Do You Believe?

The man who had been blind all his life, received his sight, but lost his community. Blind from birth, he used to sit and beg. One day a man called Jesus, spread something on his eyes and told him to go and wash it off in the pool. When he washed his eyes he was able to see. He went home and his parents were amazed. Then he went around town, meeting voices he knew and seeing faces he had never seen. People could hardly believe it was the same man; not surprising because the facial expressions of people who can't see change when they do see.

The priests ordered him not to credit his recovery to the man called Jesus, because, said the priests, "We know he is a sinner."
"That's strange," replied the man, I have never heard that God would give the power to open the eyes of blind people, to a sinner."
Exasperated, the priests ordered him out of the place and announced that he was expelled. People feared being seen with him, because their law said they were not to mix with people who had been expelled from their society. Even his parents were nervous in case the priests expelled them too. He had received his sight but lost his friends. Much like to-day, when a person from certain religious societies believes that Jesus is God, that person shocks their family, and becomes unacceptable in society.

Sighted but alone the man wondered around town, seeing the hasty turning away of people whose voices he knew, and feeling the snubs of those who avoided meeting him. Jesus heard that he had been expelled and did what Jesus does: he went looking for him.

When they were sitting together, Jesus asked, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"
"Tell me who he is," said the man who remembered voices, "and I will believe in him?"
"You have seen him," said Jesus "and he is the person speaking to you."
"Lord I believe," said the man born blind, and he began to worship Jesus.

The man born blind was a Jew. Jews worship God and no other, the command to worship God and only God is the first of their ten commandments. Jesus was a Jew, he kept the Jewish law, but he did not stop the man from worshiping him.

All over the wider community, religious people who worshiped God and no other, were beginning to worship Jesus, they believed that he had come from God and that the words he spoke came from God. The recently healed man was just one of many.

The gift of sight had opened his eyes to the world around him, but the gift of faith had opened his mind to the truth about Jesus. Today, Jesus is still looking for people who will believe him. He still speaks to us through the words of scripture. Many people hear and believe. What follows is that they are the same person but yet a new person. They have been born into spiritual life. They worship Jesus the message-bearer, Jesus the Son of God who became man for our sake.

The gospel of John, chapter nine, verses 1-41

Falling into the hands of God

Had it been worth it? Those stolen minutes with a man who was not her husband and who also was not here? Were they worth the dreadful fear as the three witnesses dragged her along and threw her before Jesus. It was the time when religious law ruled the land and anyone breaking that law died without mercy. This time the vigilantes would try to score two victories, they would have this woman condemned and stoned to death but they would also put Jesus into such a position that he either participated in the cruelty or repudiated the holy law.

The crowd grows frustrated as it struggles to get an answer from Jesus, but he is silent, bending over to write in the desert sand. At last he lifts his head and says, "Let the person without sin be the first person to throw a stone at her." and then he continues writing in the sand. When the accusers have crept silently away he questions the woman again: "Woman has anyone condemned you?" When she answers, "No one, Sir." He replies, "Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more."

The woman pushed before Jesus did not know it, but she was falling into the hands of God. Jesus would find a way to grant her mercy although at that time he had no earthly authority over the religious law enforcers.

It's a good place to fall into: the hands of God. King David, who lived about one thousand years before Jesus, was the first to use this phrase, He had seriously displeased God; he knew it, and asked forgiveness in a short rather flippant way. God's mercy took the form of discipline, David and the nation he led suffered until David seriously attended to the broken relationship between him and God.

People who have declared loyalty to God through Jesus, do sometimes suffer discipline. God disciplines them because he loves them and is training them for a continued and deepening relationship with himself. Sometimes, if a person is a leader of a nation, it is necessary that God show his disapproval of certain actions. The things that offend God include: callousness, hypocrisy, arrogance and deceit. When a person who has declared loyalty to God experiences his discipline they are comforted to realize that although God is displeased with them he has not abandoned them, they are still in his hands. Later they are always grateful for the discipline that prevented them from continuing to sin.

"Sin no more" said Jesus to the woman. Liberating words. Mercy is not given that we may continue to sin and excuse ourselves. Mercy is given so that we may refrain from sinning.

The Gospel of John, chapter 8: verses 2-11
Old Testament: Second book of Samuel, chapter 24:verses 10-25
New Testament: Letter to the Hebrews, chapter 27, verses 26-31

Jesus gives a guarantee

Jesus was buying time. He knew that the leaders of the nation wanted him silenced, it is even possible one of them was sending him secret information about the intentions of the leaders. He wasn't ready; still had important things to teach and it was especially important that he prepare his followers for something they weren't expecting; his death. He was acting circumspectly and avoiding the capital city, however he did decide to go up to Jerusalem for part of the eight day celebration called, Booths. A happy feast, remembering the travells of their founding fathers. In the months that would be our August or September, the people made temporary shelters out of branches and slept in them in places around their homes.

Jesus began to teach the crowds of pilgrims who gathered daily in the temple grounds. The leaders of the temple sent guards to arrest him. The guards came back without him. "Why?" asked the leaders, "Because," said the guards. "no other person speaks like he does." Frustrated the leaders waited and plotted some more. In the meantime they couldn't help but be amazed by the way Jesus knew the scriptures and the way he interpreted them.

People were wondering who was right, Jesus or the revered leaders. Jesus explained the scriptures more fully than the leaders explained them. The leaders had taught Holy Law to the exclusion of almost everything else. Jesus made the law subservient to God. When he did teach the holy law, Jesus said that the purpose of the law is to show people that they need help to keep it. Jesus said that the holy law would not pass into oblivion but that he would fulfill it on behalf of everyone else.

The leaders didn't interpret the scripture this way, who was right? Jesus claimed that when he studied the scriptures God taught him profound truths. The people were cautious, who knew whether God had really explained the Jewish scriptures to Jesus? While they are still puzzling about this, Jesus offers a guarantee. Do what is pleasing to God, as Jesus teaches, and you will know whether Jesus is teaching his own ideas or bringing a message from God.
The guarantee is simpe, conclusive, reassuring. It is still valid today.

There is a problem. If a person has not, in the past, been concerned about doing what pleases God, is this a strong enough reason to start now? If a person has, for a long time, had a conviction that what he is doing is displeasing to God but has carried on doing it anyway, what will make him/her change now? Such a change is called repentance - not necessary involving grief, but consisting of a firm decision to change one's behavior, to go in the opposite direction. For instance if a person who believes in God has been living with his back to God it involves turning round to face God. If a person has been insisting there is no God the change would involve speaking to God and promising to be led by him.

Who can do this? Jesus gave the answer, God draws people to himself through the teaching of Jesus. When God draws and people yield to his attraction then they are changed.
The guarantee still holds. Do what is pleasing to God and you will know whether what Jesus taught is from God. How? God will change you, as you change your orientation towards him. Suddenly or slowly the day comes when you know that Jesus was giving the message God sent him to speak. Two of the many ways this might happen are; 1. doing what pleases God becomes easy and pleasant. 2, The new life-style of doing what pleases God changes you so that you are aware that you have been made new. Your spirit (inner reality) that had felt damaged and disabled before becomes alive and strong, you feel yourself re-charging with the energy that God sends to his people. Let me emphasise it, I and most of the Church understand it this way; first change your orientation towards God, then comes the power to do the things that please God. Without knowing this a person could struggle for a long time.

The guarantee still holds. Turn from the shady side to face God. Turn from expressing doubts to expressing loyalty. You will know that Jesus taught the truth and you will never be the same again.

Are you leaving?

"Are you also going away?" said Jesus to the little group of disciples who were left. People had left him in droves. His teaching was just too hard to understand, and a trifle off-putting.

His disciples were discontented that he had started to talk this way. The people who listened to him preaching in the synagogue could no longer understand him. "How could we do what he says?" they asked, and then they left.

Why didn't Jesus keep it simple? He had been so popular, great crowds following him, most of them believing that he was fit to be their king. If Jesus had to get spiritual, surely he could have done it by degrees, meeting the people's expectations at first and then introducing the more theological things slowly, so as not to loose the people. Instead Jesus introduced the most complicated of concepts, that people should eat his flesh and drink his blood. First they asked how this was possible and then they left. For most of the people in that region Jesus was an episode in their lives that had ended.

Jesus wasn't very persuasive with his disciples, he said if this was too spiritually challenging for them, how would they react when they saw him physically return to where he came from? They were already mystified now he was making it worse.

We don't need to defend Jesus so lets admit that it sounds disgusting to eat his flesh and drink his blood. For three hundred years Christians often had to go into hiding because the Romans were trying to exterminate them, during this time when they celebrated the eucharist in secret, a rumour was spread that Christians were canibals. The people listening to Jesus had never heard of eucharist or mass or holy communion, but they could have made a connection with the ceremonies at their temple. When a lamb was sacrficied as a way of asking for forgiveness, only part of the flesh was burnt on the alter, another part was given to the penitent, he and his family feasted in a joyful celebration of forgiveness. Blood was sprinkled on the priests and on the alter to cleanse the alter from the pollution of anything that was not obedient to God.

As the crowds grew smaller, Jesus looked at the few followers who were left and asked, "Are you also going to go away?" Peter replied, 'Who could we go to? We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."

There was and is no compulsion to remain a follower of Jesus. The door was as wide open for them to leave as it was for them to come. Leaving Jesus because some of the things he teaches are so hard to understand is risky. It is better to say like Peter, that there is no other person who promises the gift of spiritual and eternal life therefore - stick around, in the words of a popular spiritual, you'll understand it all by and by.

Our churches are full of young people who drifted away when they were young, and who came ack when they got older. When we talked together these returning-people usually told me that they left the church but didn't leave Jesus. They also said that they were waiting for something they called 'a high'. Many of them said, that they were brought up to believe but wanted to make a choice to believe. The people who return are usually the people who always wanted to come back to faith but just couldn't find the way. Faith is a gift and is given to those who listen to the scripture, meet with believers and respond when the Spirit calls them.

Eucharist, mass, holy communion, some of the people participating have only the vaguest idea what Jesus meant when he said that eating his flesh and drinking his blood would give them life that doesn't die. But they eat the bread, (it is often the most prosaic bread, crackers or home made cornbread or wonder bread, and drink the wine which is usually grape juice because the recovered alcoholics among us don't want to be presented with even a small drink of real wine.) The bread and wine are made holy by setting them aside for the purpose of enacting a spiritual truth in a physical way. Many churches stress that this meal is instituted by Jesus and therefore he is the host, most churches do not impose conditions for receiving it.

We eat the bread, which is a sign of the body in which God came to be among us and which was destroyed on the cross, we drink the blood which is a sign that the blood of Jesus has washed away all our sin, we understand that through this act, if it is mixed with faith, we are united with God the giver of eternal life. How much faith does this require? Not a lot, Jesus said that even the disciples didn't have much faith, but that a little faith even if it very small is sufficient for a start.

Some people take this 'meal' (usually a square inch of bread and a tablespoon of grape juice) with only a small understanding of what they are doing, but they do understand that Jesus takes away our sins and give us life. Taking this communion is a public act, (most churches do not have private or personal commune services because common-union with Jesus is also union with other believers) This is a public statement that you want to hang around with Jesus, that you understand he has something you can't get anywhere else. As beginning faith mixes with carrying out the action required by Jesus, something stirs within us, but it is not from us, or of us, it is the life of the Spirit of Jesus living through us.

It took me, personally, years to recognise this stirring. I worked at it, using all my intellect and very little of anything else. I waited for a strong, sweeping wind from God, one day I understood that the Spirit also comes like a gentle summer rain, and that Jesus was quite capable of completing what I had trusted him to do. It's been peaceful since then. If I could have my wish I would be every day in the church, praying over the bread and juice. If I could have my wish I would stand at the corner of two busy streets holding out the plate of bread and the cup of wine offering it to any of the busy people who rush past, with the words, "The body of our Lord." "The blood of Jesus Christ spilt for us." That isn't possible, the church requires more explanation, but I still long, to do it. Because I know that the people hurrying by would really in their heart like to be united with Jesus but have just lost their way in the abundance of different congregations and the strident voices of some of the preachers.

So if your faith is small, so was Peters. If your faith is sufficient to do something because Jesus said to do it, this is the place to start. Hang around, take the bread, drink the wine, offer what little faith you have and wait. The rest is up to Jesus.

The Gospel of John, chapter six, verses 51 to 69

In his own words

Jesus continued to talk to the leaders who had accused him of working on the day of rest.

"I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life."
Very truly, I tell you," said Jesus, "the hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself; and he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not be astonished at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and will come out—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation. I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me."
"The works that the Father has given me to complete, " said Jesus, "the very works that I am doing, testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself testified on my behalf. You have never heard his voice or seen his form, and you do not have his word abiding in you, because you do not believe him whom he has sent.
I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; if another comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the one who alone is God?"

The leaders who had accused him of breaking the law and blaspheming were not able to take any action. Large crowds followed Jesus wherever he went. The crowds watched as he healed every kind of sickness, and everyone who asked. Truly no one could do these things unless he was sent from God, surely God had come to them and was saving them from the condition into which they had been born and had lived. Jesus was reversing the effects of sin and restoring to people that sense of union with God which they had thought was lost forever.

John chapter 5: verses 22-45 (parts ommitted)

I don't have anyone

Sabbath mornings were quiet in that part of the world. No work was allowed on the national day of rest, and even small activities were prohibited. The quiet was deeper still among the people lying beside a certain pool. Here lay a great many blind, lame, and paralyzed people. Waiting, hoping that the water would bubble with some mysterious energy, as it sometimes did, and that they could quickly enter the pool and perhaps be healed.

Jesus walks among the blind, lame and paralyzed people. Here, he is not recognized, he was probably alone. He notices one particularly man, a man who has lain there, beside that water, for thirty-eight years, hoping to be healed. He stoops down, and says to him, "Do you want to be well?" I have no one, says the sick man. He does not says yes he wants to be healed or no he is reconciled to being sick, he simply explains what is perhaps his biggest grief, I have no one to help me get to the pool and by the time I get there it is already too late.

He had laid alone in the crowd of sick people. Surrounded by people but without anyone to help him. Thirty eight years of trying to make it on his own, living with hope, and coping with despair, alone.

"Get up!" Says Jesus, "roll up your sleeping pad, and start walking." Feeling the new health rippling through his body, the man does just that. Jesus slips away. Where does the man go? This man without a relative? Alone, he carries his sleeping pad, but wait; it is illegal to carry a burden on the day of rest, and a sleeping pad is a burden, a biggish roll, as long and as wide as a man. The streets are busy as people walk to the temple to worship. Soon he is met by religious leaders who question him. The man with the bed-roll has no answers. He does not know who it was that knelt beside him as he lay amongst the blind, the lame and the paralyzed. He does not know who it was who said to him, "Get up!"

Jesus knew where to find the man, he would be in the temple. He would have gone there to worship, to make a sacrifice to atone for breaking the day of rest, or perhaps to beg for money. Jesus finds him alone in the crowded enclosure, and there is another quiet conversation. The conversation is surprising because we are expecting encouragement or blessing. But all the recorded words we have of this conversation are these: "Sin no more" says Jesus, "in case something worse happens to you."

Stop, Start a new paragraph here, because a new topic has invaded the story. Jesus makes a connection between sinning and bad things happening. The questions that the religious have wrestled with over the years are many. Do all people who sin suffer misfortune? If something bad happens to a person does it always mean that they have sinned? Can we surmise that any friend of ours who is ill, deserves to be ill, because of some secret sin. This is no place to read the book of Job, but he and his friends argued this very question ferociously.

The consensus of religious opinion today is, no. Being sick does not mean that a person is being punished for sinning. Sickness happens because the world is no longer perfect and the world is no longer perfect because of .... that's right, you've got it.

Now, the man who carried his bed-roll knew who had healed him. There is no mention of gratitude or promises of repentance, maybe they were made and omitted from the story. He goes to the religious leaders and tells them, "The man who healed me is called Jesus." There was probably a gasp of satisfaction because now the religious leaders had something to accuse Jesus of. They can make him stop preaching, or make him go away. They can turn his popularity with the people into disapproval. Ah, good, they make their plans, they will expose Jesus as a law breaker in front of the people in the crowded temple enclosure. The man who had carried his bed-roll on the day of rest goes...where?

Theocracy and the Kingdom of God

He, the man silently making his way through the darkness, was a leader of the people of God, a ruler over the nation where God lived. He visited at night because it wasn't appropriate, for him an expert on religious law, to be speaking to an upstart preacher without a temple education.

Nicodemus was part of the temple organization which imposed religious law on the Jews. The Jews lived under two laws. the laws of the Roman occupiers and the laws of the temple. They considered their nation to be God's nation, because it was God who delivered them from slavery and made them a nation.

That was the first thing Jesus addressed. According to Jesus the true Kingdom of God is so spiritual that it cannot be understood by the political process. It can only be understood by someone who had been born from above. Jesus pointed out to Nicodemus that he had no way of knowing about heaven except to learn from Jesus who had come down from there to be a light to people who were living in darkness. He was God's only begotten son, God had given him to be a gift to the world, because God loved the world enough to give his only begotten son. And the reason he had done this was that the inhabitants of earth should not perish but have everlasting life.

And yet Jesus did not despise that Holy Law which Nicodemus had been trying to enforce on the citizens of the Holy City. He had come to enable all people to keep the same law.

For a man like Nicodemus the contrast was bewildering. Under the system of Holy Law people pleased God by keeping the religious law. What Jesus was saying was that people would please God by believing what Jesus said. The contrast was enormous, and again it didn't make sense politically. It didn't seem demanding enough.

It could not have been easy for this man, a person who had reached high status by diligence, duty and dedication to be told that all these things counted for nothing. What was required was that he be born from above. The speed of his reply that a person can't go through the birth process twice makes me wonder, if he had sometimes wished he could begin life all over again.

But a person can, said Jesus, a person can be born naturally and will remain natural. Also a person can be given birth by the spirit and become a spiritual being. God gave his son, said Jesus so that everyone who believes in him will not die but will have eternal life. All it requires is to believe that Jesus is the Messiah (The man who will put everything right) the son of God come down to give light and life to the people of earth.

If you don't believe, said Jesus, you are perishing already. God sent me because he didn't want you to perish. If you are reading this, don't think of this 'perishing' as some divine punishment worked by God upon people; it is the opposite it is the natural state of humans. Like cut flowers attached to a stalk that is cut off from the root, humans die because they are detached from the source of life. They mistake the stalk for the root, and without real genuine contact with God, are already perishing although they do not know it. God sent Jesus to stop the decay; to be the living connection between people and the source of life, If it were were possible to reconnect the cut stalk to the root in the ground, in the same way Jesus does the impossible and connects people to the source of all being.

I like to make up reasons why people can't believe in Jesus; because it is my life's work to bring people to Jesus and many people refuse my help. I invent reasons like: too great for them to understand, to strange for them to accept. Jesus had only one reason, they don't want to come to the light because they will see that their deeds are not good.

Nicodemus evidently was not afraid of the light. It took him some time to believe, but how would we know this story otherwise? From all we know of the nature of Jesus he would not betray a confidence. Jesus did not tell his secret. So who did? Jesus must have repeated his basic teaching many times, but who told us that Nicodemus heard it in the dark of night, face to face with Jesus, unless it was Nicodemus himself?

At first he remained in the temple as a leader, he tried on one occasion to get a fair trial for Jesus, but failed. On the day Jesus was crucified, all the disciples of Jesus went into hiding for fear of the rulers of the nation. A man called Joseph of Arimathea, who had up to that day been a secret disciple for fear of the rulers of the nation, asked if he could have the the dead body of Jesus. He and another man wrapped the body with strips of linen cloth laced with spices. Then, before evening, they carried the body to the burial cave. The other man was Nicodemus.

The gospel of John, chapter 3: verses 1-21
The gospel of John, chapter 7: verses 45-52
The gospel of John, chapter 19: verses 38-42

Finding Jesus

We have found - said Andrew - we have found the promised person who will make all things right: the Messiah.

Who really found who? The question is important because a great many people are searching for a person who will make everything right. A savior figure, a miracle worker, a perfect leader who will transform the earth, and establish the perfect system of world government.

What were Andrew and his brother Peter looking for when they went searching for a messiah? A man sent by God with divine powers. He would be a great leader like Moses who not only freed his people but led, organized and taught them. He would be a great administrator like King David who made Israel rich powerful and beautiful. He would also be a man who could read the mind of God and tell the people the plans of God, like the prophet Elijah. With these qualities the Messiah would subdue all destructive powers and establish the perfect kingdom. His people would participate in his victory and rule the Kingdom of God with him. The rest of the world listened to these Jewish hopes: what the Jews were searching for was what everyone else was hoping for. A man sent from God with the authority to put everything right.

Andrew found Jesus and knew he had found the Messiah. He took his brother to meet Jesus, and Peter met the man: a young man, a carpenter by trade, about 30 years of age. What did Jesus say to these men who had made the great discovery? Jesus told Peter who Peter was, and who he would become. No oratory, no world economy plan, just the knowledge of an individual as he is and as he will become. Peter was sufficiently convinced to become one of the man's students, and be called a disciple of Jesus. This is also the reason many people today are convinced. Because when they met Jesus the Messiah, he spoke to them in their hearts, he knew them, who they were and what they could become. They have found the messiah.

The next day Jesus did some searching, he found Philip and invited him to become his student (disciple)

Who really found who? The question remains important because Jesus came from heaven to look for the people who wanted to find him. When he finds those people he invites them to join him and learn about his Father and our Father.

In one or two days Jesus had found and invited four of the famous twelve men who were his inner circle of disciples. Andrew, Simon, Philip and Nathanael.

Who were these men who found Jesus? They lived fairly close to the town where Jesus lived, they may have met him in the local synagogue, or gone to him for carpentry work, or seen him going into the hills alone to pray. This too is an important question. Because there is a notion that only social rejects, failures and incompetents need Jesus. These first four men were none of those things, they were working men, owning their own trade, skilled in catching fish and selling them to the buyer from the garrison of Roman soldiers. Peter was a married man, perhaps the others were too. It is true that Jesus is sought by people who are desperate and lost but it is also true that Jesus has come searching for decent citizens, people with character, ability and responsibility.

After Jesus found Philip, Philip found his brother, Nathanael. and said the same thing that Andrew had said, only in different words, "We have found the Messiah." Jesus met Nathanael with the statement, "You are a man without deceit." and Nathanael didn't argue, he simply said, "How do you know me?" I saw you said, Jesus, before ever Philip called you. Nathanael was convinced. Jesus was pleased with such quick acceptance and told Nathanael that one day he would see the heavens open and the angels of God going up and coming down to Jesus the Son of Man.

What I am saying here, is that Jesus is looking for the people who are looking for him. He looks for all sorts of people including the solid respectable capable wage earner and citizen. If you are hoping to meet him (and not trying to hide from him) he will meet you. What will convince you will be the knowledge of yourself that happens when he meets you, and the promise that you hear in his invitations. You are, you shall become.

So how do you search for Jesus? I say those words with concern, because I personally know a great many people who would like to meet Jesus but haven't yet found him. I can only give you suggestions: Be in the right places where you are likely to meet him, read the scriptures that tell about him, hang around with people who have already met him. Remain open: never hiding never avoiding, always being ready to be found by Jesus. the man who is God come to earth to look for you.

The Gospel according to John Chapter one versese thirtyfive to fiftyone.

Looking for a sign

There is a little wooden church building standing beside the main road on the way to Hemet in California. The large notice board outside is easy to read while driving past. One Sunday it read 'Are you looking for a sign? - This is it!'

'Give me a sign and I'll believe.' is what some people still say today. They have signs; a great outpouring of signs, because all the acts of Jesus during his public ministry were signs. Every act pointed to God and God's divine intentions. The men who challenged Jesus to prove himself, had not seen those signs, and would not have recognised them if they had. Signs have to be read. Actually these men hoped that Jesus wouldn't do anything that convinced them about the truthfulness of his statements.

Well, they got what they wanted, the opposite to the thing they asked for. Jesus refused to do signs for them, but told them to look for the sign of the prophet Jonah. Jonah, you remember, was the man who was three days in the belly of a great fish and who was eventually heaved out of the fish onto the beach. How could that story be a sign? I can only imagine the triumph and the self-congratulation of those men who would report the encounter and say that Jesus had not been able to convince them.

The coming to life of Jesus three days after his death and burial is the greatest sign that all humanity could ask for. The resurrection is a sign to all people that what Jesus said was true. God himself gave the confirmation. Jesus worked no magic, he was truly dead, even the Romans confirmed it He died as dependent upon the goodness of God as we shall die. It was God who reached down to the dead body and made it alive. This act of God was God's great sign that Jesus spoke the truth. It is also a sign to all humanity that we too shall live. God will raise us up to encounter him.

So the men who challenged Jesus got more than a sign, they got the great sign. But they probably weren't looking. They were part of the group that paid the grave-side guard to say that someone stole the body of Jesus away. The men who challenged Jesus weren't in the right place to see the sign. They were not sitting in a locked room with 11 other people when Jesus stood in the midst of them. They were not in Galilee with five hundred other people when Jesus showed himself to them. They didn't hear Jesus call out Mary's name in the cemetery. They didn't want to believe and they took care to keep company only with others who didn't want to believe. Too much was at stake.

It is still so; so much is at stake when a person receives the sign that confirms the truthfulness of Jesus. If those men had believed, it would have cost them their position in the religious society they lived in. They were already praying people, God respecting people, diligent about keeping their religious laws, but they had shaped faith to their own convenience. God frequently challenges mistaken faith and only the brave can face the challenge. For the rest there is too much at stake.

Matthew 16:1- 4 Revised Standard Version. The Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test Jesus they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. 2He answered them, "When it is evening, you say, 'It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.' 3And in the morning, 'It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.' You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. 4An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah." Then he left them and went away.

Getting into trouble with her Mum

They sat outside the ice-cream shop, two girls and a boy, wearing the blue plaid skirts and tie that denoted the local Catholic private school. They looked about 12 years old, waiting for their respective parents to come and pick them up. I barged into their conversation, understand I am overweight, gray haired and very plain, here I was talking to these diminutive not yet adult people and they didn't even look shocked. Thing was, I couldn't stand the understatement that came from one of the girls, I just had to update the conversation a little. "..and besides," she was saying, "how did they know Mary was a virgin?" Mm, I'd never heard it put that way before. I waited to hear how her friends answered her. "Maybe," said the other girl, "she just got pregnant and went home and told her Mom that God did it, because she was afraid she would get into trouble." It was the 'getting into trouble' bit that did it. Mary, growing up in a strict Jewish community in the pre common era, getting into trouble with her Mum was such culture confusion, that I couldn't resist butting in. I stopped in the doorway of the ice-cream shop and went back to their table. "It wouldn't have just been getting into trouble with her Mum, I said." and was relieved to see that the three faces looked as though they were interested, in those days if a girl got pregnant without being married, they took her into the street and threw stones at her till she died, they still do it today in some countries."
Then I grinned and left, but I was surprised and delighted to hear one of the three call out after me. "Thank you." I don't think I helped convince them about the virginity of Mary, but at least they were just a little bit more aware of what it cost a teen-age girl long ago to say to the angel Gabriel, "Let it happen as you say, I am the maid-servant of the Lord."

Luke chapter 1 verses 26 - 38

FAITH: trusting in ourselves.

The search for faith may start out with disappointments. We may be disappointed when we learn that God does not regard how sincere we are but who we sincerely trust. Now we meet another disappointment, trying hard is not enough! That is a real disappointment. Our own effort to be acceptable to God is something we can produce and control, we get pleasure from following certain rules of religion and believing that we are going to be congratulated and thanked by God for working so hard at right-ness, and it isn't so! That really hurts.

Jesus tells the story of a man congratulating himself for all his hard work, he does this as he is praying. He reminds God of the way he follows the religious law, he fasts twice a week, he gives one tenth of all his finances to the temple funds. He actually tells God how grateful he is that he is not like the less religious people. Jesus states, in his story, that all this isn't enough to impress God. Then Jesus includes a man who is despised by the rest of society, he works for the occupying army collecting taxes for them, taking money from his own countrymen to give to foreigners. This man stands in a less than prominent place and simply prays, "God be merciful to me a sinner" Jesus is impressed by that prayer, he says that man began to be put right with God.

So is it only social failures who can hope to be accepted by God? No, social successes, moral upright citizens can be accepted by God but on one basis only; that basis is transferring faith from their own good works to the work that Jesus has done.

In one way this tax collector was truly fortunate, he was able to understand that he needed God's mercy and forgiveness, the morally upright religious man couldn't understand that. He could see that other people might need mercy, but he couldn't see his own need.

We used to call it 'conviction' and with that word we meant an act of the Holy Spirit which convinced people that they needed God's forgiveness and mercy. Some people are so afraid of conviction that they won't go near a church that might shake their faith in themselves.

There are many Christians who still secretly harbour the notion that they are not bad people, and privately think that God should congratulate them for having the good sense to choose to believe in Jesus. Jesus would call it exalting ourselves (we want to ask what is wrong with that, doesn't society teach us to believe in ourselves?) This kind of faith is untested; people who believe in themselves will readily transfer their allegiance to another leader. There is another kind of Christian faith which puts all confidence in the leader and would not dare transfer to another because we know that only this leader (Jesus) can save us from ourselves and make us acceptable to God.

For some people blessing comes in disguise. It comes in the form of conviction. They are visited by the Holy Spirit who shows them the comparison between their own right-ness and God's right-ness and who convinces them that they are truly unacceptable to God, no matter how hard they try. Those people have received a blessing which is the beginning of all other blessings, they have learnt that Jesus Christ alone can make them acceptable to God, and if they are sufficiently blessed they have come to understand that they personally need mercy.

"God be merciful to me a sinner.' It is the cry of the blessed, who are no longer exalting themselves but who have been humbled in order that God might exalt them and make them his sons and daughters.

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Luke 18:9-14[9] Jesus also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: [10] "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. [11] The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, 'God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. [12] I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.' [13] But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!' [14] I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted."

So This Is God?

(Matthew chapter 22 verses 45 to 56)

So this is God? This dying man; his hands made helpless, his body distorted, face almost unrecognisable. This is God?Fear and jealousy led the religious leaders to demand his death. Politics and expediency led the representative of the occupying army to agree to his death. Is it not a familiar story? To understand the dying God, look around you. Is not humanity also crucified? The suffering of the hungry, the daily fear of the oppressed, the desperation of the powerless. Every day the beauty and promise of humanity is destroyed by forces that we cannot control. This twisted writhing mass of fear, grief and agony, this is humanity. That dying man on the cross; his name is Emmanuel and it means God With Us. God the Three-In-One left the realms of Godhead and came to earth to identify with the suffering mass of humanity. Now Emmanuel, God-With-Us, is dying. God-the-Father does not intervene. Struggling to breath, Jesus calls out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? He had previously said that if he wished he could call on his Father and his Father would send seven legions of angels to rescue him. He does not call. He does not ask to be rescued. Like humans he asks questions of God, and like many humans the questions do not indicate a lack of faith in God. Like the faithful of all three monotheistic faiths he cries out 'Why?' but still trusts.
There is only one God, The venerable Muhammad knew this. He is not three gods but one God made known to us in three person activity.Jesus came from God-the-Father, divesting himself of the power and authority of heaven and sharing the birth and life of humans. Now God-the-Son is dead, and before the day is over God-the-Son is buried. Roman soldiers guard the tomb to prevent anyone stealing the body. Two women sit by the tomb. The earthquake and darkness have already happened, they happened while Jesus was dying. Now the night looks like any other night. God-the-Father waits.