The first we know of him, he was called Abram, and the Lord told him, “Go from your country, and your kindred, and your father’s house to the land I will show you ...” Abram went as the Lord had told him. There was no question, no hesitation, Abram went. He obeyed, and with faith, trusted the Lord, and began his journey to the land God told him to seek. To remove any doubts, the Lord also said, “... You will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you ... and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” And so, this wandering Aramaic started a new family, a new people, who held God as their maker and the center of their lives.

Paul, preaching to the Christians in Rome, used the story of Abram, who through his steadfast faith became Abraham, as an example of faith and righteousness. The promise that he would inherit the world did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. As Paul told them, “For the law brings wrath; where there is no law, neither is there violation.”

This was a matter of confusion for the people of Rome in Paul’s time, and it remains a matter of controversy in our time. We have difficulty living without the parameters of a dependable group of laws. They tell us what we can and cannot do; how we should act in civil discourse; what is good and what is not. These laws also keep us safe from what others might do to us, or what we might do to them. We find it necessary to have good laws, and we work diligently in legislatures year after year to make sure the laws we devise are fair and necessary.

Nicodemus would have loved to live in our time. He lived by and among the many laws of Israel. He was the Pharisee who came to see Jesus at night, so that he would not be seen by any of the others attached to the temple. Nicodemus had questions. Nicodemus also had laws to live by; books full of them, and tomes and interpretations of the books and tomes. He was very familiar with the “Law of Moses.”

He was also a very brave and thinking member of the Sanhedrin, who when he had a question, he went to the source to find the answer and this is why he sought Jesus. “Rabbi, we know 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,” he asked.

Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

Nicodemus, with a puzzled and practical mind, much like us, and the people around us, immediately questioned again. “How can anyone be born after growing old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?

Jesus replied, “... no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of the water and the Spirit. What is born of flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished ... You must be born from above.”

He further explained, so that Nicodemus, and all who call upon Jesus and God, receive the Spirit as God causes it to flow; just as the wind blows, but we cannot see it, but we certainly feel it. Many have had the ‘feeling’ of the presence of the Holy Spirit around them, with them and in them.

With this pronouncement we have the beginning of understanding of the immenseness of God. That Jesus is God the Son, and one and the same with God the Father, who come to us as God the Holy Spirit; to be with us in our human lives, to guide, uphold and comfort us.

With this offered we can understand, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world for breaking God’s laws, but in order that the world might be saved through him; by the simple faith of living and loving God and loving our neighbor, and allowing the Holy Spirit to be with us.

Be open to receiving the Holy Spirit. Be open to accepting God’s forgiveness. Be open to steadfast faith in Christ; and the promise of eternal life. “Come Holy spirit, come.” Amen.

Pastor’s Podium

The Pastor’s Podium column is offered each week by a different pastor or lay person representing an Ellsworth County church.

The week’s columnist is George Martin, pastor of the Apostles Episcopal Church, Ellsworth.