poetic description is the raw material of human decadence and the tragedy of adriftedness. It is like the inner deception of the chemical assault on the brain, so that by imperceptible inches a man or woman is robbed of a clear mind and vigorous imagination, while all the time self-assured that cocaine or marijuana or alcohol was enhancing perception, feeling and well-being.[2]

Basically, they had been deluding themselves that all was well – and it was physically and financially. They had everything money could buy. They were a wealthy church in a wealthy town. Interestingly, while they had terrible water, they were located in a fertile valley. (Were they too lazy to dig their own well?) Laodicea was an important town for trade and communication. The great Roman road ran through it from Ephesus on the coast to inland Asia to the east. They produced a famous, glossy, black wool – whether dyed or natural in color. They had a famous school of medicine and developed special eye and ear ointment. They had a market place where all sorts of goods from all over were traded and sold. The city’s banking assets were so large that Cicero (a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist and Roman constitutionalist, who came from a wealthy family) used to cash his huge bank drafts there. The town was so wealthy that after the earthquake of A.D. 17, they refused physical and financial bailout money from Rome to rebuild, saying instead, “We can do it ourselves.”[3] Therein lay the problem: They were too much into themselves. They were quite content, thank you, just “going along to get along.” The church was like the town: Just going along to get along.

One commentator notes “that Laodicea is difficult to describe because no one thing stands out. There were no excesses or notable achievements to describe it. It was a city with a people who had learned to compromise and accommodate themselves to the needs and wishes of others.[4] They did not zealously stand for anything.[5]

This is what displeased the Lord so much and caused him to say “Ptui!” And, the Lord’s verdict is the exact opposite of the Laodicean church’s evaluation of themselves. But, “they were useless to Jesus because they were complacent, self-satisfied, and indifferent to the real issues of faith in Christ and of discipleship.”[6]

So, Jesus reduces his plea to the LCC to three words the members could understand: “Buy from me…buy from me.” Remember that Laodicea had an international marketplace where a person could buy anything they wanted from goods produced locally to good brought in from afar. Jesus put his faith in himself and discipleship into this context, put faith in himself and discipleship “up for sale,” if we will.

(You know, it saddens me greatly that Jesus seemingly has to reduce what is so valuable, so pure, so special, down to what the people can comprehend and understand. But he does this all the time, doesn’t he?)

Gold, a source of the wealthy of the city, was to be bought from Christ and to become the spiritually poverty-strickened’s true wealth. Their shameful nakedness was to be clothed, not by purchasing the sleek, black wool of Laodicea, but by buying from Christ the white clothing that alone can cover shameful nakedness. For those who were blind to their true condition, the “Phrygian powder” was useless. They needed to buy salve from Christ so that they could truly see.[7]

These three “products” that the members of the LCC needed to “buy” with the currency of their souls were all “ingredients” of what would be a true salvation for their souls.

To adapt for our days what another writer has said about those days,

the only cure for spiritually poverty-stricken disciples is to purchase from Christ gold which is refined in the agonies of the shared passion. For our nakedness the only recourse is to buy such clothes as the naked Christ had worn on the cross. The blindness of self-deception can be cured only by understanding the correlation between Christ’s love and his discipline. These three purchases constitute a substantial definition of the kind of zeal and repentance which is the burned of all John’s prophecies in the letters dictated through him. The thrust of these commands moves in the direction of rigorous warning. They are tantamount to saying, “Open your eyes” and “Carry your cross.”[8]

Again, these three “products” all point to our need of authentic salvation through Christ.[9]

Have we taken stock of the condition of our faith lately? Do we have enough of Jesus’ refined gold? Does the white robe that only Jesus can offer still fit and is it still clean, white, and pure? Are our eyes open to seeing our true, earthly condition: Wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked, who but for Jesus’ love for us are as condemned to Hades as was the one we read about from Luke’s gospel today?

You may say, “But, Pastor, don’t speak of us this way. We aren’t like those we see on the news in the slums of India or the refugee camps of Egypt or in the bombed-out villages of Libya. We live in Jasper, America.

Ah, yes, we do, so how is our spiritual condition? Is it pure with Christ? Do we wear it so others can tell? Do we see areas we need more spirituality and more faith? How can we become better disciples of Jesus, rather than just hearing the same stuff over again, only in a little different way?

Jesus' invitation to the Laodiceans is his invitation to us who seek spiritual food along with all our physical and mental blessings. “It is an invitation to the most important, main meal of the day. It is the meal to which one would dine with one’s most intimate, closest of friends.”[10] This wasn’t a quick lunch at McDonalds or Subway or even Shoney’s. Picture in your mind’s eye where you would go for a peaceful, long-lasting, well-attended to, scrumptious meal with the one you love or with your most intimate friends. This is the invitation Jesus is offering. His invitation reads:

“Behold, I stand at the door and Knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and dine with them and they with me.”

You know, I don’t know the condition of your souls. It isn’t for me to judge or even guess. I can really only judge mine, and I know that my soul gets awfully hungry for Jesus. I know I could stand Christ’s meal every Sunday. I know I will get hungry for him during Lent when we fast from his meal. I know I need other spiritual things to feed upon during Lent to feel Jesus’ presence with me. So, would we, first of all, really savor this meal we are having today and the one we will have Wednesday evening, then each of us make a solemn promise to the Lord that we will seek to become so much more rich in our souls over the next weeks of Lent, until we feast with Jesus again on Maundy Thursday?

Jesus said, “I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich; and white robes to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen; and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.”

Let our next hymn be our response to Jesus’ invitation:

Open my eyes that I may see

Glimpses of truth Thou hast for me.

Place in my hand that wonderful key

That shall unclasp and set me free.

Silently now, I wait for Thee

Ready my God, Thy will to see.

Open my eyes, illumine me, Spirit divine.

Open my ears and let me hear

Voices of truth Thou sendest clear;

And while the wave notes fall on my ears,

Everything false will disappear.

Silently now, I wait for Thee

Ready my God, Thy will to see.

Open my ears, illumine me, Spirit divine.

Open my mouth and let me bear

Gladly the warm truth everywhere;

Open my heart and let me prepare

Love with Thy children thus to share.

Silently now, I wait for Thee

Ready my God, Thy will to see.

Open my heart, illumine me, Spirit divine.

(Public Domain)

Amen.

---

[1] Alan Johnson, Revelation, (The Expositor’s Bible Commentary. Frank, Gaebelein, Gen. Ed: Zondervin Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI, 1981). P. 457

[2] Earl Palmer, Revelation, (The Communicator’s Commentary, Lloyd J. Oglivie, Gen. Ed.: Word Publishing Co., Waco, TX, 1982). P. 154

[3] Johnson, op. cit., p. 456

[4] Johnson, op. cit., p. 456, quoting Ramsay, Seven Churches, p. 417

[5] Johnson, ibid.

[6] Johnson, ibid, p. 457

[7] Johnson, ibid, p. 458

[8] Minear, I Saw a New Earth, p. 57, as quoted by Johnson, op.cit., p. 459

[9] Johnson, op.cit., p. 459

[10] Johnson, ibid., p. 459

A Lord's Day Message for Sunday, March 27, 2011

( © by Rev. Larry A. Langer, First Presbyterian Church, Jasper, IN, March 27, 2011)

“Seven Who Encountered Jesus: (3) the Woman at the Well”

John 4:1-42 and Psalm 95

“But Jesus had to go through Samaria…A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (John 4:4, 7)

Our sermon today begins with “hatred.” We wouldn’t expect a sermon to begin with such, would we? We expect all of our sermons to begin with at least the premise of love, then conclude with the actuality of love, the love of God in Jesus Christ and our love for our neighbors.

But today’s sermon begins with hatred. It is a hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans. It had been going on for about seven and a half centuries, since 722 B.C. Without going into the detail of the “two kingdoms” of the Jews, the Northern and the Southern, let us be satisfied that when the Northern Kingdom fell in 722 B.C., the Jewish survivors intermarried with those described as “heathen colonists brought in from Babylonia by the Assyrian conquerors.”[1]

So, if we remember our teaching from the Torah, the first five books of the bible, one of the requirements God had for the Jewish nation to be strong and for a Jew to be a good Jew, was that they would always marry a Jew and never marry anyone who wasn’t a Jew. So, to a “good Jew,” one who tried to “live by the rules,” these Samaritans were looked upon as “unclean traitors to Jewish blood.”[2]

Furthermore, the Samaritans were confused, even heretical in their religious beliefs. Even though they earlier worshipped many gods caused by the strangers bringing in their own gods, they did begin worshipping “Jehovah,” but only accepted the first five books of the Bible, cutting off the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures.[3]

Plus, they hated the Jews! They had offered to help rebuild the temple in Jerusalem after the Jews returned from Babylonian exile – and were refused. It made the Samaritans bitter. And, as we know (and hear in the dialogue between Jesus and the woman at the well) the Jews say that the true place to worship God is in the temple in Jerusalem. The Samaritans adamantly refused, though, and said that their place of worship was in their own temple on Mount Gerizim in Samaria, which had been built about 400 B.C.

Then, when the Jews burned this temple at Mount Gerizim in 128 B.C. because they said it was “heretical,” the relationship between the “good and right Jews” and the Samaritans deteriorated even further!

Samaritans, in turn, would on occasion even stop and detain “Jews” traveling though the territory of Samaria. So, the “good” Jews would add hours to their trip traveling from Galilee to Jerusalem going around Samaria, rather than take the high road straight through Samaria. Says one commentator, “Little wonder then that a Jew would attempt to avoid any contact with these unclean dogs.”[4]

Let’s pause for a moment and think about whom we avoid at any and all costs and why we avoid them. Who do we laugh and sneer at and think, “I am certainly glad I am not like them!” Who would it concern us if our child married “someone different”? Did the person our child married concern us, especially to the point of hatred?

I mean, really, every last one of us has someone or some group of people or some absolute prejudice that causes us to harbor and exhibit feelings of hatred. And you know we all have heard the great prejudicial “but,” even from “good” church people: “I know I am supposed to love everyone, but…”

There are people we won‘t talk to, have business dealings with, eat at the same restaurant with, shop in the same store with, speak with if they move in next door, treat them for a physical ailment, accept them in the pulpit, or even if they somehow become a relative of ours.

There are people we hate! And we might not even have the same reasons as the ones between the Jews and the Samaritans: Not worshipping God and God alone; not accepting help when it is offered; and ruining something we hold dear (like when the Jews burned the Samaritan temple, for example).

Is it any wonder, then, that the text says in verse 4, seven little words, “But Jesus had to go through Samaria…But Jesus had to go through Samaria.” Remember, Jesus and the disciples could have taken the longer way around, but now, “Jesus had to go through Samaria.” The New International Version of the Bible says, “But Jesus needed to go through Samaria.”

One commentator writes:

What a world of meaning there is in that phrase! He did not need to save the three days He could gain by passing through this ill-regarded province rather than crossing the river and going up the eastern desert route. There did not seem to be urgent needs in Galilee that would cause Him to shorten the journey.

No, there is a deeper reason, an inner constraint of love and obedience. He knew the ignorance and spiritual hunger of the Samaritan people, and the Father had sent him into the whole world – not just part of it. He (simply) could not avoid these people in spite of the long history of resentment and antagonism between Jews and Samaritans.[5]

“Jesus had to go through Samaria.”

What runs through our minds – or rather who runs through our minds – as we think of this verse? Where does the Lord say we have to go? To whom does the Lord say we have to go?

We all know the hymn; we sing it, but do we do it?

It may not be on a mountain height

Or over the stormy sea;

It may not be at the battle’s front

My Lord will have need of me.

But if by a still, small voice He calls

To paths that I do not know,

I’ll answer, dear Lord, with my hand in Thine,

“I’ll go where You want me to go.”

(That verse is relatively easy; I think that is what any of us would say. Verse two is a bit tougher.)

Perhaps today there are loving words

Which Jesus would have me speak;

There may be now, in the paths of sin,

Some wanderer whom I should seek.

O Savior, if thou wilt be my Guide,

Tho’ dark and rugged the way,

My voice shall echo the message sweet.

I’ll say what you want me to say.

(And then the refrain, which perhaps you can say with me)

I’ll go where you want me to go, dear Lord,

Over mountain, or plain, or sea.

I’ll say what you want me to say, dear Lord.

I’ll be what you want me to be.

Jesus was compelled to go through Samaria. Is there somewhere today that Jesus is compelling us to go?

We are compelled to come to church today. Even if we came “out of habit,” we still had “a choice”; at least we would say we did. But when it comes right down to it, we were compelled to come here at 10:30 am on this Sunday morning, because this is where Jesus wants to meet us. For the woman at the well Jesus had to show up at noon. He had to be there. He had to come here at 10:30, and we did, too.

Like Jesus and the woman, Jesus and we begin the “small talk” conversations – You know, “the hi’s” and “how are you’s” and “gee, you are looking well today,” and “that sure is a pretty sweater.” We also might converse about some project here or how a friend or relative is or make a joke at someone’s expense or talk about a trip we have taken or are going to take. Sometimes Jesus can and will meet us in these conversations and/or snippets of dialogue, but I wonder. Maybe if we take the time and interest to stop and go a bit more in depth, because we felt there was something just under the surface waiting to come out, Jesus will meet us.

Yes, Jesus had to go through Samaria because he had to minister to the woman one-on-one. And, did you notice that when the disciples returned and were “surprised to find Jesus speaking to the woman,” no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking to her?” And, did we notice that there wasn’t any lead-in story with the disciples arguing with Jesus that they shouldn’t go through Samaria; that “good Jews just don’t do that?” No, the ministry of Jesus Christ and the necessity of the ministry of Jesus Christ had begun to infect the disciples and they were beginning to realize what Jesus’ ministry meant to people.

Anyway, Jesus and the woman sparred at first, talking about well water versus living water, the temple in Jerusalem where the “real Jews” went versus the temple at Mount Gerizim where the Samaritans worshipped. I am sure that these details were important to someone, but truthfully, they weren’t important to the woman or Jesus. The woman had a heart-hunger that needed to be met and Jesus had a heart-hunger to meet it. That is why Jesus was compelled to go through Samaria: To fill a heart-hunger.

He also wants to fill our heart-hunger, too. So, we have the recap of the encounter in our Bible, the very word of God. In it, Jesus says, “I tell you there will be a day when people will worship in spirit and in truth.”

Don’t we worship in spirit and in truth? Or, do we really wonder what this means? In one sense, isn’t Jesus merely stating the obvious? Worship should be “spiritual.” It ought to be appropriately religious and uplifting. And of course, worship ought to be about truth. But one preacher said, “(Just) gathering to celebrate our collective illusions and lies is not worship – it is a sad delusion.”[6] So, two quick thoughts.

One, when we worship in “spirit,” it is not so much a “place” as it is wherever the Holy Spirit of God blows upon us. We get true worship when we are “blown together” in one place by the Holy Spirit of God. This “one place” doesn’t have to be a physical place. In fact, it is “in one place” where people are “in agreement,” in harmony, and believing and working together in the same way and for the same purposes.

The word about God in the Old Testament comes from Genesis 1, “And the spirit of God ‘brooded’ over the water; it brought forth something out of nothing.” In the New Testament the word is pneuma, meaning simply “wind.” The wind is air in motion. This implies the Holy Sprit is God in motion. Therefore, worship is wherever the Holy spirit of God blows through, blows strange people together (or moves together people strangely!), moves us to someplace we wouldn’t be had there not been given the gift of the Holy Spirit.

And truth? John’s Gospel has a very particular view of truth. In our definitions truth tends to be an idea, a proposition, some statement that we make like “this idea is truth,” we say. But in John’s Gospel, Jesus makes statements like, “I am the truth.” Now the truth about God has become a person, has become personal. God is no longer an abstraction, a vague generality. God has a face and a name – Jesus the Christ.

Every time we Christians gather for worship, blown in by the wind of God, we believe that we are able and do worship in “spirit and truth.” Why? Because worship is a gift of the Holy Spirit. Worship occurs in those wonderful moments when the Spirit of God blows through our dead, dark and infertile world and brings life (or through our weak, sad and non-productive lives and brings life). And, worship is also in truth. It is not some vague, pie-in-the-sky, incomprehensible imaginative spiritual high in which we have a strange and other-worldly feeling.

Worship is when we are encountered by Jesus, (and he changes our life. We do something different because of him!). It really isn’t worship, worship in spirit and in truth, until Jesus shows up. Worship in truth is when we have a sense that Jesus has intruded, arrived, and taken a seat beside us. Worship for us is to be encountered by Jesus Christ our Savior whose love is not the love we expected, whose way is not the way we expected to walk.[7]

And, by the way, when we are worshipping in the spirit and in the truth of God through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, just like the men and women of Sychar who went to see Jesus, a Jew, we truly cannot hate anyone, either.

Amen.

---

[1] Roger L. Fredrikson, John, (The Communicator’s Commentary ,Lloyd J. Oglivie, ed. Word Books, Waco, Tx) p. 95

[2] Op. cit.

[3] Op. cit.

[4] Op. cit.

[5] Op. cit., p. 94

[6] William H. Willimon, “Spirit and Truth,” (Pulpit Resource, vol. 39, No.1) p. 55

[7] Op. cit.

A Lord's Day Message for March 20, 2011

(©Rev. Larry A. Langer, First Presbyterian Church, Jasper, IN, March 13, 2011)

“Seven Who Encountered Jesus (2) Nicodemus”

John 2:23-3:21 and Psalm 121

“Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night…..” (John 3:1-2a)

(Sermon preached by Rev. Larry A. Langer, First Presbyterian Church, Jasper, IN, March 20, 2011)

Perhaps you have had some of these experiences.

You got a personally addressed letter in the mail inviting you to a “free dinner” at the Schnitzelbank, and all you have to do is listen to a schpiel about a financial opportunity. “There’s nothing to buy, no pressure, no commitment, except to come, enjoy a meal and listen to a presentation,” reads the invitation. Do you go? Does the prospect of a free meal at the Schnitz entice you to go?

Or, you got another personally addressed letter in the mail, inviting you to a steak dinner at the Mill House, and all you have to do is taste the well-prepared angus prime steak dinner, and listen to a schpiel about how “you can have steaks like this every month in your own home. All you have to do is sign up, and the steaks will be delivered right to your door. And, if you sign up this very night, we will throw in some ground beef, to boot!” Do you go for the free steak dinner? Does the prospect of a free meal at the Mill House entice you to check out the steaks?

Or, perhaps, you are watching television and one of those “19.95 plus shipping and handling” advertisements comes on. Or, the advertisement for Nationwide Insurance and their “Vanishing Deductibles” comes on. Or, the advertisement for relatively inexpensive home loans appears. Or, for E-trade, or for any number of products and services. Do you call, write or go on-line and check it out? Why or why not? It’s a quandary!

Nicodemus was a man in such a quandary; such a quandary that “he went to Jesus by night.” The verbiage here doesn’t mean that “he went to Jesus in the evening after work.” No, the language here means that Nicodemus “went to Jesus in secret, under the cover of darkness, hoping that no one else would see him.”

Jesus was probably in Jerusalem during the day; the verses before the ones we read give indication that he was in Jerusalem for the Passover festival. Other places in scripture seem to indicate that Jesus would be in town during the days, but outside of town at night. It doesn’t matter here where Jesus was; Nicodemus came to Jesus under the cover of darkness.

Nicodemus had thought of a way to try to get his questions answered without involving his peers. Nicodemus had thought of a plan to speak with Jesus one-on-one to try to get the answers to the questions that had been niggling in his mind. So, he gets to Jesus at night.

As I was writing this, I thought of how could he catch Jesus alone? If, in fact, this was when Jesus was in town for the Passover, within the context of the Gospel we read, Jesus had just “cleansed the temple.” He had just had the discussion of saying of himself, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The people thought he meant the stone-and-mortar temple; Jesus meant, of course, his body. On top of all of this, Jesus had been doing miracles and healing people, and “many believed in his name because they saw the signs he was doing.”

But with Nicodemus, the man who came by night, it was like that old commercial for some insurance company, “When the company speaks, people listen,” and everything stops except for the two central characters. That night in the darkness, everything stopped except for Nicodemus and Jesus. There was no crowd; there were no disciples. There were only Nicodemus and Jesus.

You know, our Lord always has been and always is that way. Jesus is always ready to be one-on-one with someone needing healing or to talk or to question or to examine their faith and what they believe in. Jesus has the over-all ability to speak to very large crowds and to the individual person.

Just think of all the other folks Jesus met one-on-one in the scripture stories. We will be looking at a couple of these – the man born blind, the woman at the well. We will also look at a trio – Lazarus, Mary, and Martha. But there also were the Rich Young Ruler, the woman with the hemorrhage, the centurion’s servant, Jesus’ own mother at the crucifixion, and John the disciple at the crucifixion. All of these had Jesus’ attention one-on-one to experience what they needed of Jesus’ ministry.

Haven’t we each experienced Jesus one-on-one at some time or another? Perhaps we have met Jesus while flat on our back on our bed at night. The darkness was all around. The silence was deafening. The trouble was real. We did what we are instructed to do at those times – We prayed and met Jesus.

Perhaps we met Jesus while we were sitting by the bedside of someone we loved. That person was dozing or in a coma, and we were left to our thoughts. The lights may have been on and the sun may have been shining, but our sadness was causing our soul to be dark. We did what we are supposed to do at those times – We turned our hearts to Jesus in prayer, and he met us there.

Perhaps we met Jesus while we were trying to deal with a crisis with a family member or our closest friend. You know the things that might happen: The discovery of an affair, the arrest of someone, the sudden death of a loved one, a devastating fire, a runaway child, you name any crisis, and some one of us has experienced it.

And in the darkness and gloom that surrounded the crisis, we did the only thing left to do to find peace – We turned our hearts to Jesus and he met us where we were and how we were.

Jesus met Nicodemus where he was and how he was. Nicodemus was having a crisis in his religion. It wasn’t so much a crisis of faith – yet – but it was a crisis in his religious beliefs and his religious practices.

If we were to analyze Nicodemus’ personality type, he would probably test out as an introvert rather than an extrovert, a person who has to see it to believe it rather than just intuitively knowing something, a person who was a deep thinker who sought answers, and a person who wanted to be precise and have answers so he could make a decision about this Jesus.

Nicodemus was in the perfect job for his personality. He was a very prominent Jewish religious official. He is identified as a “ruler of the Jews.” This made him “upper class.” He was conservative in his Jewish beliefs, but also very curios, which made him definitely interested in Jesus’ teachings. He was a Pharisee and as such belonged to the strict religious sect of Judaism, rather than the Sadducees, who were less rigid in their Jewish beliefs and more politically minded. As a member of the Sanhedrin or ruling council, Nicodemus would have been up on the doctrinal trends of the time, which by now was probably including discussions about this guy Jesus.

According to the scripture, Nicodemus’ interest in Jesus had been prompted by the miracles he had witnessed, and he came for more information, trying to put two and two together, for his own faith and the faith of the people. But, he came at night, which causes us to think that he came really trying to figure it out for himself.

We all have to do this. We all have to figure out who Jesus is for ourselves. Oh, we can go to church and hear the messages, sing the hymns and say the prayers and responses. But deep within us is our soul, which longs for us to answer in our head “who is this Jesus for me?”

So, don’t we say pretty much what Nicodemus said? We know that Jesus came from God. All of us come from God. We know that Jesus possessed some gifts of faith to share and some powers of healing. We know this is possible; we have seen people and know people like this. We also know Jesus as a very good teacher of matters of faith and practice. We wouldn’t call him “rabbi,” but we might call him “professor” or “pastor” or an “expert of things religious.”

Shucks, almost every other religion in the world has all of these things to say about Jesus! Almost no religion denies that Jesus existed, that he taught with authority, that he performed some miraculous healings, that he had quite a following, and that he more than likely suffered death by crucifixion. Most religions of the world believe this.

But what only the Christian faith believes is that Jesus is the Son of God, even God himself. This is what Nicodemus was trying to figure out. This is what all of us have tried or are trying to figure out. Who is Jesus, really, and what does he mean for me?

So, Jesus gives Nicodemus the foundation of faith in Jesus: “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above…Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.”

Nicodemus says, “I just don’t know. How in the world can this be?” His thinking mind couldn’t make the “leap of faith” to being “born again” or being “born from above.” He had heard of John’s baptizing in the River Jordan, which was also a new thing, but really okay as an extension of faith. But Nicodemus had not really heard of being baptized in the Spirit, also. Nicodemus’ own religious beliefs were based on being born into the Jewish faith, being the best Jew he could be personally, and doing the best job he could do as a Jewish leader of the people.

What Jesus was saying is that the entrance into the kingdom of God that Nicodemus desired could not be achieved by legalism or outward conformity. It requires an inner change. It is given only by the direct act of God. Our text for today says that even as the origin and the destination of the wind are unknown to the one who feels it and acknowledges its reality, so also the new life of a person born of the Spirit is unexplainable by ordinary, every day reasoning. It is a matter of faith. It is a matter of thinking and saying “yes” to just about the craziest thing in the world: Saying “yes” to being “born from above,” being “born again,” being born into God’s realm.

Nicodemus was searching for the direction to go to do this. The Spirit had drawn him to Jesus, gotten him to ask questions of Jesus, and gotten him to wonder how this experience could become his. Nothing in Judaism nor his experiences so far in life had offered anything like this.

So, Jesus gives Nicodemus the verse of scripture that all of us know and believe: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”

The question is did Nicodemus believe then? We don’t know directly, because the dialogue with him stopped some verses back. We do encounter Nicodemus twice more in the scriptures, though, and this gives us clues that he did respond.

The first time is recorded in John 7:50 and following, when Nicodemus is meeting with the Sanhedrin and recommends that they not judge Jesus for blasphemy until they let Jesus testify on his own behalf. The rest of the Sanhedrin replied, “Surely you are not also from Galilee, are you? Search and you will see that no prophet is to arise from Galilee.”

I am convinced that Nicodemus had come to faith, but he couldn’t overcome the peer pressure without tipping his hand, losing his job, and being accused, also.

The last we hear of Nicodemus is in John 19:39 and following where it says, “Nicodemus, who had first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and allows, weighing about a hundred pounds. They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in the cloth, according to the burial custom of the Jews.”

Nicodemus brought about 100 pounds of spices and aloes for Jesus. Only a wealthy man could afford such; only a man who loved the deceased would spend it on a dead person. Only a man of faith would spend it on Jesus Christ.

Nicodemus had been born from above. Nicodemus loved Jesus. Nicodemus had come to faith in Jesus, most likely to the detriment of his Jewish status.

The question is what is our status with the Lord Jesus Christ? What have we given up or what do we need to give up for Jesus? Do we need to say “yes” to Jesus today?

“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.” Amen.



A Lord's Day Message for March 13, 2011

(©Rev. Larry A. Langer, First Presbyterian Church, Jasper, IN, March 13, 2011)
“Seven Who Encountered Jesus: (1) the Devil”

Matthew 4:1-11 and Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-13

“The Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. (Matthew 4:1)

(Sermon preached by Rev. Larry A. Langer, First Presbyterian Church, Jasper, IN, March 13, 2011)

A couple of weeks ago, a young man stood up for his religious principles. His name was Joel Northrup. He was a wrestler from Linn-Mar High School in the Iowa State Wrestling Tournament. In the first round of the tournament, he was scheduled to wrestler Cassy Herkleman from Cedar Falls High School. He chose, instead, to forfeit the match.

Why? “Cassy” was a 14-year old girl. His explanation? “He didn’t think it appropriate to engage with a girl in a combat sport that could get violent.” (I think one has to add, “It may not be deemed appropriate for young men and young women to be touching each other where wrestlers have to touch each other, either, even though one could say that ‘it’s only a sport’.”)

Cassy, for her part, said she “didn’t feel slighted because Joel refused to wrestle me, but I do hate to win by default.” And, in fact, if we look at the picture of the referee holding up Cassy’s arm in the traditional victory fashion, Cassy’s face doesn’t reflect that she has just won a match and gets to move on in the tournament.

It seems to me that there are two of life’s ultimate principles at work here. The first is, do we have principles and do we stand up for them? The second is, do we want to compete at any cost and are we disappointed when we can’t?

It was mentioned in the sports story (almost in passing) that the young man was “home schooled.” Very often home schooled students are home schooled because of religious convictions against public high schools. However, home schooled students are given a chance to participate in sports through public schools; in fact, there has to be some overlap of certain graduation requirements. This young man’s reticence about wrestling a young woman stems from his religious conviction. He stood by his conviction. Not only this, but he apparently was allowed to by the coaches, etc., without any detrimental effect.

These two things – standing for one’s principles and not being punished for it says a lot more about life the way it is supposed to be, than whether or not one wins or loses a wrestling match.

The second issue involves our desire to be all we can be, no matter what. Now, I’m not criticizing the young woman for wanting to compete in the sport of wrestling. I’m not criticizing her for looking disappointed when she won by default. All I am saying is that she is an example of how we often are disappointed when things don’t go the way we want them to go, and we want to deal with the issue, do the best we can, and hopefully come out on top. God made us this way – to actually enjoy the testing and the trying until we come out on top!

The problem with both of these issues is when we are wrestling with God on God issues. It is usually okay to wrestle with each other – as long as we agree to disagree agreeably. But when we wrestle with God, we better be sure of our moves, our holds, and our escape options. God is not an opponent we want to mess with. Yet, most of our troubles come from wrestling with God issues – and losing.

Take our first reading from the very first book of the Bible, the very first three chapters:

And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree or the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat it you shall die.”

Or, as Nancy put on our church yard sign the other week, something like, “Eating forbidden fruit leads to many jams.”

Why is it that when we have everything else, we want what we know God doesn’t want us to have? Why is it that we have to gain the knowledge of good and evil on our own? It because we are all just children before a Godly life, experimenting, making excuses, denying God’s Commandments.

We might tell a child, “Honey, don’t touch the stove; it is very hot.” What does the child do? The child approaches the stove, begins to feel its warmth (but continues anyway), until the child can feel its heat, but reaches out to touch it, anyway!

God might have told us, “Honey, don’t kill anybody; life is precious to me.” But what do we do?  On a large scale we approve killing unborn babies by abortion. On a smaller scale, we acquiesce to killing each other with gossip, selfishness, anger, threats, snobbery, snootiness, and shunning. We might never think about firing a bullet or stabbing with a knife or striking someone with a fist, but we might spew words that pierce the heart and if they don’t kill, at least leave bruises and scars as black and blue and long and ugly.

Oh, but because we are human, we will excuse ourselves by saying that we are just “exercising” the gifts God gave us to use. Besides this excuse, we also use the excuse that this is the way things are today – we are told that we shouldn’t hold back, that we should “tell it like it is,” that we should “express ourselves.”

But God still says, “Thou shalt not kill.”

We can apply the same criteria to any and all of the other Commandments of our God. We do have the knowledge of good and evil; we do. The forever question of our faith is what choices are we going to make with the knowledge? How much and how often are we going to blame our own choices of behavior on someone else – or even on the devil? We often defer to the devil and say, “The devil made me so it!”

In actuality, the devil is only the personification of the evil in the world that we know because of our knowledge of good and evil. We love to blame our sinful choices on the snake, but if we will notice, it really was Eve’s and Adam’s choices that caused the fall, not the snake!

I love the words of Martin Luther’s great, great hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.” Luther was divinely inspired when he penned this hymn. It gives a great testimony to our plight in this perfect world God created, a world so perfect that it even includes evil. Listen to verses two and three, only in the order of three, then two:

And though this world with devils filled

Should threaten to undo us.

We will not fear for God hath willed

His truth to triumph through us.

The prince of darkness grim,

We tremble not for him.

His rage we can endure,

For lo, his doom is sure.

One little word shall fell him.

Of course, that “one little word” is really huge: it is Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit and our spiritual gifts and God’s truth. So we take this “one little word” and apply it to verse two:

Did we in our own strength confide,

Our striving would be losing.

Were not the right man on our side,

The man of God’s own choosing.

Dost ask who that may be?

Christ Jesus, it is he.

Lord Sabboth His name,

From age to age the same,

And he must win the battle!

“And he must win the battle!” He did win the battle; he does win the battle; he will win the battle, and we have the season of Lent to help us remember this, and hopefully have our lives changed to be more Godly and strengthened to be more Godly in the future.

Friends, Lent is really a time to so much more than remember all the things Jesus went through for us and say again, “Oh, how nice that he did this. No, Lent is really a time for us to intentionally come before the Lord, comparing ourselves to the characters around Jesus and asking ourselves how we are like those characters and their responses.

Now, we would never accuse anyone of being “the devil in disguise.” But how many of us would let evil thoughts and actions get the best of us and cause us to respond and act in ways that simply in no way honor our faith and Jesus Christ our Lord?

In this series of sermons leading up to Resurrection Day, we will also be with Nicodemus, the Woman at the Well, the Man born blind, and Lazarus, Mary and Martha, and their encounters with Jesus Christ, the author and perfector of our faith. Let’s look forward to being like these characters as Jesus encounters them.

Until each of these encounter, let’s give serious consideration to how we respond when the devil tempts us, as the devil surely will, and how the devil tempted Jesus. I even don’t doubt that the devil may be tempting some of us right now as to how we will react to this message. Shucks, Satan loves to be talked about; he even loves to be considered “The Enemy,” because it gives him credence and this gives him power. But Satan hates it when we stand against him with the power of Jesus Christ.  Jesus did it to him the first time in that desert encounter, and believes in every time and place have continues to stand against him with the power of Jesus since.

So, once again this Lent, we find ourselves in the wilderness with a choice: Do we acquiesce to Satan or do we stand with Jesus? Listen to what one of my favorite preachers, The Reverend William H. Willimon, says:

But now, here in the wilderness, we find ourselves face to face with God as Jesus Christ. And it is right here that God gets complicated.

It might be possible to completely describe God with the words “love,” or “power” if we had never met Jesus. But as is so typical with scripture, when we really look at Jesus, things get complicated, not because we want them to get complicated, but because God is that way.

Look at the temptations Jesus refused. They’re all things that we would consider to be good, worthwhile, and desirable. The first temptation is bread.

Bread surely stands for all the material things in life. Jesus has been fasting for 40 days. He is very hungry. Satan says, “If you are the Son of God, turn these stones to bread.” What is more basic to life than the need for food? What is that which leads desperate people to desperate acts like war and revolution more than the need for bread? If one wanted to do some real good for humanity, wouldn’t it be wonderful if one could turn stones to bread and feed the earth’s hungry people?

But Jesus refuses. He said that one does not live by bread alone. Whatever he is about, Jesus is about more even than elevating human physical needs.

The second temptation takes us to the Holy City, to Jerusalem. This is the center of national pride and religious meaning. Satan takes Jesus to the temple where all the religious people are gathered. Satan proposes a spectacular spiritual demonstration – jump off the pinnacle of the temple and remain unscathed.

Jesus refuses. What sort of God is this who refuses spectacular spiritual tests? What sort of God is this? Wouldn’t it be wonderful, for us poor, struggling believers, if Jesus had agreed to do such a spectacular feat? It would certainly make believing in Jesus easier because who is God if not complete power to do anything God wants? But Jesus refuses.

Satan proposes a third temptation. Perhaps Jesus is just not into spiritual power. How about some show of political power, if he is really God as we expect God to be? Satan offers Jesus a view of all the kingdoms of the world and says that he will give him complete power over all these kingdoms. There are few powers that we modern people recognize more strongly than political power. We live in a world in which it is wrong to expect your child to die for religion, but it is not wrong to offer your child to die for the government. For most of us our government is the source of meaning, protection, and ultimate security. Wouldn’t this be wonderful power for Jesus to have? Jesus refuses.

Jesus refuses and Jesus isn’t the Savior that many would like. He refuses to be and to do the things that we would expect a deity to do to make things right. Jesus, the one whom we meet out here in the wilderness, the one who we meet in the scriptures, tends to disrupt and make complicated our simple views of God. We expect a God who meets our needs, who is complete power over the things that cause us pain in life, a God who orders the world and sets things right. And yet, here comes God in the flesh, as Jesus, who seems to believe that our sort of God is not really, truly God, but rather a temptation from Satan. (William H. Willimon, Complexity, a sermon quoted in Pulpit Resources, vol. 39, No. 1, Logos Productions Inc., Inver Grove, MN. p. 47)

The question for us as we begin Lent, then, is where do we stand? Do we stand with Jesus against every temptation, or do we expect Jesus to do it for us again while we go our merry way?