Isaiah 6:1-8
When I was a freshman in college, I answered
a knock on my door one evening and met three young women I had never seen
before. They lived a few flights up in
my dorm and they were making the rounds on behalf of salvation. They smiled
warmly and spoke in gentle voices and invited me to participate in a weekly
bible study they were holding in their room. I didn’t even need to think about
it; I said yes. It was like God had opened the door and said here you go.
I went to the bible study, and at
first it was very nice. These young women radiated warmth and love, and I
appreciated the things I was learning. But then suddenly one day it changed.
We were in our usual space, sitting on
the floor together reading the scriptures and then the leader turned to me and
asked me when I had been saved. I didn’t know how to answer that question. I
was a Lutheran, we didn’t talk that way. When was I saved? What an absurd
question. But when it became clear I didn’t have the answer, they pounced.
It was imperative for me to be born
again, they told me. And if I were
born again, I would know that I had been born again. There was no gray area in
this business of being saved. I either was or I wasn’t. They were telling me
that it was becoming pretty clear that I wasn’t. They told me that if I did not
accept Jesus and be born again, I was most certainly going to hell. They said
this in the sweetest way imaginable.
I left there in tears that evening, in
fear and confusion. Because I had loved Jesus all my life. I had been taught
that I am saved by grace alone, through faith alone. There was nothing I needed
to do to earn it; indeed, there was nothing I could do to make it happen. God had already done this amazing work
through Christ’s death and resurrection. I didn’t think a born-again experience
was going to happen to me, and I knew I couldn’t fake it. Yet the certainty of
these girls unsettled me, and I was afraid.
I understand why Nicodemus was disturbed
by this talk of being born again. Because, to him that night, it seemed quite
impossible. How can a grown man go back into his mother’s womb? How can anyone
be born a second time?
Nicodemus got stuck on a few of Jesus’
words and couldn’t get unstuck. “How can this be?” he says. It’s possible
Nicodemus didn’t even hear anything Jesus said after that. He seems to fade
away into the night.
How can this be? Well, I could ask
that question about a whole host of things, particularly on Trinity Sunday.
When I think about Isaiah and the Seraphs, and the Lord God upon a throne
before him. When I think about that live coal being pressed to his lips. When I
think about the Spirit of God blowing where it will blow and somehow touching
us, enabling us to be born from above, as Jesus says, I wonder: How can this
be?
When I think about God loving the
world so much that God gave his only Son so that we may not perish but may have
eternal life. That God sent the Son not to condemn the world but that the world
might be saved through him, I wonder: How can this be?
I don’t have the answer to these
questions.
When I think about the words of the
scripture saying that God sent the Son for us and for our salvation, and that
the Son sent the Spirit, whom he calls the Advocate, so that we would not be
alone, I do wonder – how can this be? When I ponder the presence of God as
creator of all things, the one who was present before the beginning of time,
making beauty and meaning out of chaos, I wonder – how can this be? When I
consider God as being incarnate, born of flesh to live and teach and heal and
die for our sake to overcome death for us all, I do wonder – how can this be?
When I think of God being present in our midst now, as Spirit, intangible,
elusive, but powerful, I wonder – how can this be?
I don’t know how this can be. These
are strange and mysterious gifts. And it is certainly not for us to determine
how and when these gifts are received. Nicodemus walked away into the night
without an answer to his question, just as lost as he had been before. He
didn’t receive what he had come for, what he had asked for.
Isaiah didn’t ask for the gift that
was given to him. As far as we know, he wasn’t asking for anything at the time.
He was just minding his own business when the Lord and the heavenly entourage
appeared before him, calling out to one another with words of praise, filling
the room with smoke and noise and trembling. A seraph touched a burning coal to
Isaiah’s lips and said, “Your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.”
He didn’t ask for this gift.
The wind blows where it chooses; you
do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with the Spirit of
God.
Isaiah did not ask for this gift, but
the gift chose him. And when the Lord called out, “Whom shall I send?” Isaiah
said, “Here I am; send me.”
The Spirit blows where she will and
how she will. And I wonder: Did the Spirit blow on Nicodemus? It didn’t seem
so, as he skulked away into the shadows. But here is something else we should
know about Nic.
Sometime later, in Chapter 7, we read
that Jesus goes to the temple in Jerusalem and begins teaching, saying some
very provocative things. The Pharisees watching become very agitated and want
to have him arrested. But Nicodemus, who is himself a Pharisee, speaks up. We
have not heard him speak since he said, “How can this be,” but now he speaks to
the gathered Pharisees to urge restraint on them. Nothing bad happened that
day, and perhaps it was because of Nicodemus’s words.
Again, Nicodemus disappears. We hear
nothing more about him – until after Jesus is crucified. In Chapter 19, there
is a man named Joseph who asks permission to take his body down from the cross.
He arranges to have it taken to a tomb. And Nicodemus, who first came to Jesus
under cover of darkness, brings a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloe to give his
body a proper burial.
Did the Spirit blow over Nicodemus?
Perhaps. We don’t control how any of this works.
So often it seems that the Spirit
blows over us, surprising us, and moving us in a new direction – a direction of
service, a direction of forbearance, a direction of love. Sometimes the earth
shakes and the angels cry out and the Lord says, “Whom shall I send?” Maybe
looking right at you when he asks the question. And you answer, “Send me!” and
everything is changed.
Sometimes, you get blinded by the
light on the road to Damascus like Paul did. And then you hear Jesus speaking
to you. And everything is changed.
But other times there are gentle
brushes – or nudges. Sometimes there are moments
of confusion or surprise … questions that won’t let go – until the moment when
you know you have to answer. Like Nicodemus when he spoke to the Pharisees in a
critical moment; when he came to the grave bearing compassion and a lavish
supply of myrrh and aloe.
The gifts of the Spirit are strange
gifts. But somehow, they empower us to do the work of God in this world, which
we know from the words of John chapter three, is the work of love.
I never had the kind of born-again
experience that those girls in my college dorm wanted me to have. But I know
that, in the years since then, the Spirit has worked in surprising and powerful
ways in my life. No Seraphim and burning coals. Sometimes more questions than
answers. Perhaps I am more like Nicodemus than Isaiah.
The gifts of the Spirit are strange,
indeed. Let us be grateful for these strange gifts that empower us to do God’s
work on earth.
Let us be grateful for those who stand
up and say, “Here I am; send me.”
Let each of us listen for the call of
love in our lives.
Photo by Helena Hertz on Unsplash
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