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Now this ain't no chicken soup! The topic of salvation is one that many people find hard to swallow. One reason for that may be the negative connotations that folks from certain church backgrounds have about how it was handled in the churches of their youth.
The other day Dwayne and I were discussing the old-fashioned, evangelical way of bringing people to salvation. He told me about how he was playing piano for a revival service one time and the preacher was determined that no one was leaving that night until someone had come up and received Jesus as their personal Savior. Dwayne had played so many verses of "Just As I Am" that he was mentally singing "Just As I Wish I Wasn't." Finally, in desperation, he leaned forward and whispered to a friend of his sitting on the front row: "Buddy, would you please go get saved so we can all go home?!"
Salvation. Some of us find the topic hard to swallow because we simply don't understand how it could be so simple. The deal with salvation is this: we recognize that, as human beings, we are constantly missing the mark of the goals that God has for us - in our thoughts and our actions. By our very nature, we have become separated from God. So God sent Jesus Christ to be a bridge-builder. By His death and resurrection, He has become our source of eternal reconnection to God. All we have to do is accept and trust what Jesus offers. Bottom-line, it's that simple.
But so many of us just can't accept that. We don't understand how God can work that way...how Jesus can "save us"...how eternal life could be a free gift that we need only to accept and give thanks for Because we, Iin our humanness, can't fully understand it, we often won't accept it!
But I'm curious. What if we refused to accept anything we couldn't fully understand? If we only accepted into our lives that which we could totally comprehend...and eliminated everything that we weren't absolutely knowledgeable about, what would that mean?
If we refused to accept anything we couldn't fully understand, how many of us would have ridden cars here this morning? That means we totally understand the operation of the internal combustion engine and know all about the mechanics of a car. Anyone?
How many of us, then, would continue to use anything that required electricity because we understand all about how that works?
How many of us would continue to eat...because we know exactly what's in everything we eat and how it was processed? (I don't think I even want to know!) And, now tell the truth..how many of us who are in relationships -- if we refused to accept anything we couldn't fully understand - would still be in relationships? Isn't it funny? We re willing to accept and include in our lives all kinds of things, everyday, that we don't really understand. And yet, when it comes to Jesus Christ, we let all the things we don't know override what we do know. Because we're full of questions, we sometimes just can't accept what Christ has to offer.
That was the case with Nicodemus. In our Gospel reading today (John 3:1-17) we heard about his secret visit to Jesus. Nicodetnus was a teacher and member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council. He had heard the talk about Jesus -- that He was the long awaited Messiah -- the anointed one from God who would bring salvation. He had seen the many miracles Jesus performed. He knew how people's lives were being transformed by their encounters with Jesus. He was very curious. So he went to ask some of his many questions of Jesus.
We all have a lot of questions when it comes to the things of God, don't we? This past Monday evening was the first session of our current Christian education series, "The Basics of Our Faith." The topic for the night was "God" -- that's about as basic as it gets! And, not surprisingly to me, there where lots of questions to discuss: Where did God come from? How can we explain the concept of eternity? What's the real deal with death? Why do so many people in the world have so little and suffer so much if God really loves us and provides for us?! I was quickly reminded how easy it is to let what we don't know about God draw our attention away from what we do know. Sometimes we spend so much energy and effort looking to explain God that we lose the ability to see God all around us. We easily become like the mice in the piano.
Imagine a family of mice who lived all their lives in a large piano. To them, in their piano-world, came the music of the instrument, filling all the dark spaces with sound and harmony. At first the mice were impressed by it. They drew comfort and wonder from the thought that there was Someone who made the music - though invisible to them -- above, yet close to them. They loved to think of the Great Player whom they couldn't see.
Then one day a daring mouse climbed up part ofthe piano and returned very thoughtful. He had found out how music was made. Wires were the secret; tightly stretched wires of graduated lengths which trembled and vibrated. They must revise all their old beliefs: none but the most conservative could believe in the Unseen Player any longer.
Later, another mouse explorer earned the explanation further. Hammers were the secret: numbers of hammers dancing and leaping on the wires. This was a more complicated theory, but it all went to show that they lived in a purely mechanical and mathematical world. The Unseen Player came to be thought of as a myth. But...the Pianist continued to play...even though the mice no longer paid attention.
We go looking for logical explanations about the things of God...and fail to see the evidence of God all around us. That's what Jesus tried to explain to Nicodemus. He said, essentially, "You don't know where the wind comes from or where it goes or how it works. But you can clearly see what happens when it blows around you. So it is with the things of the Spirit -- the things of God. When people accept the evidence of God then they have everything that really needs to be understood."
When it comes to accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior - our bridge-builder to God - many people are very skeptical...despite the obvious effects Jesus has on human lives. A construction worker, who had been addicted to drugs, accepted Jesus into his life and, gradually, found his whole existence changed. His co-workers - and former party buddies - did their best to try and make a fool of him. "Surely," they said, 'you can't believe in miracles and things like that. Surely you don't think, for instance, that Jesus turned water into wine! "I don't know," the man answered, "whether he turned water into wine when he was in Palestine, but I do know that in my house He's turned cocaine into furniture and food on the table."
Don't let the things you don't know undermine the things that you do know about God. The evidence of God is all around us: in creation, in other people, in circumstances and insights, in our hearts and in our spirits. The truth of Jesus Christ is something, that cannot be proven by logic. But, in fact, it is a simple truth, that faith alone can grasp and accept. That simple truth is presented in today's (gospel reading in what is nothing less than the absolute bottom-line of the entire Bible - John 3:16. "...God so loved the world as to give the Only Begotten One (that is, Jesus Christ), that whoever believes may not die, but have eternal life." It's that simple. In the midst of all we don't know...that we do know: God loves everyone of us on this earth, and if we will simply accept Jesus Christ, we will be forever reconnected to God. It's as simple as that.
Now I know. There are questions still. "Why Jesus? What about other faiths? Does God send people to hell...or do we choose separation from God by refusing to accept God's love for us? I believe in God but I'm just not sure about this Jesus thing' Aren't we all a bit like Nicodemus? Too busy asking questions to clearly hear any answers!
It's true that there are lots of spiritual paths in this world. But none makes the claims...or the promises...that Christianity makes. According to an old legend, a man became lost in his travels and wandered into a bed of quicksand. Confucius saw the man's predicament and said, "It is evident that people should stay out of places such as this." Next, Buddha observed the situation and said, "Let that person's plight be a lesson to the rest of the world." Then Muhammad came by and said to the sinking man, "Alas, it is the will of God." Finally, Jesus appeared. "Take my hand, friend," He said, "and I will save you."
James W. Sire wrote a book titled with the question, "Why Should Anyone Believe Anything At All?. His basic answer was this: "Put simply, the best reason for believing that the Christian religion is true is Jesus, and the best reason for believing in Jesus is Jesus himself. That may sound strange. How can Jesus be a reason?... Christianity, it turns out, is essentially about a person -- the person ofJesus. Christianity proclaims that God has been made known in many ways -- through the Hebrews, through the events of history, through the shape and form of the universe itself, through visions and personal encounters with God. But God has most supremely been made known in and through Jesus Christ."
This accepting and believing in Jesus? It ain't no chicken soup! It requires faith...trust..a willingness to live with not knowing everything. But don't let your "don'ts" outdo your "do's"! Remember: what we do know about God is far more important than all we don't know! And what we know, bottom line, is this: God loves us...and extends the hand of love to save us from drowning in the quicksand of life through Jesus Christ. Don't be afraid to take a deep breath and grab the hand that Christ extends to you! Amen.
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