If you have ever been annoyed or rude with a telemarketer, there is a true story you should hear:
In May 2002, Leonardo Diaz, a Colombian hiker, decided to do some serious mountain climbing with friends. Their goal was to reach the summit of the Nevado del Ruiz, a volcano in the Andes.
On the second day of the climb, a major blizzard hit. Diaz lost sight of his friends and became separated from them. Although not initially worried, the novice climber soon began to run out of rations and suffer from the bitter cold. Although he had his cell phone in his backpack, his pre-paid minutes had already expired. With no way to signal for help, Diaz realized he was not going to make it.
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council.
He came to Jesus at night and said, ?Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God.
For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.?
In reply Jesus declared, ?I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." - John 3:1-3
If you have ever been annoyed or rude with a telemarketer, there is a true story you should hear:
In May 2002, Leonardo Diaz, a Colombian hiker, decided to do some serious mountain climbing with friends. Their goal was to reach the summit of the Nevado del Ruiz, a volcano in the Andes.
On the second day of the climb, a major blizzard hit. Diaz lost sight of his friends and became separated from them. Although not initially worried, the novice climber soon began to run out of rations and suffer from the bitter cold. Although he had his cell phone in his backpack, his pre-paid minutes had already expired. With no way to signal for help, Diaz realized he was not going to make it.
As he lay in the frigid snow preparing to die, his cell phone rang. It was a phone solicitor in Bogot? wanting to know if Diaz was interested in purchasing more minutes!
"We called him to remind him that his cell phone was out of minutes," said Maria del Pilar Bastos of Bell South. "He said it was the work of an angel, because he was lost in the Andes."
Diaz described his location to the caller and asked that his family be notified so they could dispatch a rescue team. The Bell South operators, who could tell from the sound of his voice that hypothermia had already begun to set in, called Diaz every 30 minutes to keep him awake and to maintain his hope of survival. Seven hours later, rescuers arrived.1
What would otherwise have been considered a nuisance call had saved his life.
He knew he needed help. He was just surprised at the source.
In John chapter three we read what is perhaps one of the most familiar texts in the Bible.
A man named Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night and at the heart of that conversation is a voice and the words that are just as life saving as the voice on Leonardo Diaz's telephone.
A little bit of information about Nicodemus:
He is a pharisee. Pharisees were a group of men who dedicated themselves to the study of God's law and to living it in such a way as to set an example for everyone around them. They were scholars and for the most part, men of genuine character and reputation in the community. At least they had a reputation for being Godly. Jesus was scathing at times in his criticism of their sense of superiority and smugness. This was apparently not true of Nicodemus however. He seems to genuinely be a humble man in search of truth. Furthermore, he is on the Sanhedrin, the equivalent of the Jewish Supreme Court. He is a scholar, teacher and a man of significant authority and standing.
He comes at night. This could have been so that he could come without being noticed, or it could be that he knew this was the only time he would get Jesus alone long enough to have an extended conversation. This reminds me a bit of a smaller town, though Jerusalem was not a small town. In a smaller town, you could not do much out your ordinary pattern without it hitting someone's radar. So it was difficult to make changes in your life without it pretty much being public information.
Perhaps Nicodemus just isn't interested in being under a public microscope.
Whatever his reason, he comes to Jesus in search of something.
The conversation is interesting.
Nicodemus begins in a polite and affirming tone. He says, "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher come from God. No one could do the signs you do if God were not with him." He is conceding to Jesus that he is clearly a teacher from God.
But as is often the case, Jesus turns the tables on him. He is not interested in a debate or discussion around his own credentials. In other words, regardless of what Nicodemus thinks of him, he is not about to let the conversation be about sizing up Jesus.
Instead he in effect says, "It is you who need to determine whether God is with you or not."
It's not about my credentials
Its about your destiny.
Furthermore, your destiny can only be assured with a total make-over. There is no sense thinking you can do a spiritual tune-up, you need a radical makeover.
It is interesting if you look at the language used by the two of them, one recurring word in particular...the word, "can".
The word we translate as "can" is the Greek word, dunamai which also means "power". It is the root for our words, "dynamo" and "dynamite".
Lets summarize the conversation just focusing on that single word.
Nicodemus: "Rabbi, we know you can."
Jesus: "But you cannot."
Nicodemus: "How can I?"
Jesus: "Man cannot, but God can."
Nicodemus: "How can this be?"
Jesus is telling Nicodemus that in order for him to be on the right path he needs to be born again.
We assume that this is a modern term and that Nicodemus would not have been familiar with it. Not so.
A convert to Judaism was said to have been born again. In fact the conversion was said to be so total the person had a whole new human identity. In what must have been tongue in cheek, it was even said the transformation was so complete, a convert could even marry his sister. No doubt that was a big selling point.
I was rereading a favorite book of mine, The Call to Conversion, by Jim Wallis. It was written in 1981, but sounds as contemporary as today's newspaper:
The times in which we live cry out for our conversion. The vast majority of the world's people is virtually imprisoned in poverty while an affluent minority is plagued with anxiety... Everywhere we look the value of human life seems to be steadily diminishing. A spirit of fearful insecurity and mass resignation abounds...We have become alienated from the poor, from the earth, from the survival of future generations, and at root, from God....Crisis has become a word to describe our whole way of life... Politicians unable to change the momentum or face the hard choices, are reduced to boosting national morale while defending the status quo. Similarly, individual self-improvement, education, and gradual social reform are all old solutions that seem unable to save us now. Repair in the road is no longer helpful if we are all heading in the wrong direction.2
Jim Wallis is calling for a radical transformation based on the gospel at an individual and community level.
Jesus is saying that such a transformation is only possible through the Spirit of God.
We labor trying to keep our ducks in a row and be the best person we can, and those are all worthwhile, but they will not address the most significant issue. Jim Wallis says there is no point repairing or beautifying the road if its going in the wrong direction. A similar and useful analogy is to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
Jesus is saying that the fundamental issue of humanity and human affairs is its alienation from God.
All the social evils we see stem from that basic issue. A bad plant cannot produce good fruit.
What needs to happen in Nicodemus' life, in your life and in the life of our world is a transformation at the heart.
And we have neither the built in road map or the power to achieve it.
As Jesus says, with man it is impossible.
But with God, there is the power.
The answer for our country and our community is the transforming power of God.
But how can you transform a community or a nation?
I know it sounds unlikely, but it can be done. It has been done.
In 1904 a young man named Evan Roberts made a trip back to his hometown of Loughor Wales to seek permission to lead special church services. The minister agreed and out of his unpretentious meetings, God set all of Wales on fire with a spiritual transformation that touched every nook and cranny of that nation for a generation3. It is estimated that 100,000 lives had been changed.
The movement went like a tidal wave over Wales, in five months there being a hundred thousand people converted throughout the country. Five years later, Dr J. V. Morgan wrote a book to debunk the revival, his main criticism being that, of a hundred thousand joining the churches in five months of excitement, after five years only seventy-five thousand still stood in the membership of those churches!
The social impact was astounding. For example, judges were presented with white gloves, not a case to try; no robberies, no burglaries, no rapes, no murders, and no embezzlements, nothing. District councils held emergency meetings to discuss what to do with the police now that they were unemployed. In one place the sergeant of police was sent for and asked, 'What do you do with your time?' He replied, 'Before the revival, we had two main jobs, to prevent crime and to control crowds, as at football games. Since the revival started there is practically no crime. So we just go with the crowds.'
A councilor asked, 'What does that mean?' The sergeant replied, 'You know where the crowds are. They are packing out the churches.' 'But how does that affect the police?' He was told, 'We have seventeen police in our station, but we have three quartets, and if any church wants a quartet to sing, they simply call the police station.'
As the revival swept Wales, drunkenness was cut in half. There was a wave of bankruptcies, but nearly all taverns. There was even a slowdown in the mines, for so many Welsh coal miners were converted and stopped using bad language that the horses that dragged the coal trucks in the mines could not understand what was being said to them. That revival also affected sexual moral standards. I had discovered through the figures given by British government experts that in Radnorshire and Merionethshire the illegitimate birth rate had dropped 44% within a year of the beginning of the revival.4
Jesus said, "you must be born again.""How can I?" says Nicodemus
Jesus says, "with man it is impossible, but with God all is possible".
The answer is to turn to God, which was what Jesus message was all about.
Here is what Evan Roberts taught the people. It is very simple.
- You must confess any known sin to God and put any wrong done to others right.
- Second, you must put away any doubtful habit.
- Third, you must obey the Spirit promptly.
- Finally, you must confess your faith in Christ publicly.
- You must confess any known sin to God and put any wrong done to others right.
- Second, you must put away any doubtful habit.
- Third, you must obey the Spirit promptly.
- Finally, you must confess your faith in Christ publicly.
It means saying no to our agendas and laying aside what we know is wrong.
It means asking for forgiveness and God's new life of the spirit.
It means following God's plan instead of our own.
And that can change the world, certainly it will change your world as you know it.
You cannot do it, but with God all is possible.
Ask Him.
Dr. Harold McNabb
West Shore Presbyterian Church
Victoria, British Columbia
Notes
1.Margarita Martinez, "Courtesy Call That Saved a Dying Climber on the Andes", SundayHerald,6-30-02
2. Jim Wallis, The Call to Conversion, Harper and Row, 1981, p.xi-xii
3. A review of the work of Evan Roberts can be seen online.
4. J. Edwin Orr, The Role of Prayer in Spiritual Awakening, can be seen online.