Who doesn’t need a second chance?
Life is a journey …
A series of twists and turns …
A little of this and a little of that …
Going somewhere … and going nowhere at all.
Light and dark;
Hot and cold;
Fast and slow;
Moving and stopping …
Seeking and finding;
Wondering and wandering;
Asking and receiving;
Knock and the door opens …
And sometimes the doors close, right in our face …
The unexpected setback, the slowdown, the downturn, the upset and the setup …
Barry Bonds doesn’t hit a homerun at every bat …
Tiger Woods doesn’t make par every game …
Even the best bowlers throw a gutter ball now and then.
Who doesn’t need a second chance?
That’s what Jesus offers to Nicodemus … a second chance … a chance to start all over again … because Nicodemus was on a road leading to nowhere!
“What do you mean Jesus? What’s all this about?”
“I’m a member of the ruling class … I’m one of the teachers of Israel … I’m an important man … I say ‘jump,’ and folks say, ‘How high?’”
But why was Nicodemus paying a late-night visit to Jesus?
Under cover of darkness …
Nic at Night, if you will …
Not wanting his colleagues to know …
He addresses Jesus with respect … and says, “We know that you are a teacher who has come from God, because of the signs you do.”
“Houston, we have a problem!”
If you have your Bible open, just at the end of chapter 2, it says, “Many believed because they saw the signs.”
But Jesus didn’t trust them … “because he knew them” … fair weather faith, unpredictable and self-serving.
So here’s Nic at night - “We know,” he says.
What do they know?
We’ll soon find out, they know nothing!
Jesus doesn’t waste time … no invitation to have coffee next week and talk about it.
No “thank you” for the compliment …
Because Jesus knew that Nic at night was a spiritual mess in spite of his outward success … inside of Nic, it was “Nic at night” … Nic lived in a land of shadows and shades.
Who is Nicodemus?
He’s a leader, a man of influence and position … a teacher of Israel … to all outward appearances, he’s powerful and successful … but Jesus sees the empty heart.
Nic is searching … I doubt if Nic could have put his finger on it, but Nic knows something is missing … that much can be said for him, and that’s where Jesus goes.
Jesus doesn’t waste time with Nic … “You must be born again.”
Now that’s a phrase that’s been lifted out of context and turned into an evangelical war cry … “You must be born again.”
The “you” is plural – Marj from Texas might say, “Y’all” – “Y’all must be born again” referring to Nic and to all of Nic’s cohorts – the ruling elite of Jerusalem, the powerbrokers, the royalty and the hangers-on, on a collision course with Rome, heading for disaster “Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, if only you had known.”
You’ve been on the wrong path Nic, and a mid-course correction won’t do … something a little more radical is needed … a fresh beginning, a second chance.
“But how can I do it?” asks Nic.
“Is it possible for a man to go back to his mother’s womb and start all over again?”
Jesus pushes hard: “You’re a teacher of Israel and you don’t understand spiritual rebirth? What’s up with you Nic. You ought to know this, but you don’t.”
Why is Jesus so tough on Nic?
Because Nic is a man who has spent a lifetime hiding from God, and hiding in one of the best places – hiding in religion!
Everyone who’s been religious for a long time needs to pay careful attention to this provocative story … the story of a religious man, well-respected and powerful … but Jesus sees the heart … Jesus sees a room without furniture, an empty spirit, a soul without a clue.
Religion is a good place to hide from God.
Have you ever thought about that?
Religion, a good place to hide from God.
Form without substance …
Creed without conviction …
The sounds of faith without the surrender of faith …
It easy for religious folk to fall into the trap that engulfed Nicodemus … it was a long time since his heart felt the love of God.
A long time without joy …
Years without delight …
A dutiful man without devotion.
A religious man without a relationship to God!
“Nic, you’ve got to be born again.”
The Holy Spirit will help you Nic.
There’s no telling when, and no telling where, but the Holy Spirit will help you on a second chance.
The story ends abruptly … what happens to Nic?
Nic appears twice more in the story.
Chapter 7: Nic counsels caution when the ruling elite begin to formulate plans to arrest Jesus and put a stop to His preaching.
Chapter 19: after Jesus is crucified, Nic goes to Pilate with Joseph of Arimathea to claim the body and give it proper burial.
Does Nic connect all the dots?
Does he become a believer?
A follower of Jesus?
This we know for sure … God is the God of the Second Chance … the third, the fourth, the fifth … and as many as it takes. God never gives up on us.
God is a God of patience and unconditional love …
God seeks the lost and finds them …
God touches the eyes of the blind and they see.
Nic at night is on his way …
Robert Frost’s poem, “Stopping by a Woods on a Snowy Evening:”
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
It’s a long journey … what counts is that we don’t hide from God … we let God correct us, guide us, confront us and change us.
I think it’s tough for religious folk … we get into the habit, we turn it into routine, we go through the motions, we know the hymns, we say the creed backwards and forwards … we’ve been a church member our whole life … a Presbyterian forever; we’re on the cradle roll; we’re elders and deacons, Sunday school teachers and choir members … we’ve been there and done that ten thousand times.
All of us need to be born again! And again and again!
One of the saddest moments in the Bible … the Book of Revelation … Jesus addresses the seven churches, reviews their character, lifts up their victories and illumines their issues.
Of the church at Ephesus, Jesus sings their praise, and then says, “But this one thing I have against you. You’ve forgotten your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen. Repent, and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place” (2:1-7).
Faith no longer fresh and clean …
Like dried flowers … the color, the form, but no fragrance; brittle to the touch.
The other day, at Togos – under wraps a four-foot deli sandwich – I sat right next to it – bread, lettuce, luncheon meat, tomatoes and sweet peppers – it looked real, but hard as a rock; just a plastic mockup.
Every believer has to fight this battle from time-to-time.
God isn’t interested in our religion; God wants to have a relationship with us.
It’s not duty that counts, but devotion.
I kissed Donna the other morning and said, “Well, I did my duty.”
Two hours later I woke up with a knot on my head and a black eye.
The enemy of a living faith - religion … religion, cold and calculating … religion, dry and barren … we go through the motions, but the soul no longer sings; the name of Jesus no longer intrigues us; amazing grace is no longer a sweet sound to us.
But God gives a second chance!
I’ve needed that second chance a number of times.
Three times in my life I walked right out of the faith.
Questions overwhelmed my mind and my soul no longer believed.
Three times I entered the desert … I was still a pastor, still prayed and preached - I doubt if anyone could really see the wasteland of my soul.
Religion is a great cover.
Being a preacher one of the best covers …
I’ve know preachers who’ve gone through the motions for years without the love and grace of Christ … it’s a terrible place to be, and a terrible price is paid.
God gave me second chance, a third and fourth chance … lots of chances.
My specific recovery was simple: I closed my theology books and opened my Bible.
Without commentaries; without thought …
Just read it!
I needed to born again!
The simple things of faith, hope and love:
God is real.
God’s unconditional love gets us through those terrible times.
Grace is always amazing and always there …
Take our time; trust God … through the wilderness!
The Second Chance!
There are questions here for all of us – especially for those who’ve been Christians for a long time.
Have we turned this into routine?
Do we know the drill so well that we can throw our mind into neutral?
Are all the answers pat?
The fires of faith banked and burning low?
What’s the state of our faith today?
Now’s a good time to come to Jesus … nighttime, daytime, when we’re on top of our game, or slugging it out in the trenches …
Jesus will not waste our time … He’ll cut to the chase and get to the point …
Start over … that’s always possible … no matter what, no matter who, no matter where … the journey can always start anew … because God is God of the Second Chance.
Amen!
Showing posts with label second chance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label second chance. Show all posts
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Violence? December 9 07,
Matthew 3:1-12
Who doesn’t need a fresh start now and then?
Who doesn’t need a second chance?
A do-over?
What do they call it in golf?
A Mulligan!
Hit a bad shot.
Take a Mulligan. Do it again!
Who doesn’t need a Mulligan now and then?
Speaking of golf … a pastor was an avid golfer … played for years … went golfing every chance he had.
Well, one Sunday morning, he gets up … it was a perfect golf day … unable to resist temptation, the pastor calls the Clerk of Session and says, “Stafford, I’m not feeling well today. You’ll have to fill in.”
And with assurances from Stafford that he’ll handle the service, and a little prayer for the pastor’s health, the pastor hightails it out of the house to a golf course 50 miles away … he didn’t want to be seen.
The angels in heaven see this and say to God, “Well, what are you going to do about it?”
God says, “Don’t worry; I’ll take care of it.”
So the angels sit back to watch.
On the seventh hole, the pastor gets a hole-in-one!
The angels are baffled. “We thought you’d give the pastor a terrible game, but now you give him a hole-in-one.”
“I know,” replied God, “but who’s he going to tell?”
The love of God at work in our lives …
God is at work for good in all things … so in all things, you can find good …
I talked to a man who’s very successful … but who nearly didn’t make it … 25 years ago, a surfer doing drugs, smuggling drugs … on the edge of disaster … but he made it through … and God was there … today, he’s involved in a community of faith … ministers to young people … telling his story.
A man with a giant career in real estate and banking … a shady deal … time in prison … and now he’s got more of God in his life than ever before … he’s battling his third bout with cancer … and he’s till on top of it, still going strong, a man of faith!
A young lady who works for CLUE – Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice – played a key roll in the new labor agreement between hotel workers and the LAX Sheraton – she’s the first in her family to graduate from high school, the first to graduate from college … an inspiring young lady who faced the worst odds … in college, racism; told flat-out by some: “You’re here just because of your color.”
She loves God and she overcomes … and now she’s thinking about seminary.
They all turned it around … defeat into victory, scars into stars … loss into gain … pain into wisdom!
“You can do it!”
You can face anything and overcome it.
You can be handed a lousy set of cards, and still win the game.
Because God is near at hand … close enough for us to feel the mystery of grace …
Like standing close to an oven … you can feel the heat … or opening a refrigerator door on a hot day, the cool air rushes out, and it feels good.
God is close enough for us to feel the mystery of grace …
A message hell doesn’t want us to hear …
The Evil One delivers the message of hell every day:
You’re stuck, and you’ll never get out.
You’ve acted this way for 20 years, and it’ll never change.
Your behavior is shameful and disgusting – you’re a terrible human being.
You’re parents don’t love you; your children are going to hell in hand-basket, and it’s all your fault.
You make poor decisions; you’re a flub, you’re a flop, you’re a failure … and don’t think about changing: it’s too late … it’ll never work … you’re trapped and your goose is cooked.
The tools of hell: discouragement, defeat, frustration, resentment, jealousy, the sense of being cheated, denied and overlooked … hopeless entrapment – stuck forever; no way out.
I saw hell yesterday – In two parking lots - angry, aggressive drivers … honking horns, screeching tires, obscene gestures - everyone on their own personal mission … every car, a threat …
The stuff of hell … to tangle us up and take us down.
God has a life-giving message …
Faith, hope and love;
Grace, mercy and peace;
Patience, courage and endurance!
Because God knows what you’re made of … God knows how good and decent you are; intelligent and gifted … God knows you can do it!
God knows what you can do, even if you don’t know it right now!
I remember teaching Josh how to ride a bike. I knew he could do it. He didn’t know it at the time; only I knew it.
But Josh trusted me.
So there we are in the street … Josh on a bike he can’t ride, and Dad running down the street with him, hand on the bike.
Back and forth a few times … huffin’ and puffin’ until that magic moment … I’m still running beside him, but no longer holding the bike … Josh is riding it, all by himself … he’s doing what I knew he could always do.
And now he knows it, too … “I can ride a bike!”
We find our way through, around, under or over.
We rebuild our lives after disaster … loss of job … the end of a marriage … illness and death … and who knows what else.
Every day I’m amazed at what people endure, how folks make it … find a way to overcome!
Thomas Merton writes about his Father dying of an inoperable brain tumor the summer of 1930.
“All summer we went regularly and faithfully to the hospital once or twice a week. There was nothing we could do but sit there, and look at Father and tell him things which he could not answer. But he understood what we said.
“In fact, if he could not talk, there were other things he could still do. One day I found his bed covered with little sheets of blue notepaper on which he had been drawing. And the drawings were real drawings. But they were unlike anything he had ever done before – pictures of little, irate Byzantine-looking saints with beards and great halos.
“Of us all, Father was the only one who really had any kind of a faith. And I do not doubt that he had very much of it, and that behind the walls of his isolation, his intelligence and his will, unimpaired and not hampered in any essential way by the partial obstruction of some of his senses, were turned to God, and communed with God Who was with him and in him, and Who gave him, as I believe, light to understand and to make use of his suffering for his own good, and to perfect his soul. …. And this affliction, this terrible and frightening illness which was relentlessly pressing him down even into the jaws of the tomb, was not destroying him after all.
And then Merton adds:
“… my father was in a fight with this tumor, and none of us understood the battle. We thought he was done for, but it was making him great” (The Seven Story Mountain, p.83).
On the road to Damascus … Saul the Pharisee, intent on great harm … and God would have none of it.
With a bolt of light and firm voice, Saul is tripped up and falls flat on his face …
Saul the Pharisee falls down … Paul the Apostle gets up!
A tough, unrelenting God … who will not let us go … the God of the prophets, Isaiah and Hosea … the God who plunges the knife of love into our hearts … and twists and turns … and it hurts like hell, but it’s the help of heaven … cutting away the old and bringing in the new …
John says to the crowd:
“What I do, I do only with water … but someone is coming after me … more powerful than I am … I’m not fit to carry his sandals …
“He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire!”
The threshing floor swept clean … the wheat gathered into the storehouses of God … the chaff burned with an unquenchable fire.
A violent message.
“If God wants children, God will raise them up from the stones at your feet.”
A violent message … shake us … penetrate the layers of discouragement and pride … get to the heart; perform CPR; get it beating again.
In the Book of Revelation, letters to seven churches … the first letter to the church in Ephesus … “You’ve worked hard, but this I hold against you: you have forgotten your first love.”
“Repent and do the things you did at first” (Revelation 2:1-7).
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says: “Not everyone who says, ‘LORD, LORD’ will enter the kingdom of heaven … many will say to me on that day: ‘LORD, LORD, did we not prophecy in your name, and did we not drive our demons and perform miracles.’ Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers” (Matthew 7:21-23).
“You gave me your mouth, you gave me your hands, but you never gave me your heart.”
Violent grace … shake us, penetrate us, strip away the defensive layers – excuses and pretensions … God awakens the heart and gets it beating again.
The Ghost of Christmas Past takes Scrooge on a tour of his life – Scrooge watches the scene wherein the woman he loves walks away because Scrooge is more in love with his golden idols.
Scrooge cries out:
“Show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do you delight to torture me?”
“One shadow more!” exclaimed the Ghost.
“No more!” cried Scrooge. “No more. I don’t wish to see it. Show me no more!”
But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms, and forced him to observe what happened next.
Violent grace …
“You brood of vipers.”
“The axe is already laid at the root of the tree.”
Violent grace …
“Your sins are no more!”
“They’re gone forever!
Washed away.
Done with and over.”
To Nicodemus in the night …
To Zacchaeus up a tree …
To the woman at the well …
To the lepers and to the lame …
To you and to me …
A fresh start … a second chance!
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil. My cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever!”
Amen!
Who doesn’t need a fresh start now and then?
Who doesn’t need a second chance?
A do-over?
What do they call it in golf?
A Mulligan!
Hit a bad shot.
Take a Mulligan. Do it again!
Who doesn’t need a Mulligan now and then?
Speaking of golf … a pastor was an avid golfer … played for years … went golfing every chance he had.
Well, one Sunday morning, he gets up … it was a perfect golf day … unable to resist temptation, the pastor calls the Clerk of Session and says, “Stafford, I’m not feeling well today. You’ll have to fill in.”
And with assurances from Stafford that he’ll handle the service, and a little prayer for the pastor’s health, the pastor hightails it out of the house to a golf course 50 miles away … he didn’t want to be seen.
The angels in heaven see this and say to God, “Well, what are you going to do about it?”
God says, “Don’t worry; I’ll take care of it.”
So the angels sit back to watch.
On the seventh hole, the pastor gets a hole-in-one!
The angels are baffled. “We thought you’d give the pastor a terrible game, but now you give him a hole-in-one.”
“I know,” replied God, “but who’s he going to tell?”
The love of God at work in our lives …
God is at work for good in all things … so in all things, you can find good …
I talked to a man who’s very successful … but who nearly didn’t make it … 25 years ago, a surfer doing drugs, smuggling drugs … on the edge of disaster … but he made it through … and God was there … today, he’s involved in a community of faith … ministers to young people … telling his story.
A man with a giant career in real estate and banking … a shady deal … time in prison … and now he’s got more of God in his life than ever before … he’s battling his third bout with cancer … and he’s till on top of it, still going strong, a man of faith!
A young lady who works for CLUE – Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice – played a key roll in the new labor agreement between hotel workers and the LAX Sheraton – she’s the first in her family to graduate from high school, the first to graduate from college … an inspiring young lady who faced the worst odds … in college, racism; told flat-out by some: “You’re here just because of your color.”
She loves God and she overcomes … and now she’s thinking about seminary.
They all turned it around … defeat into victory, scars into stars … loss into gain … pain into wisdom!
“You can do it!”
You can face anything and overcome it.
You can be handed a lousy set of cards, and still win the game.
Because God is near at hand … close enough for us to feel the mystery of grace …
Like standing close to an oven … you can feel the heat … or opening a refrigerator door on a hot day, the cool air rushes out, and it feels good.
God is close enough for us to feel the mystery of grace …
A message hell doesn’t want us to hear …
The Evil One delivers the message of hell every day:
You’re stuck, and you’ll never get out.
You’ve acted this way for 20 years, and it’ll never change.
Your behavior is shameful and disgusting – you’re a terrible human being.
You’re parents don’t love you; your children are going to hell in hand-basket, and it’s all your fault.
You make poor decisions; you’re a flub, you’re a flop, you’re a failure … and don’t think about changing: it’s too late … it’ll never work … you’re trapped and your goose is cooked.
The tools of hell: discouragement, defeat, frustration, resentment, jealousy, the sense of being cheated, denied and overlooked … hopeless entrapment – stuck forever; no way out.
I saw hell yesterday – In two parking lots - angry, aggressive drivers … honking horns, screeching tires, obscene gestures - everyone on their own personal mission … every car, a threat …
The stuff of hell … to tangle us up and take us down.
God has a life-giving message …
Faith, hope and love;
Grace, mercy and peace;
Patience, courage and endurance!
Because God knows what you’re made of … God knows how good and decent you are; intelligent and gifted … God knows you can do it!
God knows what you can do, even if you don’t know it right now!
I remember teaching Josh how to ride a bike. I knew he could do it. He didn’t know it at the time; only I knew it.
But Josh trusted me.
So there we are in the street … Josh on a bike he can’t ride, and Dad running down the street with him, hand on the bike.
Back and forth a few times … huffin’ and puffin’ until that magic moment … I’m still running beside him, but no longer holding the bike … Josh is riding it, all by himself … he’s doing what I knew he could always do.
And now he knows it, too … “I can ride a bike!”
We find our way through, around, under or over.
We rebuild our lives after disaster … loss of job … the end of a marriage … illness and death … and who knows what else.
Every day I’m amazed at what people endure, how folks make it … find a way to overcome!
Thomas Merton writes about his Father dying of an inoperable brain tumor the summer of 1930.
“All summer we went regularly and faithfully to the hospital once or twice a week. There was nothing we could do but sit there, and look at Father and tell him things which he could not answer. But he understood what we said.
“In fact, if he could not talk, there were other things he could still do. One day I found his bed covered with little sheets of blue notepaper on which he had been drawing. And the drawings were real drawings. But they were unlike anything he had ever done before – pictures of little, irate Byzantine-looking saints with beards and great halos.
“Of us all, Father was the only one who really had any kind of a faith. And I do not doubt that he had very much of it, and that behind the walls of his isolation, his intelligence and his will, unimpaired and not hampered in any essential way by the partial obstruction of some of his senses, were turned to God, and communed with God Who was with him and in him, and Who gave him, as I believe, light to understand and to make use of his suffering for his own good, and to perfect his soul. …. And this affliction, this terrible and frightening illness which was relentlessly pressing him down even into the jaws of the tomb, was not destroying him after all.
And then Merton adds:
“… my father was in a fight with this tumor, and none of us understood the battle. We thought he was done for, but it was making him great” (The Seven Story Mountain, p.83).
On the road to Damascus … Saul the Pharisee, intent on great harm … and God would have none of it.
With a bolt of light and firm voice, Saul is tripped up and falls flat on his face …
Saul the Pharisee falls down … Paul the Apostle gets up!
A tough, unrelenting God … who will not let us go … the God of the prophets, Isaiah and Hosea … the God who plunges the knife of love into our hearts … and twists and turns … and it hurts like hell, but it’s the help of heaven … cutting away the old and bringing in the new …
John says to the crowd:
“What I do, I do only with water … but someone is coming after me … more powerful than I am … I’m not fit to carry his sandals …
“He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire!”
The threshing floor swept clean … the wheat gathered into the storehouses of God … the chaff burned with an unquenchable fire.
A violent message.
“If God wants children, God will raise them up from the stones at your feet.”
A violent message … shake us … penetrate the layers of discouragement and pride … get to the heart; perform CPR; get it beating again.
In the Book of Revelation, letters to seven churches … the first letter to the church in Ephesus … “You’ve worked hard, but this I hold against you: you have forgotten your first love.”
“Repent and do the things you did at first” (Revelation 2:1-7).
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says: “Not everyone who says, ‘LORD, LORD’ will enter the kingdom of heaven … many will say to me on that day: ‘LORD, LORD, did we not prophecy in your name, and did we not drive our demons and perform miracles.’ Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers” (Matthew 7:21-23).
“You gave me your mouth, you gave me your hands, but you never gave me your heart.”
Violent grace … shake us, penetrate us, strip away the defensive layers – excuses and pretensions … God awakens the heart and gets it beating again.
The Ghost of Christmas Past takes Scrooge on a tour of his life – Scrooge watches the scene wherein the woman he loves walks away because Scrooge is more in love with his golden idols.
Scrooge cries out:
“Show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do you delight to torture me?”
“One shadow more!” exclaimed the Ghost.
“No more!” cried Scrooge. “No more. I don’t wish to see it. Show me no more!”
But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms, and forced him to observe what happened next.
Violent grace …
“You brood of vipers.”
“The axe is already laid at the root of the tree.”
Violent grace …
“Your sins are no more!”
“They’re gone forever!
Washed away.
Done with and over.”
To Nicodemus in the night …
To Zacchaeus up a tree …
To the woman at the well …
To the lepers and to the lame …
To you and to me …
A fresh start … a second chance!
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil. My cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever!”
Amen!
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