Even in a time when many people don't know much about the Bible, there's a verse that a lot of people know by heart - and don't even have to recite it - just using the reference will do: "John 3:16" 
It suggests the heart of the Christian message, summarizing what God did in, and through, Jesus. 
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life" - it's the Gospel, or Good News, in a nutshell.
Today, on this Second Sunday of Lent, we’ll go deeper into this familiar passage from John. 
To do that, we have to go on a journey into the distant past - all the way back to the book of Numbers. 
The people are in the Sinai desert, less-than-whole-heartedly following Moses on a circuitous trek, out of slavery, toward the land that God has promised to them. 
Moses' rag-tag band of pilgrims have begun to "murmur" - complaining about the hard life of the desert.
This strange, God-given diet of manna and quail, and the uncertainty of their serpentine route.
Serpentine in more ways than one, for here, in the ninth chapter of Numbers, somewhere out in this seemingly God-forsaken desert, there’s a plague of poisonous snakes and people were beginning to die. 
So they went to Moses, suspecting that the snakes were some kind of divine retribution for all their complaining, and asked Moses to intercede for them with God, which he did.
In response, God tells Moses to fashion a serpent of bronze, put it on a pole, telling him that if any of the people are bitten by a poisonous snake, they should gaze at the bronze serpent and they will be healed. 
Interesting, isn't it?  Look at a snake and be healed of snakebite. 
And God’s suggestion actually worked, because those who had been bitten, then gazed at the bronze serpent that Moses had made, were healed - it was a miracle. Was that the end of the story?  Maybe not.

In the book of 2 Kings, Chapter 18, we read that for 500 years after Moses, we haven't heard another word about this bronze serpent. 
Now the people have been settled in for some time in the Promised Land, where they had decided they needed to have kings - like other nations. 

Many of those kings were disappointing and corrupt, but one king came along who was different. 
His name was Hezekiah, and he cleaned things up in the land, including “cutting down the sacred pole." 
In effect, what he did was destroy the pagan worship places, which had cropped up around the land. 
And then we read this:  "He broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it - they called it Nehushtan."

Five hundred years after Moses had made the bronze serpent as a means of healing the people, they still had it - and it had become an idol - what had been a means to an end, had become an end in itself! 
Instead of pointing toward the God who had ordered it made, it pointed toward itself - and the people worshiped the serpent, instead of the God to whom it was supposed to point, and they’d even named it! 
I wonder what the people's reaction was, when King Hezekiah smashed that five-hundred-year-old bronze serpent - after all, it was made by Moses himself, a precious antique, a part of the nation's history. 
The Old Testament passages about the bronze serpent illustrates a necessary point. 
What had been helpful and healing in one era had become an idol in another. 
I can't help but wonder: how many things in the life of our churches used to be helpful and healing but have outlived their usefulness and how many old traditions have we turned into idols? 
There’s much discussion these days about the church's failure to attract and engage young adults. 
The latest Bureau of Statistics census shows that the most rapid growth in religious following is among the "Nones" - that is, those who answer the question of religious affiliation as "None." 
We can't help but wonder if those who try our churches find us gathered around various prized bronze serpents - that we should have smashed long ago. 
I have been involved in churches for most of my life and I must confess that I’ve been exposed to many such serpents, but we must challenge ourselves to ask which among these objects are no longer helpful. 
What means to an end have we turned into ends in themselves? 

Good King Hezekiah smashed the bronze serpent, in spite of what I'm sure were numerous complaints from the Hebrew Historical Architectural Review Board and he proved to be an example of reform.
So, are we done with our serpentine ancestry? 
Have we seen the last of the bronze serpent? 
Not quite. 
In today’s Gospel reading, we find Jesus, the Messiah, visited by Nicodemus, under the light of a candle. 
Nicodemus, a respected member of the Sanhedrin, the religious leaders of Jerusalem, comes to Jesus under cover of night to quiz Jesus on a few theological points.
I’m sure Nicodemus was a genuine seeker, who had urgent and searching questions of the master rabbi.
So now we hear Nicodemus, his voice in whispered tones: "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do, apart from the presence of God." 
"You must be born from above," Jesus says; but Nicodemus misunderstands him. 
The Hebrew words can be taken another way, Nicodemus hears, "You must be born again." 
“What”, he asks, “you mean I have to go back into my mother's womb and be born all over again?” 
“No”, says Jesus, “you need to be born on two levels - water and spirit - you must be born from above!”
Jesus was trying to lift the eyes of this religious leader to take in higher things, so that he might begin to see his life from a spiritual perspective. 
Jesus tells Nicodemus that he "must be born of water and spirit." 
Lift up your eyes, Nicodemus!  "If I’ve told you about earthly things and you don’t believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?" 

So here it comes. 
You know the words of John 3:16, "God so loved the world." 
But how well do you know John 3:13-15, the verses that come just before it? 
It says:  "No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man (i.e. Jesus).  And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him will have eternal life." 
Here it is!  The bronze serpent has come back in the New Testament, in today’s gospel reading! 
That old bronze serpent - made by Moses and smashed by King Hezekiah - has come back at the end of this serpentine story. 
Jesus is not saying that a serpent on a pole can heal you; he’s saying that, just as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness to heal, so he, Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, must be lifted up on a cross to save us. 
You must lift up your eyes, Nicodemus!  You must be born from above. 
You must discover the incredible world of the Spirit.  And if nothing else will lift up your eyes and your heart, then the sight of me will lift them up.
And then this great, final word in verse 17: "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."
Maybe you've been in church all your life. 
Maybe you're a census ticking "None", with no affiliation. 
Maybe you're a seeker like Nicodemus, checking Jesus out under the cover of night. 
Whoever you are, remember this: he didn’t come to condemn you, but to save you and give you life. 
In Jesus we find new life.

So lift up your eyes. 
Lift up your hearts. 

The story has come to this:  "For God so loved the world"
and because of that, we can live new lives in Christ.      

Pastor Rick

It must have been very difficult for Jesus to accept the challenge of going into the wilderness and fasting for forty days and nights, but he was convinced that the way to true life, for him, was to live within those limits.  
After he spent time pondering who he was being called to be, and how he would live out that call, he found himself under temptation - tempted to use his gifts just for himself - to turn stones into bread to eat.
But he knew his gifts were given so that he could be a blessing to others, and that God would provide for him. 
He was tempted to test God and to deny his identity as Son of God by worshipping the devil, but Jesus knew that his real life was to be found as a child of God, living within the limits of what God had called him to be and to do.
I’m suggesting to you that the worst temptation for a believer today may be the same one which Jesus faced when he spent his forty days in the wilderness.
Did I say the one (1) temptation?
Yes, I certainly did, however the alert among you will remind me that Jesus endured not one temptation, but three:
To turn stones into bread, to leap from the tower of the temple and to worship the devil and rule the world.
You’re right in that those three things are mentioned in today’s Gospel story about our Lord’s temptation, but what I’m suggesting to you is that those three things are all about just one temptation.
 
However, before I expand on my suggestion, I’ll put it to you that if the temptations of Jesus revolve around turning stones into bread, jumping from a tower and ruling the world, then his temptations are rather exotic compared with mine; and, I suspect, compared with yours.
 
For example: a police officer, faced with the lure of a large bribe, wouldn’t relate to any of Jesus’ temptations.
Nor would a nurse, who was being pressured to cover up some medical malpractice, upon which they had stumbled. Nor would the Christian, who was tempted to deny their faith in order to be popular with work mates.
I’ve never been asked to turn stones into bread, jump from a temple, nor bow down to the devil and rule the world.
Our temptations are more of a common, home-grown variety.
 
So, let’s look at what happened to Jesus in the wilderness.
The clue, I believe, is in that little word “if” which occurs in the first two episodes.
The ‘if’ calls Jesus’ faith in to question; his belief that he is the Son of God.
 
The Tempter came and said to him: If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.
The barb of the temptation is in the “if”.
This taunt lays siege to the very basis of Christ’s faith in his status as the Son of God. Doubt is the issue.
Remember that this temptation followed directly on from John’s baptism of Jesus, when the Spirit rested on Jesus and the heavenly voice said: This is my dearest Son, with whom I am very pleased. Was that voice real?
Was his faith real? Jesus is now being tempted to prove his faith, instead of simply trusting God.
 
Then the devil took him to the holy city, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him: If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written ‘He will command his angels concerning you.... so that you will not dash your foot against the stone’. Once more the crux of the temptation is hidden in the insidious little “if”.
If you really are the Son of God, jump off. Prove yourself as the Son of God - perform a mighty miracle.
Again, the temptation strikes at the faith of Jesus; calls it into doubt - are you really the Child of God?
 
The next is more complex, but I see it as hinging on the same point. Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour; and he said to him: ‘All these things I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’
The devil argues: Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you, Jesus, could rule the whole world.  Face it Jesus, you’re not God’s child, but mine. Your faith is unreal.
 
There’s one temptation at the core of each episode and it’s one of a faith crisis.
Jesus is tempted to doubt his status as God’s true child.
 
Today we’re tempted by those who tell us that we can have anything we want, be anyone we want to be, live life without limits and that, they say, is the way to real life.  
Well, it wasn’t in the time of Jesus, and it isn’t now.  
No one has ever become an athlete, like the current Winter Olympians, without the discipline of training;
no one becomes good at a profession without the discipline of study and experience.  
No one has a happy marriage and family life without accepting the constraints of a commitment to each other.
 
Does this situation sound familiar to you?
A nagging inner voice addresses you personally: “If you really are a Christian, why can’t you feed all the hungry people of the world, do more for the street kids, or do much more to help the alcoholics and drug addicts?
If you truly are a Christian, you should be achieving greater things than you are.”
 
Maybe it’s another variation on the theme “If you really are a child of God, as the Bible says, why haven’t you, and your fellow children of God, done more to bring justice and peace to the world, or peace to the divided churches?
If you truly are God’s child, there should be much more reconciliation around.
 
In each of these cases we’re taunted in a way which hits at our faith, the core of our religion.
It strikes at our status as those who follow Christ Jesus. 
The Tempter says: As a Christian, as a saved person, as a child of God - prove your status.
 The moment we fall for this temptation, we’re in big trouble.
If we begin to doubt our God-given status, the devil can walk us into a quagmire of guilt, frustration, and finally into the depths of faithless despair.
 
Our Christian status is a gift from God, not something we need to prove, or could ever earn. Jesus knew himself as God’s son by the word of God, not by his own works.
In his desert temptation, again and again he turns to the Scriptures in answer to the devil. In order to know himself as God’s child, he doesn’t have to turn stones into bread, or perform dramatic signs like jumping from the temple tower, or by ruling the world - No - he just has to have faith, to trust the God whom he calls Father.
 
As Paul put it: By God’s grace you are saved, through faith. This faith is not your work but it is a gift from God.
God loves us in Christ Jesus and names us his children.
That’s all that ultimately matters, God’s love, outpoured to the uttermost on the Cross, not our smidgin of love and good works, not our performance, that counts – it’s God’s gift.
 
Jesus tells us that God’s plan for us is that we might have life - and have it more abundantly.
But that life only comes when we accept the limits God gives to us.  
 
So maybe that’s what Lent is all about – setting some limits, being more open to the life God has for us.
Instead of just patting ourselves on the back because we’ve given up chocolate, coffee, or some other favourite thing, for the 40 days of Lent, why don’t we think about Lent as a time of preparation for a more difficult tomorrow?
After all, that’s what Jesus was doing, as he set his sights on Jerusalem and the passion that He was about to endure.
 
Because of his sacrifice, we don’t have to endure the same agony.
But we should be preparing ourselves to resist the temptations.
By prayer, reading of the Bible and earnest discussions with other Christians, in an attempt to discover what its words mean for us in our temptations today.
 
Yes, it’s tempting to just kick back and relax, but do you think that’s what God would want you to do?
 
Instead of just switching our brains off and watching television this afternoon, maybe we should take the time to read through the Bible readings set down for this week and ask God to enlighten us as to how their messages are relevant in today’s hustle and bustle.
 
Then focus less on the concept of giving things up during Lent and more on what we can do with the extra time and/or money we now have.

​Pastor Rick

This story from the Gospel of Matthew, almost defies interpretation - although that hasn’t stopped legions of interpreters from trying over the past two millennia. 
It’s the story of a quite mystical encounter, not only between God and his beloved Son, but also between those at the centre of the story (Jesus, Moses and Elijah) and those who watch (the disciples Peter, James and John). 
Many of us are left labouring under the illusion that it’s our job to figure out what the story actually means.
But is it just that the story itself is a suitcase for conveying the meaning that’s inside of it. 
By discerning the content of the story, we don’t have to go rummaging around every time it comes up. 
In this case, the most commonly decoded message is that Moses represents the Law, Elijah stands for the Prophets, and Jesus, of course, is the Messiah. 
By singling Jesus out as "my Son, the Beloved," God sets the gospel above the law and the prophets. 
Listen to him, says the voice from the cloud. 
 
But there appear to be two auxiliary meanings in the passage as well - one about how it’s better to keep your mouth shut in the presence of the holy one, than blurt things out like Peter does - and another about how the purpose of such an experience is to strengthen us for the climb back down into the valley, where our real work is to be done.  
 
Those are exactly the meanings that Jesus, Matthew, or God meant for us to get from the story; but it's important to note that the passage itself, doesn’t say any of those things. 
Instead, it describes something so far beyond ordinary human experience, that most of us are perfectly content to watch it from afar. 
 
It starts with a long climb up to the top of a windy mountain, in the fading light of day, looking for a good place to pray - no talking amongst them. 
We sit down with them and we’re here to pray, so we get on with it, praying until we’re weighed down with sleep. 
We pray until it’s dark, although we see some light through our eyelids - where light shouldn’t be.  
We don't really want to open our eyes to see where the light’s coming from, and we aren't even sure if we should - but then we decide to take a peek.
And there he is: someone we thought we knew well, standing there - pulsing with light, leaking light everywhere. 
His face like a flame and his clothes dazzling white. 
Then, as if that weren't enough, two other people are there with him, all of them standing in that same bright light. 
Who are they?   No, it can't be.   Moses?   Elijah?  Are they dead men who’ve come back to life? 
No, it’s God's own glory, lighting up the night…..  and now they're leaving. 
Peter's babbling on about something - tents, he's saying, we need tents.  
Now there's a cloud coming in fast, and its way more than just a weather event - it’s a terrifying cloud – so alive. 
Cutting Peter off, covering everything up - smells like a lightning strike - and we can't see a thing.
Then a voice from the cloud lifts the hairs on the back of our necks. 
Fear - so fast and primitive, that we're bristling like a dog. 
What's the voice saying?  Not "listen to me" but "listen to him." 
Who is him?    Well, it’s the Son, the Beloved One, Jesus. 
But listen to what?   He's not saying anything.   He's just shining. 
Or at least he was.   But now he's not.   Now it's over.   What happens now?
 
If anything, even remotely that strange, has ever happened to you, then you’ll know why Peter, James and John were relieved when Jesus told them to keep what had happened to themselves. 
Supernatural light, famous people coming back from the dead, God talking from inside a cloud. 
Things like these may happen in Bible stories, but try relating a personal experience like this to others and they’re likely to refer you to a good psychiatrist. 
 
Once we emerge from the cloud, we’re supposed to be surer than ever about what we believe. 
We’re supposed to know who's who, what's what, where we’re going in our lives and why. 
We’re supposed to have answers to all the important questions, and when we read the bible, we’re supposed to know exactly what it means. 


But what if the point is not to decode the cloud, but to enter into it? 
What if the whole Bible is less a book of certainties, than it is a book of encounters, in which a staggeringly long parade of people run into God, and are never the same again? 
I mean, what situation don't people run into in the Bible? 
Not just terrifying clouds and hair-raising voices, but also crazy relatives, persistent infertility, armed enemies, pillars of salt and deep depression, along with life-saving strangers, miraculous children, food in the wilderness, and move.
 
Whether such biblical encounters are called "good" or "bad," they have a way of breaking biblical people open, of rearranging what they think they’re sure of, so that there’s room for more divine movement in their lives. 
Sometimes, the movement involves traveling from one place to another. 
Sometimes, it means changing their perspective on what’s true and why. 


Certainties can become casualties in these encounters, or at least those certainties that involve clinging to static notions of who's who and what's what, where you are going in your life and why. 
Those things can shift pretty dramatically inside the cloud of unknowing, where faith has more to do with staying fully present to what is happening right in front of us, than with being certain of what it all means. 
The meeting - that's the important thing.
The Bible calls it "God's glory" - the shining cloud that is the sure sign of God's presence. 
 
In the Book of Exodus, when Moses climbed Mt. Sinai to fetch the tablets of the law, the whole top of the mountain stayed covered by a divine cloud cover for six whole days. 
In 1 Kings, when Solomon dedicated the Temple in Jerusalem, a dense cloud filled up that huge place so that the priests could not even see what they were supposed to be doing.  
When Ezekiel had his vision of the four living creatures, he saw them in the middle of "a great cloud with brightness around it and fire flashing forth continually."
Whether, or not, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. saw a dazzling cloud before he wrote his famous “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech, I’m not sure.
He spoke those words just one day before he was assassinated in 1968.
In the speech, he paraphrases the words of the bible, saying that he has seen the Promised Land.
He also alludes to the fact that he may soon be killed, but that, with God by his side, he has nothing to fear.
Even Jesus only seems to have had two experiences like this – once at his baptism, when the cloud and the dove alighted on him, giving him encouragement and strength as he began his ministry, and in this story - on the mountain - to help him turn his face towards Jerusalem and the fate that he knew waited for him there, encouraged by two of the greats of Israel - Moses and Elijah.
 
I wish I could say that we’ll have this sort of experience every time we come to worship before God, but I’m fairly sure that we won’t.
God grants us this sort of experience rarely, and, even then, only to prepare us for especially difficult times ahead. 
We can’t stay on the mountaintop forever – we have to go down into the valleys to do his work.
What we do have, is the chance to follow what the voice from the heaven speaks to disciples: “Listen to him.”
Listen to Jesus, hearing his words of truth and grace and thinking about how we can follow them today.  


Lent, which begins this coming week on Ash Wednesday, calls us to rediscover our spirituality.
To be, to quit our frantic babbling and just pay attention.
To consider who we are, even apart from whose we are, in our baptism.
 
We are God's precious children, forgiven, loved, held, gifted and called - sent to do God's work in the world.
If we don't get the "being" part, then the “doing” will only be chaotic, frustrated attempts at self-justification, or else grounded in fear and devoid of any joy.
If all that we’re doing seems mad and pointless, we need to re-learn the mystery and enter a quiet place of awe.
 
There’ll be more than ample opportunity to live out our call to discipleship, to taking up our own cross.
But, in order to be able to do that, at least for now, it’s ok to just sit there quietly and let it all flow over us!           

​Pastor Rick

​Salt and light are fairly ordinary items to us today, but you might have looked on them differently if you’d lived a few thousand years ago in Israel.
No refrigeration meant that their meat had to be salted to keep it for more than a day or two.
And once the sun went down, you only had dull candles and oil lamps by which to see.
Jesus said to his followers:
“You are the salt of the earth!     You are the light of the world!” 
 
I’m sure he wasn’t talking about white granular crystals falling out of the disciples’ clothes as they walked around, or physical light, like a torch, beaming from their faces, but it was more about their presence flavouring the environment in which they lived and a personal light; the light of faith, hope and love. 
The very light of God within us and radiating from us.  
 
But wait a minute, did he say that we are the salt and light of the world? 
That’s a pretty big call to make, because surely, we can’t be that important, can we?
 
As we read in Paul’s words to the fledgling Corinthian church, we know that gifts such as these come from God, not man, and are bestowed on us through the Holy Spirit.
“Let your light so shine before others, that they may see your good deeds, and give glory to God in heaven.” Well, does the light shine through us?   
Do we add flavour to the lives of others, and do our lives give glory to God?
  
I’m not trying to verbally box anyone about the ears with accusations about their failure to be the light of the world. I’d just like to gently kick start you into freely doing more “Christian” things. 
(in the middle east the word: “Christ-ian”, meant of the family of Christ, or Christ-like).
 
I’m pretty sure that you, like me, have plenty of room for improvement in our lives. 
No, I’m not seeking to take any of us on a guilt trip. 
There’s a much healthier and more faithful direction for us to go when reading this message.
 
What Jesus actually said to his followers was: “You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.”   
You are - you are now - not you could be or should be. 
Not - tidy up your act, stiffen your backbones and commence trying.  
Not - maybe in ten years’ time, or if you work very hard, perhaps even by the end of the year.
 
What our Lord said was more immediate, more of a gob-smacking surprise. 
“By trusting the unexpected, un-earnable, grace of God, as it flows to you through these words, you are, right now, the salt and light of the world.”
Though it’s not really our salt and light, but his, and it’s not by any of our strenuous efforts, but by the pure grace of God.
 
Jesus must have been a bit like pepper up the noses of the religious authorities in ancient Israel. 
They taught: “If you keep all the laws and regulations of the Old Testament and observe the additional 613 by-laws that our rabbis have added - for your own good, of course. If you ritually wash and purify yourself each day, if you make the requisite sacrifices at the temple, and avoid any contact or fellowship with the despicable non-Jews, then.... just maybe, you may begin to be a little light in the darkness of the world.”
 
Not so with Jesus, whose only requirement was for us to accept the freely given gift of love that God offers. 
Simply to come as we are and just open our windows to the light, allowing it to touch even the dusty corners of our hearts and souls.  
Then, without any question, will we show that we truly are the light of the world.
 
The salt and light of God are gifts to be lovingly accepted and cherished - then freely shared with others.
We might doubt that we’re capable of achieving this, but I can attest that we ARE all able to do whatever God asks of us.
 
Friends, take courage, for this isn’t a silly claim of mine, but the claim of Jesus, of whom it was said: “He knew what was in the heart of men.” 
As long as our lives remain open to his Spirit, we shall be, in spite of our confounded defects, the salt and light of the world.
 
The tiny bits of faith, hope and love that the grace of God has sown in our mind and heart, qualify us to be the bearers of the word of Christ Jesus – the Gospel.
 
For God’s sake, and for the sake of those around you, have more faith in the gift. 
Don’t fall into the temptation of despising yourself and giving up. 
After all, it’s God’s salt and God’s light, not your failings, that count. 
 
Never yield to despair - Christ is always greater than your darkness. 
Christians like Peter, John, and Paul, Mary and Martha; and many other notable disciples, all had their failures on a grand scale, yet they were indeed beacons in a dark world.
 
There’s only one thing that can prevent the light of Christ from shining through us and that’s if we choose to hide it. 
 
To be a secret Christian is not a valid option - we need to share it or lose it. 
God won’t ever withdraw the light, but because he gave us free will, we could choose to cover it up.
 
Should we choose to do this, maybe like putting a bucket over a candle, then the light, starved of oxygen, will decline to a flicker, then degenerate to acrid smoke, smoulder a while and then grow cold.
We have to choose - do we want to put out God’s light?
 
The grace of God comes to us, undiluted and free. 
But, like that forsaken man hanging on the cross, grace is not impervious to human rejection.
 
So would you rather be a strong, salty taste, or a pale, insipid, tasteless being?  
A bright light, shining for God, or a tiny candle, tucked safely under a bucket, who’s about to be snuffed out when the oxygen runs out.
 
Keep your saltiness pure and beam your light into the world. 
Get out there and tell others about the gospel of Jesus and then you truly will be the salt and light of God.
Pastor Rick