A Fresh Perspective

Our story begins with Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a religious leader, coming to Jesus by night. He comes by night possibly to avoid being seen in the day. He is a Pharisee, and the official Pharisaic position about Jesus is very negative. I suspect he doesn’t want to risk his reputation and position and standing with his group, where he is recognized as a leader, where he has status and clout. The power of the group to tell us who we are and keep us in the dark, in the night is powerful. In his book, Letters to a Young Doubter , the late William Sloan Coffin says that when he was chaplain at Yale, he would sometimes get requests from seniors to write a letter of recommendation to some highfalutin school like Harvard Law or Columbia Medical School. He mostly wrote about their character and integrity rather than their academic achievements or potential, which to some students was not totally satisfactory. Coffin describes it this way: “Never mind that I enumerated some sterling extra...

According to John’s Gospel, when Jesus appeared to the disciples in an Easter epiphany, he said, “As the Father sent me, so I send you.” Then the text says that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Only a literal reading of the text would regard this as the first connection the disciples had with the Holy Spirit, who is also called the Advocate or Comforter and the Spirit of Truth in John’s Gospel. The language of “Holy Spirit” is just another symbolical way of talking about God and God’s relationship to the world. One of the key things the Gospel of John teaches about the Holy Spirit, I believe, is that present day disciples of Jesus experience the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Christ. The Christ image is the Christian’s dominant image of God. We understand the Spirit of God as the Spirit of Christ. When John says that Jesus breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” he wants his readers to recall the creation story where God breathes into the human ...

Dr. Albert Schweitzer was an amazing man. He was a renowned theological scholar, a concert pianist, and a medical doctor. The second half of his career was devoted to serving a medical mission in Lambarene, Africa. He could not get missionary support because his theology was suspect, so he performed concerts in order to raise money to support his work. In the first half of his career as a theological scholar he wrote several books, one of which launched a major theological movement that has now went through several phases. The title of the book describes the movement, "The Quest for the Historical Jesus." The late Fred Craddock, who taught at Candler School of Theology for a number of years, tells about the time he first read the book. He was in his early twenties, just getting started in his theological career. He thought Schweitzer’s Christology was woefully lacking.  F red was in Knoxville and read in the news that Schweitzer was going to be in Cleveland, Ohio to giv...

  This passage in John 17 is part of a larger passage that is presented by John as a prayer of Jesus for his disciples. Jesus had been preparing them to continue his work when he was gone. He knew his time was short. John, the writer, uses this prayer format as a means of continued instruction. The dominant theme seem to be the paradoxical relationship the disciples of Jesus have with the world. John speaks of the world in several different ways that appear contradictory. In one sense the disciples are part of the world and belong to the world. We are all part of God’s good creation and the human family. John says in his prologue in chapter one that the light of God enlightens every person coming into the world. As Paul says in Acts 17 we are all God’s offspring and in God we all live, move, and have our existence. So in one sense the world is God’s. We all belong to one another and are all connected by the Divine Spirit. There is also a sense in which disciples of Jesu...

Almost everyone who has been in church is familiar with the hymn, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” It was written by a son to comfort his mother whom he had left behind in Ireland when he came to the United States in the 1850s. It reflects the sentiments of a Victorian age, but it is a much beloved hymn. According to the hymn, Jesus is our friend because he bears our burdens and sorrows. The hymn was written to assure his mother, that though he couldn’t be there with her, Jesus is with her and he is a friend like no other. He asks, “Can we find a friend so faithful, who will all our sorrows share?” The hymn presents Jesus as a faithful friend who helps us to carry the load of our personal sorrows and burdens. Friendship is presented as gift and blessing. Who can argue with that? Who would want to argue with that?   The subject of friendship is introduced in our text today, but it is presented from a different angle. Jesus contrasts servanthood and friendship, calling his d...