His Honor, The Outsider?
Looking back on them once I am employed, one of these moments would be known as the one in which I spotted The Job Lead. One of them will glow as the one in which I reviewed the job requirements that just seem to make perfect sense, in retrospect. One of them will stand above her peers as the moment in which I massaged to the verbiage of the description of my next job into my cover letter and resume in a way that made the employer's seeker-sorting algorithms sing. One of the phone calls answered with resolved cheerfulness will forever after be known as the one in which I got The Interview, and her more honored sibling, likely, the one in which I was offered The Job.
Writing about the days and weeks as they go by, however, such illumination and inspiration is difficult to discern. Both scrunching myself into the requirements of an entry-level customer service position and stretching myself to pass inspection for a supervisory position a little beyond what my career has thus far entailed are tiring but necessary, as a smooth transition from my last work to a position exactly the same seems elusive. I am both the Seeker trying to be all things to all men while offending none, and the Skeptic who sees beyond and behind the whole chase.
After a morning in these calisthenics of the spirit, I sought refuge and renewal in God's Word. The Seeker pleaded for insight that hasn't come with my degrees, experience, or practice, man, practice in these 5 1/2 months of looking to resume employment. The Skeptic wasn't afar off, even from this hallowed ground. As with looking for work, I was meeting someone else's requirements, even here. When the 40 day Bible study in which my entire church is taking part ordered me to list how Jesus approaches Nicodemus The Skeptic in John 3, I very nearly found excuse to roll my eyes and doubt the whole exercise. Nicodemus was a man so well-versed in the Bible that he was one of the council of 70 leaders who guided the nation, a body called the Sanhedrin with a pedigree going back to Moses and a commission rooted in Exodus 18:25-27 and Numbers 11:16-30. Nicodemus The Skeptic? I'd sooner picture such Establishment pillars as President Bartlett on The West Wing as "just folks", try though he does to shrink into that role, or to picture Mr. Feeney on Boy Meets World playing a disruptive middle school student, although he tries. Another well-meaning expositor tries to hard to make a favorite, particularly rich, Bible passage fit the theme at hand.
Then I read John 3:1-21 (New King James Version) with a modicum of goodwill, and the fit, for Nicodemus and for me, was better than I expected. Seen as Jesus engaging the skeptical heart, then and now, the passage comes alive to challenge and reinvigorate whatever is jaded and weary within us. "There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, 'Rabbi, we know you are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him." (versus 1-2) Jesus meets Nicodemus where he is, both spiritually and physically. Although Jesus used the nighttime to restore Himself, (Luke 6:12, for instance) this time he meets Nicodemus at night. To His disciples, Jesus will say that if we deny Him before men, He will deny us before His Father, but if a skeptical seeker like Nicodemus is willing to come under cover of night, Jesus' heart is to be there. Likewise with wherever I am, and wherever you are, in the energy and optimism cycle.
As a sign of my grandmother's used to say, "God loves us just as we are, but he loves us too much to leave us that way. Before Nicodemus can ask a question, at least one that is recorded in Scripture, Jesus forcibly relieves him of his skeptical shell, dispensing with Nicodemus' pleasantries and confronting him in verse three with, "'Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Born again, He says. Accept renewal, a fresh start, a humble start, whether you are inclined to want one or not. Counselors and bosses both know that the status quo, however frustrating, has some payoffs to which we become accustomed. Jesus calls Nicodemus, and us, to shed the status and comfort of the identity we present the world, whether victim or sage. Whatever bruises have made us skeptical need not, must not, continue to distort our outlook.
Jesus knows the trauma of redefinition, even for the supposedly world-weary skeptic. Nicodemus responds in verse four, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?" Jesus is ready to restate in verses five through eight, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and which that is born of the Spirit is spirit. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit." As challenging as it is, skeptics to hear that our previous experience will not help us keep our distance from the easily manipulated, will not allow us to control the ups and downs of new life, isn't it a boon to know that Jesus is with us through the adjustment to new life in Him when we weren't much liking the old, patient enough to repeat Himself and explain?
Jesus speaks to us, skeptics, from first-hand experience. He comes to Nicodemus, and to the Nicodemus in us in the night where we are, and He uses figurative language to which we can relate, but we should not mistake the timing and language of outreach for a lessening of authenticity. Jesus uses relevant words to relate Heavenly concepts, but he cuts through the rhetorical and experiential clutter of which we are so tired by speaking directly of what He knows. Conversation with Him is not subject to litter retraction or editing of the sort that wears out the skeptic. His Word carries the scent of Heaven, the echo of the Trinity's dialogue itself in verses 10 through 13 when He compares His experience to the secondhand scuttlebutt or scholarship we have known heretofore. He drops Nicodemus' defenses with the declaration, "Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify of what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you Heavenly things? No one has ascended to Heaven but He came down from Heaven, that is the Son of Man who is in Heaven." If Nicodemus is challenged to believe that the Man bodily before him is "in Heaven" in the sense that Jesus speaks with authority and access and can be believed, how much more can we believe now that He has ascended to Heaven and has pledged to come again?
Jesus is in OUR first-hand experience. Up until now, Jesus has been providing Nicodemus with a kind of remediation, kindly but still confrontational with the reality that this new life has been the major theme of the Scriptures Nicodemus supposedly knew. Over-familiar and jaded with the Scripture, we likewise need constantly interpretation by the Spirit of Christ. Just as much, we need the sort of bringing the word to the present application Jesus brings in John 3:14-17. Having shown Nicodemus the continuity of Scripture, Jesus prepares his heart for what Nicodemus is going to see right before his eyes. "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved." Thus, wounded, weary, been there, done that skeptics, Christ still enters into our present day. His perfect sacrifice, pointed to as upcoming in these verses, takes the condemnation out of our past, present, and future failures. He gives us His righteousness, that whatever rejection we experience, even for jobseekers, is overshadowed by acceptance in Him. Since He says yes, what does it really matter who says no?
Jesus reminds skeptics that we know better than most where salvation ISN'T found. To Nicodemus who says he has grown old in striving, and to those of us grown weary in other endeavors, Jesus offers both hope and challenge. We already know, He says, that what we have been watching again and again, have been trying again and again, isn't working. His verdict, really, readily concurs with ours when He says in verses 18 through 20, "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God and this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed." If we weren't condemned, if we didn't have a sneaking suspicion that there is more than we typically experience, we wouldn't be here, we wouldn't be skeptics and skeptical of skepticism at the same time.
Jesus points even skeptics to hope ahead. Once we shed the guarded nature that has done such a poor job protecting us, skeptics, once we agree with Christ that we must be born again in order to live a life with any real meaning, He concludes with the crescendo that there is life transformation ahead enough to convince us and the skeptics around us that new life is more than a metaphor. He guarantees in verse 21, "But he who does the truth comes to light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God." Christ who speaks so unflinchingly to the hopelessness of even religion's best representative stakes His reputation on real change in those who follow after Him. The next time we, then, as Christians, feel picked over, poked, and prodded by the world's representatives who have the nerve to be skeptical of us, we can shed our skeptic's sneer for a smile that the proof of John 3:21 is coming to pass.
Writing about the days and weeks as they go by, however, such illumination and inspiration is difficult to discern. Both scrunching myself into the requirements of an entry-level customer service position and stretching myself to pass inspection for a supervisory position a little beyond what my career has thus far entailed are tiring but necessary, as a smooth transition from my last work to a position exactly the same seems elusive. I am both the Seeker trying to be all things to all men while offending none, and the Skeptic who sees beyond and behind the whole chase.
After a morning in these calisthenics of the spirit, I sought refuge and renewal in God's Word. The Seeker pleaded for insight that hasn't come with my degrees, experience, or practice, man, practice in these 5 1/2 months of looking to resume employment. The Skeptic wasn't afar off, even from this hallowed ground. As with looking for work, I was meeting someone else's requirements, even here. When the 40 day Bible study in which my entire church is taking part ordered me to list how Jesus approaches Nicodemus The Skeptic in John 3, I very nearly found excuse to roll my eyes and doubt the whole exercise. Nicodemus was a man so well-versed in the Bible that he was one of the council of 70 leaders who guided the nation, a body called the Sanhedrin with a pedigree going back to Moses and a commission rooted in Exodus 18:25-27 and Numbers 11:16-30. Nicodemus The Skeptic? I'd sooner picture such Establishment pillars as President Bartlett on The West Wing as "just folks", try though he does to shrink into that role, or to picture Mr. Feeney on Boy Meets World playing a disruptive middle school student, although he tries. Another well-meaning expositor tries to hard to make a favorite, particularly rich, Bible passage fit the theme at hand.
Then I read John 3:1-21 (New King James Version) with a modicum of goodwill, and the fit, for Nicodemus and for me, was better than I expected. Seen as Jesus engaging the skeptical heart, then and now, the passage comes alive to challenge and reinvigorate whatever is jaded and weary within us. "There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, 'Rabbi, we know you are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him." (versus 1-2) Jesus meets Nicodemus where he is, both spiritually and physically. Although Jesus used the nighttime to restore Himself, (Luke 6:12, for instance) this time he meets Nicodemus at night. To His disciples, Jesus will say that if we deny Him before men, He will deny us before His Father, but if a skeptical seeker like Nicodemus is willing to come under cover of night, Jesus' heart is to be there. Likewise with wherever I am, and wherever you are, in the energy and optimism cycle.
As a sign of my grandmother's used to say, "God loves us just as we are, but he loves us too much to leave us that way. Before Nicodemus can ask a question, at least one that is recorded in Scripture, Jesus forcibly relieves him of his skeptical shell, dispensing with Nicodemus' pleasantries and confronting him in verse three with, "'Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Born again, He says. Accept renewal, a fresh start, a humble start, whether you are inclined to want one or not. Counselors and bosses both know that the status quo, however frustrating, has some payoffs to which we become accustomed. Jesus calls Nicodemus, and us, to shed the status and comfort of the identity we present the world, whether victim or sage. Whatever bruises have made us skeptical need not, must not, continue to distort our outlook.
Jesus knows the trauma of redefinition, even for the supposedly world-weary skeptic. Nicodemus responds in verse four, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?" Jesus is ready to restate in verses five through eight, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and which that is born of the Spirit is spirit. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit." As challenging as it is, skeptics to hear that our previous experience will not help us keep our distance from the easily manipulated, will not allow us to control the ups and downs of new life, isn't it a boon to know that Jesus is with us through the adjustment to new life in Him when we weren't much liking the old, patient enough to repeat Himself and explain?
Jesus speaks to us, skeptics, from first-hand experience. He comes to Nicodemus, and to the Nicodemus in us in the night where we are, and He uses figurative language to which we can relate, but we should not mistake the timing and language of outreach for a lessening of authenticity. Jesus uses relevant words to relate Heavenly concepts, but he cuts through the rhetorical and experiential clutter of which we are so tired by speaking directly of what He knows. Conversation with Him is not subject to litter retraction or editing of the sort that wears out the skeptic. His Word carries the scent of Heaven, the echo of the Trinity's dialogue itself in verses 10 through 13 when He compares His experience to the secondhand scuttlebutt or scholarship we have known heretofore. He drops Nicodemus' defenses with the declaration, "Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify of what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you Heavenly things? No one has ascended to Heaven but He came down from Heaven, that is the Son of Man who is in Heaven." If Nicodemus is challenged to believe that the Man bodily before him is "in Heaven" in the sense that Jesus speaks with authority and access and can be believed, how much more can we believe now that He has ascended to Heaven and has pledged to come again?
Jesus is in OUR first-hand experience. Up until now, Jesus has been providing Nicodemus with a kind of remediation, kindly but still confrontational with the reality that this new life has been the major theme of the Scriptures Nicodemus supposedly knew. Over-familiar and jaded with the Scripture, we likewise need constantly interpretation by the Spirit of Christ. Just as much, we need the sort of bringing the word to the present application Jesus brings in John 3:14-17. Having shown Nicodemus the continuity of Scripture, Jesus prepares his heart for what Nicodemus is going to see right before his eyes. "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved." Thus, wounded, weary, been there, done that skeptics, Christ still enters into our present day. His perfect sacrifice, pointed to as upcoming in these verses, takes the condemnation out of our past, present, and future failures. He gives us His righteousness, that whatever rejection we experience, even for jobseekers, is overshadowed by acceptance in Him. Since He says yes, what does it really matter who says no?
Jesus reminds skeptics that we know better than most where salvation ISN'T found. To Nicodemus who says he has grown old in striving, and to those of us grown weary in other endeavors, Jesus offers both hope and challenge. We already know, He says, that what we have been watching again and again, have been trying again and again, isn't working. His verdict, really, readily concurs with ours when He says in verses 18 through 20, "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God and this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed." If we weren't condemned, if we didn't have a sneaking suspicion that there is more than we typically experience, we wouldn't be here, we wouldn't be skeptics and skeptical of skepticism at the same time.
Jesus points even skeptics to hope ahead. Once we shed the guarded nature that has done such a poor job protecting us, skeptics, once we agree with Christ that we must be born again in order to live a life with any real meaning, He concludes with the crescendo that there is life transformation ahead enough to convince us and the skeptics around us that new life is more than a metaphor. He guarantees in verse 21, "But he who does the truth comes to light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God." Christ who speaks so unflinchingly to the hopelessness of even religion's best representative stakes His reputation on real change in those who follow after Him. The next time we, then, as Christians, feel picked over, poked, and prodded by the world's representatives who have the nerve to be skeptical of us, we can shed our skeptic's sneer for a smile that the proof of John 3:21 is coming to pass.
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