Sunday's coming!

John 3: 1-17 I want us to think for a little while about the story of Nicodemus today. We have heard the most famous part of Nicodemus’s story: his conversation with Jesus when he comes to talk to Jesus “by night”. Nicodemus is a member of the Jewish council or Sanhedrin. You might say that he is an ‘elder’, a leader, one who is meant to understand the faith. But he is in the dark. He is trying to work out who Jesus is, and whether he is sent from God, or not. If he is from God, the council should listen to him. If he isn’t, they should probably punish him for heresy. Jesus talks to him about the importance of the Spirit – of being born by the Spirit, guided by God’s Holy Spirit in all you do. Then in the verse we probably know best, Jesus states “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that everyone who has faith in him should not perish but have eternal life”. John’s gospel does not tell us what Nicodemus says in response – perhaps he just goes away to h...

John 17: 6-19    This is a passage to give you neck-ache if you imagine the conversation between Jesus, the Father and the disciples. For example, sentences like “All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them…” Jesus refers 20 times to himself ‘I’ And 22 times to they or them – meaning the disciples. This Passage is at least as much about the disciples as it is about Jesus. Jesus constantly refers to himself in relation to the Father, but then says ‘as it is for me, so it is for them (the disciples)’ or ‘as you have done for me so do for them’. Jesus talks about the name of God; the fact that he is sent by God the Father; and the truth that the disciples also belong to God. He then prays that the Father protects them once he is no longer with them. Then comes this final, rather puzzling sentence; “As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also ma...