The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to John

After Jesus healed the son of the official in Capernaum, there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids– blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. Now that day was a Sabbath. (John 5:1-9)

       ——————————————————————

My brother in law, Tony,  was a joker, although sometimes you couldn’t follow what he was saying as he tended to mumble. But he could tell a good story.

His mother had bad arthritis in her knees. She had had some drastic surgery to help ease the pain which involved stiffening one leg, which kind of stuck out from the old wheelchair, they had gotten for her, so  basically she was immobilized.

He was very good with her, actually taking her on holiday with them, and he even brought her to Canada for a holiday here, which she seemed to enjoy.

Tony and his family, being Irish were good Catholics and so when they took his mother to France for a holiday, he made sure they went to Lourdes.

They wanted to try and have her healed in that holy water, in that holy place.

He told me that they managed to get his mother, still in her old wheelchair, into the water, and sure enough something happened.

The water surged and bubbled around his mum in her chair, and she made noises of surprise, ” Whoo, whoo, whoo, ” she went.

Then they brought her out of the water.

I had been listening to Tony tell this story with great expectation.

“Was she healed?” I asked.

“No,” Tony said, ” But that wheelchair had on it a brand new pair of tires on it. “

In a portico, with five porches,  a place called Bethzatha, there was a pool of water, located above  an underground stream that occasionally caused the surface of the pool to be disturbed.

When that happened, people thought that disturbance was caused by angel, and that if a sick person were able to get into the water at such a time they would be healed.

Maybe at some time in the past someone had managed to get into the water and afterward reported being healed and the story got around and people who were desperate for healing  wanted to be  taken there.

But basically it was mere superstition.

Jesus saw this man who had lain there, obviously for a long time, unable to walk, and consequently unable to get into the water at the magical time.

Seeing him, Jesus’ heart was moved.

Ignoring the superstitious beliefs around the water, he asked him, ” Do you want to be made well?”

That isn’t as daft a question as it may seem.

For some people, being an invalid can be not too bad a life.

You get looked after by well-meaning people, fed, perhaps offered clothing, and you don’t have to do anything. No stress. No worries. When you got used  to it, it might not be too bad a life.

When I did my turn as a pastor in the Emergency Department at Hamilton General Hospital, I spoke to a lady who had been brought in for some reason. I don’t remember what, but lying in her bed, she looked very thin, emaciated, even.

She told me that she had been told she would be going home the next day but she whispered to me that she wanted to stay a bit longer as she was enjoying getting regular meals.

My heart went out to her.

She wasn’t a malingerer, just a lonely lady trying to get by on a small pittance weekly, and needed some loving care.  And a square meal or two.

She didn’t want to be fit to leave the hospital just yet.

So when Jesus asked this man, ” Do you want to be made well? He wanted to know, did the man really want to be made well.

And he did. And he was.

“Get up. Lift up your bed. “

He had to do something. He had to try. He had to take Jesus at his word, and as he struggled to his feet, he was healed.

It seems to me that Jesus answers our entreaties, but that we have to be an active partner.

We can’t lay back and expect a miracle unless we are ready to our part too.

I have heard so many stories of people with serious illness, such that you might think they would never work again, but somehow, with good medical care, a positive attitude and the power of prayer you see them getting around, even going back to work, and living a full life.

Helping themselves, with the help of Jesus.

Jesus worked with that man to get him on his feet again,

Later on you will read that this man was seen walking in the city carrying his pallet, and accosted by the religious leaders who asked him why he was working on the  Sabbath.

The original intent of the law against working on the Sabbath referred to actual work.

A tailor carrying a bolt of cloth, a carpenter carrying a piece of wood, would be in contravention of the law, as obviously they were intending to work at their trade.

But the interpretation of the law had become so narrow that some rabbis held that if a man had a needle in his cloak he could be considered to be working and have to face a penalty.

When the man who had been healed was asked why he was working – carrying a burden  – his pallet – on the Sabbath, he told them it was because he had been told to get up and carry his bed  by a man called Jesus.

This gave those in authority another reason to hate Jesus.

Here was concrete evidence that he was encouraging someone to break the law.

It was true that God rested on the seventh day – the basis of the Sabbath – as his work  of creation was done, but  He didn’t stop loving His people. Or caring for them, on that seventh day, did He? 

Similarly, Jesus wouldn’t turn his back on someone who was suffering, even if doing so was against the strict interpretation of the law. Would he?

Moving on, though, as usual, there is always another dimension, a spiritual dimension,  to the stories we read in the Gospels.

And there is more to this than a simple account of the healing of a paralyzed man.

Because these stories, these accounts are placed in the Gospels to bring out that other, spiritual dimension.

I am referring to the healing of a life, the transformation  of a life, that can take place with Jesus’ help. Many a life has been transformed – in fact millions of lives have been transformed – in response to the healing power of Jesus.

Many a life which has seemed lost, wasted , useless, has been miraculously transformed  by the power of Jesus Christ.

But once again, the recipient of such power to change really has to want to change.

It takes two.  Maybe three – one person helping another want to change, and Jesus to do the heavy lifting.

Sometimes it happens through the efforts of someone pointing the way.

Sometimes it happens despite the efforts of some who would dissuade.

In 1855 a young man, eighteen years old moved to Boston to seek his fortune. He looked for a church to join and found himself in a Bible preaching church.

He had been brought up Unitarian so knew nothing of the Gospels.

He seemed to know nothing of theology, but was eager to learn.

He didn’t  get off to a good start.  In fact, some years later his Sunday School teacher said of him, ” I can truly say that I have seen few persons whose minds were spiritually darker than his.”

He was put on probation for a year in the hope that he might learn some spiritual truths. He wasn’t seen as a good prospect. He was barely literate and had an atrocious accent.

At the end of that year there didn’t seem much in the way of improvement but reluctantly they allowed him to become a member of the church.

Over the next years there were many who looked at that young man and wondered if God could ever use a person like Dwight L. Moody.

But God didn’t wonder.

He did use Dwight.

By God’s grace and love, and through his own determination, and the help of Jesus the Christ, that new- to- the- Gospel -young man,  became one of the most effective preachers, and evangelists the church had known.

The Billy Graham of his era some might say.

He is still quoted today.

God wanted that young man’s help to change the world, and Dwight Moody needed God to transform him so he could do that.

For Jesus to work in us, we do have to want that transformation.

We may be moved by something that rings a bell in our mind, if you like, and think that knowing this Jesus guy sounds pretty good, and we want to know him.

But something happens on the way to the church as it were, something that distracts us, something that makes being a Christian seem not such a good gig.

And we back off.

It is hard being  Christian. No doubt about it.

We have to love people who seem unlovable.

We have to forgive hurts against us when we really would rather hit back.

We have to be a good witness to the community – an example of a Christian that makes others want  to be like us.

We have to hold back that hurtful response when we would really like to deliver it.

We might have to give up stuff we like doing.

We might have to leave comfort and security behind sometimes.

That man, lying there in that portico, must have become quite used to being there.

He could wake up when he wanted. He could sleep when he wanted. He didn’t have to attend temple worship. He wasn’t breaking any laws by being there.

People were sorry for him and treated him with pity.

And he couldn’t be blamed if he seemed satisfied with his life. 

He had put up with it for thirty eight years after all

But when Jesus came along, and said, “Let’s do this together,”

he struggled to his feet and walked out of that place a new man – ready to be different.

Ready to face the world.

Ready to take on whatever challenges came his way.

He was a new man.

With a new life

Healed and healthy and soon to feel fulfilled, for once, in his life.

And two thousand years later his witness to the transforming power  of Christ still inspires us.

Praise God and worship His holy Name. A

      The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to John.

At the last supper, when Judas had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:31-35)

                   _________________________________

“I give you a new commandment, to love one another.”

“Everyone will know by this that you are my disciples.”

The question that arises from today’s Gospel story for me, is, “ Do people really know that we are disciples by the way we love each other?”

Because they sure know when we don’t.

When I was a member of  St. Luke’s in Burlington, the church came to an arrangement with the city of Burlington to allow the city the use of some church land for a city parking lot, provided that St. Luke’s parishioners could park there free.

To facilitate this, the church handed out stickers for parishioners to display on their windshields, with the St. Luke’s coat of arms.

Some time later  my son Jeff came home and told us about something that happened at the Pioneer gas station where he worked after school.

He said a lady pulled in, was very curt, and very rude, and even swore at him.

Then he told me…… and you guessed it…. she had a St. Luke’s sticker on her windshield.

She may have displayed the sticker but she certainly didn’t display  the kind of love that Jesus commanded of his disciples.

Did she?  

I don’t think that she got it.

I can’t think of anyone I have known in the churches I have served, who  would behave like that.

That person was really only going through the motions – of being a Christian – attending church.  I would hate to think  she attended the church – went through “the motions” –  merely to get that sticker.

I don’t think we are here just to go through the motions.

But  I think it is easy to slip into that mode of Christianity.

It can happen without thinking about it.

So how would you know?   

Ask yourself,  “Am I living a life of faith?”

I don’t mean do you have faith in God?  I am sure you do.

But does your life exhibit the signs of your being a follower of Jesus – other than coming to church on a Sunday?

Some people think coming to church every Sunday is a big chore, but believe me, coming to church is the easiest thing we are called to do as Christians.  

Living a Godly life can be tough.

Fact is you can’t live a godly life without God.

Funnily enough a lot of Christians don’t know that.

They know God is around somewhere. He’s there somewhere. But He is not up front.  Not in your face.

You see, for you and me, acknowledging God every day in all that we do, is intrinsic to being Christian.

Because you can’t live a godly life without God.

If you can’t be bothered to get out of bed on a Sunday morning.

If you find yourself swearing more, lying more, being angry more, deceiving more, loving people less, then you should acknowledge a real need for God in your life.

If you have children and you want to help them grow up into God-fearing, well balanced, happy and fulfilled adults, then you really need to acknowledge a need for God in your life, and model it. 

Because if you don’t live your faith then you can’t expect your kids to do so.

But really, there is no compulsion to be a Christian. 

It used to be, maybe a hundred years ago,  that you couldn’t get a job unless you went to church regularly. And sometimes even that wasn’t good enough if you happened to go to a different church than the person interviewing you.

But no more.

You can be what you want to be.

You can be an atheist, a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Methodist, a Roman Catholic, a Satanist, a New Lifer, a vegan, an earth lover, a crystal gazer, or even an Anglican. 

But whatever you choose to be, you should be prepared to live it.  

As they say: You have to talk the talk, and walk the walk. 

Jesus said, I give you a new commandment.

Now the original Greek  for ‘new commandment’ is more correctly translated as “a new way”

A new way of walking, and a new way of talking.

Jesus exhibited a new way of walking and of talking.

He loved people, and especially his disciples, selflessly.

If we  act in a certain way –  a way that looks impressive,  that shows us in a good light, but which  brings us a reward of some kind, then what we did  cannot be described as selfless.

I wonder sometimes about those people who give a large sum of money to a hospital, or school, and agree to have their name is attached.

Jesus’ love was unconditional. 

Jesus’ love was also one of understanding.

Jesus knew his friends. He had lived with them for a long time. He knew their strengths and their weaknesses.

And loved them nevertheless.

But the leader of his small band of men would deny him. They would all  forsake him in his hour of need.

At the end they were cowardly.

But not only did Jesus  forgive them, he still entrusted them to take his message to the whole world.

Jesus’ love was sacrificial.

When you love sacrificially, there is nothing that you will not do for those you love. No demand is too great. No need too challenging.

Some years ago, a friend of mine brought his girl friend to the house for dinner. She was quite lovely, and I could not understand how some guy had not taken her as his wife before then.. 

I asked her, ‘ How come you have never married?”

She said, ” I have been busy during the last ten years looking after my mother who because of illness, needed me.

“I fed her, bathed her and dressed her every day, and undressed her and prepared her for bed every evening.

” I was her nurse, her friend, her every day companion.”

I said, “That’s some sacrifice. How did you manage it?”

She just said,” She was my mother!”

She was my mother.

There is that sort of sacrifice, one that comes from familial love, where  someone sacrifices their own life, their own time, their own well-being for another.

Then there is the sort of sacrifice that comes instantly. It comes automatically. It is there when called for instantaneously. 

Sadly there have been a number of shootings in schools in America. One such happened a few years ago, at a Stem School in Highland Ranch Colorado.

A young man went into a classroom with a gun and began shooting.

A student by the name of Kendrick Castillo tackled him, and was shot and killed in doing so, but what he did  gave the other students the opportunity to escape.

Kendrick was the second student  in one week, who lay down his life in an heroic act of bravery in order to stop further bloodshed.

Earlier, at UNC Charlotte, senior Ryan Howell “took the assailant off his feet,” as Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerry Putney revealed in a press conference.  He  saved his friends, but died doing it.

These two young men, without even thinking,  lay down their lives for their friends.

It shows clearly the values they held.

Thankfully, living sacrificially doesn’t always have to be that deadly..

According to popular culture, we often think that love brings happiness, but as we have seen, it sometimes brings a cross. 

The young woman I mentioned earlier, saw the cross her mother had to carry, and without question, leaned in and helped her carry it.

When you think about it, rules of religion, rituals, traditional beliefs, the seasonal worship we follow, are all fine, never mind the name of your religion, but nothing matters more then living, how you say, “Christly.”

Jesus has shown us how to do that.

Amen.

The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to John

At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”
Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.” (John 10:22-30)
———————————
If you have children, or grandchildren staying with you will know what they want most – It is to stay up real late. They never want to go to bed.

But I remember as a child myself being sent to bed in the summer when it was still light outside and I could hear other kids still playing, and thinking how terrible my parents were. Now I just can’t wait to get into bed.

But if you do have children or grandchildren stay over, you will know that they also like to get up early. At six-thirty, you hear, ‘Grandma, Poppa, is it time to get up?’

And Grandma and Poppa want to lie in until at least eight.

As a child, all your problems can be taken care of by your parents. Should you fall and scrape your knees, then mom or dad will pick you up, take you home, bathe your wounds and bandage them, and cuddle you until you feel better.

It’s so good to have a big person in your life, isn’t it?

Mostly we adults can take care of things like bills, getting groceries, deciding whether to pay money off the mortgage, or into your RRSP’s, and so on. But sometimes, bad things happen and we are hurt, or feel lost or alone, and why isn’t there a big person there to take care of us? Like the way a shepherd takes care of his sheep.

A shepherd watches over his sheep. He sees when they are going astray, and he calls them back. And they know his voice. Believe it!. The sheep know their shepherd’s voice.

A Dr. Marion Henderson writes that in Southern Palestine, there are many caves, and several flocks of sheep might be herded into one of them to escape a storm, or to weather overnight. Even though several flocks might be mixed together, in the morning, the shepherd doesn’t have to look for brands or markings, to identify his animals, he just steps away from the cave, moves away from the other shepherds, and calls to his flock. And they come right to him. Because they know his voice.

I think we know God’s voice, calling us, don’t we? It’s just that we don’t want to hear it sometimes.

Our grandchildren are getting better now, but I remember the time when they would be running over the lawn toward the road, and I would call them back, and they wouldn’t hear my voice – even though I shouted, and was only about ten feet from them. They knew my voice but they didn’t want to hear.

As adults we are like that, aren’t we? We find ourselves tempted to do something we shouldn’t do, and a voice inside warns us not to, and yet we ignore it. To our cost.

A lot of parents these days are giving their children cell phones, in case they get lost, or wander off. The phone will help parents to find them.

Provided they make the call.

There is a song I remember, that was recorded by Manhattan Transfer. I am not going to try and sing it, you will be glad to know, and I can’t remember all the words, but the singer says that when she was a little girl and things went wrong in their home, her mother would pick up the phone, and say, “Operator. Operator. Get me long distance?”“

Then, “Long distance? Get me Jesus on the phone.”

And he was always there. And her mother would pour out her heart on that phone to Jesus, and he would always give her the correct answer.

The little girl knew that her mother didn’t really have Jesus on the other end of the phone, but it worked anyway. It was her mother’s way of praying, but also of showing her kids where they should turn when in trouble.

Good idea, eh?

But you’ve got to make the call!.

Don’t blame God for not being there for you if you don’t make the call. Or maintain the connection: Like in prayer. Like in looking in your Bible. Like in studying your bible with friends. Like in reaching out for your shepherd, and coming back to him.

How many of us think of Jesus as our shepherd I wonder?

We know him as the Son of God. It says so in the Creed. We know him as the Saviour, the one who died for us on the cross. But even that great and terrible sacrifice gets fuzzy in your mind after hearing about it every week for ever and ever.

Watching the Passion of Christ renews for me the horror that Jesus went through for me. I need to know that afresh.

The Jews at the time saw God as some distant being who could only reached by sacrifice, offered through a priest in God’s Holy Temple.

Jesus showed us that God is closer than we think. He asked the Father to let his disciples be one with God as he himself had been one with God. His whole ministry and his death are the path to that oneness with God that Jesus wanted for us.

The problem is, it’s limiting, isn’t it?

Being one with God I mean.

There are things we want to do, things we want to say, ways we want to act that we can’t if we are one with God. Like young people slipping away from their parents, so that they can get up to some mischief, we tend to slip away from God.

Living with God, like living with your parents is limiting, isn’t it? Yes, it is limiting, but I would rather live within his love, and resist what the world calls me to do, than separate myself from Him.

And have you ever noticed that if you are open to doing wrong, there is always someone there to help you?

Do wrong, that is.

A woman and a man were involved in a car accident. It was bad one. Both of their cars were demolished but amazingly neither of them was hurt.

After they crawled out of their cars, the woman said, “So, you’re a man… that’s interesting….. I’m a woman. And just look at our cars! There’s nothing left, but fortunately we are unhurt. This must be a sign from God that we should meet and be friends and celebrate our friendship.”

The man said, “It certainly looks like that, doesn’t it?”

The woman then said, “And look at this, here’s another miracle… My car is completely demolished, but this bottle of wine didn’t break. Surely we are meant to drink this wine and celebrate our good fortune.”

Then she handed the bottle to the man. He took it, opened it, drank half the bottle and then handed it back to the woman. The woman took the bottle, put the cap back on, and gave it back to him. He said, “Aren’t you having any?” She said, “Nah. I think I’ll just wait for the police…”…

As I said, there will always be someone handy to help separate you from God.
But we shouldn’t want to be.

Separated from God.

David was a man chosen by God for greatness. He had been given everything – palaces, victory in war, servants, wives, concubines. And yet he coveted another man’s wife. He found it limiting to be with his shepherd. And he went out on his own.

But without his shepherd, he was lost. He knew this, of course, and the words of today’s psalm, reflect it.

When he accepted the shepherding of his Lord, he was led to green pastures. He found himself besides still waters. He found rest, when he remained with his shepherd.
He had nothing to fear. His shepherd protected him with rod and staff.

But he had dark valleys to walk through.

He had dark times to live through, he had a dark side to cope with.

We all do. Don’t we? And when we fall, we want a big person to pick us up and bathe our wounds, and drive away our fear. And He is that big person.

If we turn to Him.

A while ago I visited someone who had been in that dark valley, and needed a shepherd. I was told that despite their difficulties, they had been overwhelmed by the goodness and kindness of people. They couldn’t believe there was so much goodness in the world.

Even people in worse circumstances than theirs had been there to help them and lift them up.

They didn’t use these words specifically, but their cup obviously overflowed. They were people who had always relied on their own resources. And had done well, until they found themselves in that dark valley.

But dark valley or no, who would want to try to find their way through the traps and snares and temptations, and pitfalls that this world offers when there is another, better way?

“My sheep know my voice, and I know them. They follow me, and I give them eternal life so that they will never be lost. My Father gave them to me and he is greater than all others. No-one can snatch them out of his hands, and I am one with the Father.:”

So let us work to be one with Christ, and with each other, serving him and each other in joy and in wonder.
Amen.

        . 

       A Reading from the New Testament Book of Acts.

Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” [The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” He answered, “Here I am, Lord.” The Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.” But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.” But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength. For several days he was with the disciples in Damascus, and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.”] Acts 9:1-6, (7-20)

                        —————————————– ————-

Contrary to how the stoning of a person is depicted in movies, the person was not tied down in a particular spot  and surrounded by people who would then throw stones at them.

Rather, the person would be taken to a higher place, and thrown off that place, to land on rocks below. Then if the person were still alive  rocks and boulders would then be thrown down upon them, until they were dead. 

That is what was happening to a disciple of Jesus named Stephen who had been preaching very effectively – too effectively – about Jesus and against temple worship.

His message was that people had drifted away from worshipping God and were worshipping the temple.

The temple had become their focus rather than God.

Could that happen to us?  I was told once, ” I attend church every Sunday isn’t that enough?”

For having raised the same question, Stephen was taken by the authorities to  be stoned.

As they dragged him away, he prayed aloud,” Lord set not this sin to their charge.” 

A young man named Saul was present at the time, and had been looking after the coats of the men who killed Stephen, and he would have heard that prayer.

Saul was one who was working to persecute Christians, and surely would have thought, on hearing that prayer ” How can such a man be considered evil?”
As  he further went about capturing Christians and turning them over to the authorities,  he would wonder how such Christians  could be so serene and  confident  in God and in Jesus when they were apprehended and threatened with death.

How could they be considered evil? 

He may have wrestled with such thoughts, even as he went to the Sanhedrin to obtain letters of credit that he might go to Damascus, to extradite any Christians there.

To travel to Damascus, on foot, a journey of 140 miles, would take a week. He was accompanied by temple guards. But as a Pharisee he couldn’t be near them, so walked alone.  

The  road just before Damascus rose up to Mount Hermon, and travelers would pause to look down in wonder at the city laid out before them.

As did Saul and his companions.

It is said that that region was subject to a particular weather phenomenon, in that when the hot air of the plain below met the cold air of the mountain range, violent electrical storms – thunder and lightening – would result.

Just at that moment, as Saul and the others stood there, such a lightening storm  happened, and from the storm, Jesus spoke to Saul.

In that moment, the battle that had been taking place inside Saul’s head and heart was over, and Saul, surrendered to Christ.

You have heard what happened after he had been taken, blind, to Damascus and how Ananias  a disciple  was sent to heal him of his blindness.

Ananias on meeting Saul, addressed the man who had been persecuting Christians, ” Brother Saul.”

That sign of brotherliness and Christian love, may have been, along  with the prayer of Stephen, what brought Saul to Christ and the church he would serve so well.

God had been calling Saul and he had been ignoring the call.

In the St James version, Paul quotes Jesus as having said, ” Saul Saul, why are you persecuting me?  It hurts you to kick against the goads.”

In those days, farmers had a form of accelerator in the harness on an ox.  It was a piece of wood with a nail or spike in it and  which rested  lightly  on the rump of the ox, within reach of the farmer’s foot.

If the ox moved too slowly, or not at all, the farmer could press down on the goad – the accelerator – and it would get the message.

But sometimes the ox would rebel and kick back against the goad.

That’s what Saul had been doing.

You might see Stephen’s prayer asking God to not hold the crowd’s actions against them, as a goad from God to move Saul forward.

You might see in the Christians  Saul was persecuting – their serenity when in danger, their peace of mind, their faith in God, as they saw him in Jesus, you might see that as God goading Saul. 

And now on the road to Damascus, although Saul  is blind, you might say that paradoxically, his eyes have been opened for him to see the truth about Jesus. 

And from that moment, Saul ceases to do what he wants to do and does what God wants him to do.

He stops kicking against the goad.

There are those of us who were taught about Jesus at our mother’s knee, and who were brought up within the church, and who consequently knew Jesus as  Saviour, and  never kicked against the goad.

And, there are those of us who rebelled against the constraints that we thought came along with that life. 

And we kicked against the goad.

I would rather  we came to Christ after seeing His love expressed in others.., than having to be goaded into it.

But who knows what will bring a person to the point of acceptance?

John Wesley was the father of the Methodist denomination. It is estimated that over the course of his lifetime he rode horseback 250,000 miles in preaching the gospel. If you’re counting, that’s enough distance to circle the earth ten times!

One night, as Wesley rode across Hounslow Heath near London, a robber jumped in front of him, grabbed the horse’s bridle, and shouted, “Halt! Your money or your life!” Wesley, who was far from rich, politely obliged by removing the few coins he had in his pockets.

He even invited the robber to examine his saddlebags which were filled with books. Disappointed in the meager haul, the robber turned away to leave.

Wesley called the man back, saying, “Stop! I have something more to give you.” Puzzled,  the robber walked back to him. Wesley then bent down from his horse and said, “My friend, you may live to regret this sort of life. If you ever do, I beseech you to remember this: ‘The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sin.’”

Upon hearing those words, the robber scurried away into the night. Wesley, for his part, offered up a heartfelt prayer right then and there that God would burn his words into the robber’s conscience.

Years later, at the close of a Sunday night service in a large building for a large congregation, a stranger stepped forward and asked to speak with Wesley.

It was the man who had robbed Wesley on Hounslow Heath so many years earlier. The man had long been a Christian and was now a wealthy tradesman in London.

Wesley remembered his first meeting with the man and was delighted to see him a second time. With virtual reverence the man took Wesley’s hand, kissed it, and said, “To you, dear sir, I owe it all.”

Wesley, recalling what he had said to the man that night so long ago, softly replied, “No, my friend, not to me, but to the precious blood of Christ which cleanses us from all sin.”

That man obviously had had within him a yearning for something.

He had been doing what he wanted, rather than  what God wanted him to do. And it had not been fulfilling.

His life had been useless, and if God had indeed called him, he had turned his back, refused to listen, and kicked against the goad, you might say.

But when he met Wesley, and experienced God’s love in him, and when Wesley told him briefly about the cleansing blood of Christ, something -, we don’t know when – it may have been a long time – but something – opened his eyes, and his heart, and changed his life.

Did Wesley’s words sit there in his mind, percolating, nudging, goading him?

Until he surrendered?

When I was  about ten years old, some evangelists, a family from America visited a church nearby. My aunts took me there to see them and hear them preach. They were husband and wife and two daughters and somehow my family got to know them well, and the younger daughter aged fourteen was billeted at our house for a time.

Johanna was her name and she was truly a preacher’s daughter.

I remember her saying that to be saved we have to accept Jesus as our Saviour. And I asked her, ” What about those who never get to hear about him ?”

She said, ” Somehow, in some way, during their lifetime, God makes sure that everyone is given that choice.”

I still have a hard time thinking that everyone, everywhere is given the chance to know Jesus, and turn their life around.

Looking at the state of the world today ,it would seem that  people are certainly given the choice to go the other way, doesn’t it? 

It’s up to us to recognise that moment, the moment we are called, and to do what God wants us to do, rather than what we want to do.

It’s up to us, as Ananias did, to accept the call to offer Him to others.

To do so without condemnation. Without judgment.

And allow Him do His work in them.

Who knows? 

Maybe there is some notion at the back of your mind, percolating, gently nagging, something you shrug off as not convenient to look at now, but which God wants you to do?

Is goading you to do.?

And are you kicking against it?

Amen