William H. Willimon - "How Can This Be?" (February 28, 1999)

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-	The discussion in the little church	0:08
	that evening had been rather heated.	0:11
	Heated, but interesting,	0:15
	we had been talking about the Bible.	0:18
	And about the challenge of interpreting the Bible.	0:21
	And then this man rose and said,	0:28
	"Well, all this academic talk is fine but,	0:29
	"I think this all can be best summed up	0:35
	"in a bumper sticker I saw the other day.	0:38
	"The Bible said it, I believe it, that settles it."	0:40
	It was the end of the discussion.	0:48
	Now if you get your theology off bumper stickers,	0:52
	then today's Gospel, the story of Jesus and Nicodemus,	0:55
	may not be for you.	1:01
	We ...	1:05
	We snicker at the shrink-wrapped simplistic faith	1:07
	of the man who so glibly speaks of the Bible, but,	1:13
	if we're honest,	1:19
	we must admit that even, maybe especially among us, too,	1:22
	there is that tendency to shear off the grand reality	1:28
	of God to fit the narrow confines of the modest modern mind.	1:32
	It is so difficult to think of God,	1:42
	except through recourse to our own experience.	1:46
	Our social location, our prejudices.	1:52
	So Karl Barth warned, "God is not man	1:56
	"uttered in a loud voice," but it is awfully hard	2:02
	not to be guilty of getting our theology	2:07
	at the God R Us store.	2:12
	A thoughtful student comes to me and asked,	2:17
	"How could any intelligent person	2:22
	"believe that Jesus was conceived of a virgin?"	2:27
	And how am I to respond?	2:33
	The student is, like me, caught.	2:36
	Caught in a, living in an accustomed world	2:40
	where certain things do happen	2:46
	with a kind of reassuring consistency.	2:50
	And those things we call facts.	2:52
	And those things we privilege into,	2:55
	and we make them into laws of nature,	2:59
	and we get a kind of closed world in which,	3:02
	for anything more surprising to happen,	3:07
	it's like illegal, it's like breaking some law.	3:08
	On the Sunday before Christmas, I remember vividly	3:15
	the Reverend Nelson prayed in his prayer here,	3:18
	"Lord, we thank you that you had so much imagination,	3:21
	"you came to us as Jesus," isn't that great?	3:29
	We thank you for being the sort of God	3:35
	we could never have thought up on our own.	3:38
	Coming among us as Jesus born on a virgin's womb,	3:42
	God with us in the flesh, God you have really got some	3:46
	fertile imagination.	3:52
	So Bishop Spong asked, "My daughter has her PhD in physics.	3:56
	"How on earth is my daughter, can she be expected to believe	4:03
	"in the bodily resurrection of Jesus?"	4:08
	And I responded, well, we'd have to meet your daughter,	4:12
	wouldn't we?	4:16
	Has she got any imagination?	4:18
	A lot of people in physics don't.	4:20
	Has she ever traveled outside of New Jersey?	4:25
	Maybe that's the problem.	4:27
	Does your daughter enjoy being surprised?	4:31
	You see that it doesn't end the discussion to say	4:35
	my daughter is good in one academic area,	4:38
	that makes her brilliant in everything else.	4:41
	No, we're not nearly, we intellectual types,	4:43
	we're not nearly as intellectually expansive	4:49
	as we love to think of ourselves.	4:52
	It is so tempting, in matters of the spirit,	4:54
	to seize upon some pleasing platitude that fits	5:00
	within our limited experience.	5:05
	It's so easy to get some corner of the divine	5:07
	and then cling tightly to that fragment	5:10
	as if that were all there was to be had.	5:13
	Oh, that's right, we're educated university people,	5:19
	we're open-minded, we're broad spirited,	5:22
	we're incapable of shallow reductionism.	5:24
	I wonder.	5:30
	Well, in today's Gospel, he comes to Jesus by night.	5:35
	This man named Nicodemus, night.	5:39
	Night is like a lot of things in the Gospel of John,	5:45
	it is more than it first appears.	5:48
	Night is more than night.	5:51
	Night is ignorance.	5:53
	Night is a name for people that can see without seeing.	5:56
	Night is time of confusion and not knowing.	6:01
	Which makes it all the more odd	6:05
	to find a man like Nicodemus out stumbling around	6:07
	out in the darkness.	6:10
	It's odd, because Nicodemus is presented to us	6:12
	as somebody who knows, somebody who's in the know.	6:16
	He's introduced to us a leader of the synagogue,	6:20
	the synagogue, the school of Israel,	6:24
	he is a knowledgeable person.	6:27
	In other words, Nicodemus is us.	6:30
	Those of us in the know.	6:36
	Rabbi, we know, those are Nicodemus's first words to Jesus.	6:40
	Nicodemus speaks first of what he knows.	6:48
	He speaks from a position of self-confident secure world,	6:53
	where there are some who know and are certain,	6:57
	and are sometimes so smug in their certitude.	7:02
	Rabbi, we know, Jesus, can we talk like professor	7:06
	to professor, teacher to teacher?	7:12
	Now we know, recent studies, by Midwestern University	7:15
	have proven that a recent book by a reliable authority	7:20
	in England has demonstrated, beyond a shadow of doubt,	7:24
	that we know, we, that's everybody in this room,	7:29
	all of us in this class, everybody seated around	7:34
	this table, members of Phi Beta Kappa,	7:36
	we know that you, Jesus, must be from God,	7:39
	for your works seem divine.	7:44
	And what's the first thing Jesus says to Nicodemus?	7:49
	No you don't know, nobody knows.	7:52
	Nobody knows what's possible with God,	7:56
	unless one is born from above, reborn from top to bottom	7:59
	by water and the Spirit, and immediately,	8:05
	Nicodemus seems dislodged, dislocated, confused.	8:10
	Jesus is suddenly becoming incomprehensible to him.	8:15
	"How can this be?" Nicodemus asked.	8:19
	And this plaintive, whining question sort of sums up	8:24
	the rest of Nicodemus's half of the conversation.	8:28
	How can this be?	8:31
	As Nicodemus scurries to kind of put the pieces	8:34
	back together, and get back to a world where we know,	8:37
	Nicodemus comes to Jesus to get a few things nailed down,	8:42
	more rigorously defined, settled, fixed.	8:46
	He's big on defining and fixing this man in the know,	8:49
	and here comes Jesus launching out into some dangerously	8:54
	wild, unexplored intellectual territory,	8:57
	ruled not by what we know, not by conventional wisdom,	9:00
	but rather ruled by the Spirit.	9:06
	Don't you find it interesting that when Nicodemus comes	9:11
	to Jesus, asking him, "How can this be?"	9:14
	Jesus responds by using two images,	9:17
	wind, spirit.	9:21
	Wind, which the Greek word is numa which means	9:26
	either wind or spirit.	9:32
	He uses water, he uses birth, he uses these mysterious	9:36
	experiences of things that we find uncontrollable	9:42
	and uncontainable, birth, wind, Jesus.	9:47
	Oh my dear stupid scholarly friend.	9:54
	Forget your officially approved definitions,	9:57
	the numa blows where it will.	10:00
	You can hear it, you can feel it,	10:03
	but you can't predict it, you can't define it, control it.	10:05
	Nicodemus.	10:10
	Teacher, do you mean numa?	10:12
	In the theologically sophisticated sense of Spirit,	10:14
	or are you using it in the more	10:18
	ordinary mundane sense of wind?	10:20
	Jesus says, "Yes."	10:22
	And how can this be?	10:25
	W. H. Auden said, "It is very hard to be a Christian	10:28
	"if you're not something of a poet first."	10:34
	And the way I would put it is,	10:37
	if you're the sort of person that sorts out like	10:39
	your underwear from the socks in your dresser drawer,	10:41
	and then like folds the underwear,	10:46
	Christianity is going to be like a reach for you, all right?	10:49
	We know.	10:55
	And then wind, birth, Spirit, wind, numa,	10:59
	blowing where it will, leaving this once self-confident	11:05
	sophisticated Nicodemus muttering, "How can this be?"	11:08
	I know a fresh person, who, in coming to the university,	11:16
	found his religious categories stepped on,	11:21
	bombarded, rearranged.	11:24
	How can this be?	11:27
	That was his question he asked me, how can this be?	11:29
	'Cause if I am truly a Christian, if I am truly	11:32
	dedicated to Christ, if I were once in high school,	11:35
	why am I now so uncertain, so full of questions,	11:41
	so unsteady, 'cause if you believe,	11:46
	then you're gonna be sure, you're gonna be certain,	11:50
	absolutely convinced, you're just gonna be	11:54
	chock full of answers.	11:56
	You know.	11:58
	Well by God's grace, he has come to regard	12:01
	what first seemed to him like	12:07
	a destructive tornado of doubt,	12:10
	I think he now thinks of it as a life-giving breeze,	12:14
	a breath of fresh air, it's not like the death of his faith,	12:18
	it's like the birth of his faith.	12:23
	It's birth, not obliteration.	12:25
	He is now on his way well to some interesting,	12:28
	well not more answers, we know, but	12:33
	he's on his way to faith, and faith is best defined	12:38
	not as we know, but as ...	12:42
	I trust.	12:46
	We won't go out of the box,	12:51
	but God won't fit into anybody's even best-built box.	12:52
	Furthermore, Jesus says that what he's got,	12:58
	you can't get unless it is given to you from above.	13:01
	Inside here, the way enlightenment occurs,	13:08
	is not from burning the proverbial midnight oil	13:14
	and not from like buckling down and working hard to get it.	13:17
	It comes as a gift.	13:23
	The word we use is grace,	13:25
	from above.	13:29
	See, I think we modern folk are under the delusion	13:33
	that we possess already within us,	13:37
	completely sufficiency to grasp the world,	13:40
	to understand, to by God know, all knowledge	13:43
	is readily available to everybody	13:49
	if you'll just sit down and you'll just think hard.	13:52
	Have you noticed, the language we use,	13:56
	we'll say I got it, I got it.	13:59
	Or we say, you have a good grasp of the material.	14:01
	You grasp it, you get it, you grab it, you hold it, fix it.	14:07
	Isn't it interesting that Jesus, on the other hand,	14:11
	speaks of knowing as, his epistemology is birth,	14:14
	breathe, gift.	14:21
	How can this be?	14:27
	Oh Nicodemus, even for a well-educated self-assured	14:31
	Phi Beta Kappa competent intellect like you,	14:34
	the wind blows where it will.	14:38
	You can try to shut out the wind with all your	14:42
	definitions of what can and can't be,	14:44
	your little flat world view, but	14:48
	the wind blows where it will, even for you,	14:51
	there is the possibility not just of answers,	14:58
	but of enlightenment.	15:01
	I've noticed, as a pastor, in the churches I've served,	15:06
	it really does seem that sometimes,	15:11
	it's the least well-educated, least intellectual folk	15:14
	who are those who often possess	15:19
	the greatest Christian wisdom,	15:22
	when it comes to matters of the Spirit.	15:27
	Maybe it's true, what Jesus said.	15:32
	God loves to hide from the wise,	15:35
	but loves to expose himself to the simple.	15:40
	She attended our church, when her family vacationed	15:47
	at the coast each summer, she said, she told me,	15:52
	that she had been attending our church for years,	15:57
	because it was the only church on the beach	16:02
	where a black person could feel welcome.	16:05
	And that pleased me.	16:10
	She had had a difficult life.	16:12
	She had experienced first hand oppression and bigotry,	16:15
	the tragedy of racial prejudice and hate.	16:19
	One summer, she arrived with her family	16:24
	and I went out and visited her, and she told me	16:27
	that the previous year had been	16:31
	one of the worst of her life.	16:33
	Her beloved husband of many years had died the year before,	16:35
	after a terrible, painful illness.	16:39
	Her only son had been incarcerated after a bad banking deal.	16:42
	Now, she, as a grandmother, had taken in	16:50
	his two little children, as her sole responsibility.	16:53
	Even though she was now getting on in years,	17:00
	here she had the responsibility of these two children.	17:02
	As I visited her that day and she told me this story,	17:06
	I just felt this overwhelming sense of futility.	17:09
	The injustice of it all, after all	17:13
	this woman has been through,	17:17
	now at the end of her life, to have this?	17:18
	What would become of her?	17:22
	What hope had she that she could	17:24
	overcome all of these difficulties?	17:26
	And yet, she, expressing faith, born no doubt,	17:31
	of years of struggle and pain and	17:36
	relationship with Jesus, she said to me,	17:39
	"You know, God loves to make a way,	17:45
	"when there's no way."	17:49
	God loves to do that, I've found that out.	17:52
	There's a lot of stories in the Scripture about it.	17:54
	God is not always come to me when wanted him but,	17:57
	God has always been there absolutely	18:02
	when I absolutely needed him.	18:05
	He doesn't always come on time,	18:08
	but he always comes.	18:11
	I'll make it, with his help, yes I will.	18:12
	And without thinking, I, as the enlightened	18:16
	young pastor said, "How can this be?	18:19
	"You've got these two little children,	18:26
	"you've got these huge financial problems,	18:28
	"your health is not all that great anyway,	18:31
	"and after all you've been through, how can this be?"	18:34
	You see it was my learned sophomoric,	18:42
	hey, Tish, Tish, old lady, you gotta face facts.	18:45
	You gotta get real, you gotta be realistic.	18:48
	But what did I know, how could I be so sure and confident	18:53
	that this woman's calm trust	19:01
	affirmed as she said so many places in Scripture	19:06
	how did I know that was stupid?	19:09
	Maybe she's right?	19:13
	Maybe God's life-giving abilities cannot be	19:16
	constrained, contained in my little box that I built	19:20
	that I say possible, right next to that great big box	19:28
	I've got that says impossible.	19:32
	Maybe she's right?	19:36
	I mean, maybe the wind does blow where it will.	19:37
	Maybe in the face of great death	19:42
	there is possibility of birth.	19:46
	Jesus asked Nicodemus, look, if have wasted all this time	19:51
	trying to tell you about earthly things,	19:56
	and you don't get it, Nicodemus, how in God's name	19:59
	am I supposed to let you in on a few heavenly things?	20:03
	Jesus is busy moving Nicodemus, not just toward	20:08
	new thinking, but new life, birth even.	20:11
	The point was not for Nicodemus to walk away from the	20:16
	discussion with a bit more expansive category of God.	20:19
	Maybe the point was for him to fall on his knees,	20:23
	begging God to forgive him for his arrogance	20:28
	in thinking that he knew anything	20:30
	of the living, free, sovereign God.	20:33
	I think that night,	20:39
	Nicodemus got to hoist his sail,	20:41
	he caught a breeze,	20:44
	some light not of his own devising,	20:48
	this man who presumed that he was so enlightened	20:53
	moved out of the darkness into the light.	20:58
	It's interesting, we never hear Nicodemus, after this night.	21:07
	Until the very end of John's Gospel,	21:12
	Jesus,	21:16
	the one to whom Nicodemus came at night with questions,	21:18
	Jesus is dead, crucified.	21:23
	And among the few who dared to be close	21:29
	was Nicodemus.	21:35
	Which is kind of amazing considering that	21:37
	Jesus was crucified by wise, powerful people.	21:39
	A surprise to see Nicodemus, member of the establishment,	21:45
	risking that.	21:48
	But you know, there he is at the end.	21:50
	At the end, and he comes, not as interrogator,	21:52
	but as disciple.	21:58
	He comes not as a visitor in the night,	22:00
	but as a committed follower of the light.	22:02
	Nicodemus, there at the cross.	22:05
	And there, there is none of that, we know.	22:09
	In fact, Nicodemus doesn't say anything.	22:12
	He comes bearing spices to honor the body of Jesus.	22:15
	He comes to worship, to fall on his knees	22:21
	before the very Son of God, slain for sin.	22:26
	He comes	22:31
	to the light of the world.	22:33
	And there he offers not questions or answers,	22:36
	but sweet smelling spices,	22:40
	whose aroma is carried by a wind that blows where it will,	22:43
	even today, if you're still, you can feel that breeze,	22:51
	where it will, it's not stumped by our darkness.	22:58
	It's not contained within our questions and our answers.	23:04
	It's contained and no boxes of our devising,	23:09
	no categories of our invention.	23:12
	Oh thank God.	23:16
	The wind blows	23:19
	where it will.	23:23
	("How Like a Gentle Spirit" by C. Eric Lincoln)	23:32
	♪ How like a gentle spirit deep within ♪	24:06
	♪ God reigns our fervent passions day by day ♪	24:13
	♪ And gives us strength to challenge and to win ♪	24:22
	♪ Despite the perils of our chosen way ♪	24:30
	♪ Let God be God wherever life may be ♪	24:40
	♪ Let every tongue bear witness to the call ♪	24:48
	♪ All human kind is one by God's decree ♪	24:57
	♪ Let God be God, let God be God for all ♪	25:06
	♪ God like a mother eagle hovers near ♪	25:16
	♪ On mighty wings of power manifest ♪	25:24
	♪ God like a gentle shepherd stills our fear ♪	25:33
	♪ And comforts us against a peaceful breast ♪	25:42
	♪ When in our vain pretension we conspire ♪	25:52
	♪ To shape God's image as we see our own ♪	26:00
	♪ Hark to the voice above our base desire ♪	26:08
	♪ God is the sculptor, we the broken stone ♪	26:17
	♪ Through all our fretful claims of sex and race ♪	26:27
	♪ The universal love of God shines through ♪	26:35
	♪ For God is love transcending style and place ♪	26:44
	♪ And all the idle options we pursue ♪	26:54
-	And so we continue our journey throughout	27:14
	the Lenten season.	27:16
	We entrust our lives and our being into God's hands,	27:18
	the Lord be with you,	27:21
-	And also with you.
-	Let us pray.	27:24
	Oh supreme Lord of the universe,	27:29
	you have filled and sustained everything around us.	27:33
	With the touch of your hand, you turned chaos into order,	27:38
	and darkness into light.	27:42
	You turned the chaos of our lives into	27:45
	wellsprings of living water and in you,	27:48
	we find joy and peace.	27:52
	How grateful we are for the completeness of your love.	27:55
	Lord, in your mercy.	28:00
-	Hear our prayer.
-	In response to your great love for us,	28:04
	we find ourselves gathered together again	28:07
	as a community of faith.	28:10
	We come penitently, seeking your grace and forgiveness,	28:12
	as we long to be empowered to live faithfully	28:16
	as your disciples.	28:19
	Lord in your mercy,	28:21
-	Hear our prayer.
-	Already, gracious one, on our Lenten journeys,	28:26
	through introspection and self reflection,	28:29
	we have discovered that we are not fully the persons	28:33
	who you have created us to be.	28:35
	We do not know what we think we know.	28:38
	We have not understood your ways.	28:41
	We are persons who stand in need of	28:45
	your justifying and sanctifying grace.	28:47
	Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways,	28:51
	and bring us again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith,	28:55
	to embrace and hold fast to the	28:58
	unchangeable truth of your incarnate word,	29:01
	Jesus Christ, your son,	29:03
	Lord in your mercy,	29:06
-	Hear our prayer.
-	In this season of Lent, help us to bear	29:10
	one another's burdens as Christ has shouldered our burdens,	29:13
	especially this day, be merciful to those	29:17
	who suffer in body, mind, or spirit.	29:20
	Be close to those who are without faith	29:24
	and who cannot accept your love.	29:27
	Pour out your spirit upon those who are clouded	29:30
	in the fog of depression, and shield them	29:34
	with the strength of your arm.	29:37
	Lord in your mercy,	29:40
-	Hear our prayer.
-	Be near to those who are in danger or distress,	29:44
	who have suffered loss.	29:47
	Remember those in Columbia, Kosovo, and Hong Kong,	29:49
	who are victims of political violence,	29:53
	injustice, and repression.	29:55
	Lord in your mercy,	29:59
-	Hear our prayer.
-	Let your love surround the infirm and the aged,	30:02
	embrace those whose livelihood is insecure,	30:06
	the overworked, the hungry, the homeless,	30:10
	the destitute, the confused.	30:14
	Lord, in your mercy,	30:17
-	Hear our prayer.
-	For those who have been downtrodden, ruined	30:21
	and driven to despair, under gird by the strength	30:25
	of your spirit, be especially near to those	30:30
	who are passing through the valley of the shadow of death.	30:32
	May they find eternal rest and light and evening time,	30:35
	for all these belong to you.	30:39
	Confirm in us your spirit oh God.	30:42
	Confirm in your people this day, the truth of the Gospel,	30:45
	that we may face the coming days with vision cleared	30:49
	and faith renewed, strengthen us for the journey,	30:51
	that we might be found faithful in the end.	30:55
	All this we ask in the name of Christ our Lord, Amen.	30:59
	And now as God people who seek	31:04
	to live in reconciliation with one another,	31:06
	I bid you to extend words of grace and peace	31:08
	with one another, the Lord be with you.	31:11
-	And also with you.	31:13
-	Please be seated.	31:35
	As a forgiven and reconciled people,	31:39
	we offer ourselves and our gifts unto God.	31:40
	(organ offertory interlude)	31:52
	♪ God of light and Lord of love ♪	32:57
	♪ God of light and Lord of love ♪	33:02
	♪ Heaven-sent spirit that comes from above ♪	33:11
	♪ Heaven-sent spirit that comes from above ♪	33:16
	♪ So some are music and give them a song ♪	33:22
	♪ Give them a song ♪	33:27
	♪ All of our praise to him ♪	33:35
	♪ All of our praise to him ♪	33:36
	♪ All of our praise to him ♪	33:39
	♪ All of our praise to him ♪	33:44
	♪ To thee love ♪	33:51
	♪ Oh may we lift our hearts to him ♪	33:56
	♪ Hearts to him ♪	34:03
	♪ Join with our voices in harmony ♪	34:07
	♪ Join with our voices in harmony ♪	34:13
	♪ And though we never true world at pain ♪	34:19
	♪ True world at pain ♪	34:27
	♪ Of our creator age to age ♪	34:30
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	34:42
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	34:46
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	34:52
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	34:56
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	35:01
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	35:07
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	35:13
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	35:19
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	35:24
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	35:29
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	35:35
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	35:40
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	35:46
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	35:51
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	35:57
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	36:02
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	36:07
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	36:12
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	36:17
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	36:22
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	36:28
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	36:33
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	36:38
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	36:44
	♪ All of our praise to thee ♪	36:51
	♪ All of our praise to thee ♪	36:53
	♪ All of our praise to thee ♪	36:56
	♪ All of our praise to thee ♪	36:59
	♪ Be thine ♪	37:06
	♪ Be thine ♪	37:11
	("Doxology" by Thomas Ken)	37:21
	♪ Praise God from whom all blessings flow ♪	37:55
	♪ Praise God all creatures here below ♪	38:04
	♪ Praise God above ye heavenly hosts ♪	38:12
	♪ Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost ♪	38:21
-	Through our offerings oh God,	38:35
	we would supply bread to those who hunger,	38:37
	and the bread of life to feed all	38:39
	who need spiritual nourishment.	38:41
	We who have received good news seek to live by it,	38:44
	and to share the Gospel with others.	38:47
	May our gifts and our lives proclaim	38:50
	your rule among all people, beginning in our midst,	38:52
	and extending through all your world.	38:56
	All this we pray in the name of him	38:59
	who taught us to pray saying,	39:01
	Our Father who art in heaven,	39:03
	hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come,	39:05
	thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.	39:09
	Give us this day our daily bread.	39:12
	And forgive us our trespasses,	39:15
	as we forgive those who trespass against us.	39:17
	And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.	39:20
	For thine is the kingdom, and the power,	39:24
	and the glory forever, amen.	39:27
	("Sing Praise to God Who Reigns Above" by Johann Schutz)	39:31
	♪ Sing praise to God who reigns above ♪	40:18
	♪ The God of all creation ♪	40:23
	♪ The God of power, the God of love ♪	40:30
	♪ The God of our salvation ♪	40:36
	♪ With healing balm my soul is filled ♪	40:42
	♪ And every faithless murmur stilled ♪	40:48
	♪ To God all praise and glory ♪	40:54
	♪ The Lord is never far away ♪	41:03
	♪ But through all grief distressing ♪	41:10
	♪ An ever present help and stay ♪	41:16
	♪ Our peace and joy and blessing ♪	41:23
	♪ As with a mother's tender hand ♪	41:29
	♪ God gently leads the chosen band ♪	41:36
	♪ To God all praise and glory ♪	41:42
	♪ Thus all my toilsome way along ♪	41:52
	♪ I sing aloud thy praises ♪	41:58
	♪ That earth may hear the grateful song ♪	42:04
	♪ My voice unwearied raises ♪	42:10
	♪ Be joyful in the Lord, my heart ♪	42:16
	♪ Both soul and body bear your part ♪	42:22
	♪ To God all praise and glory ♪	42:29
	♪ Let all who name Christ's holy name ♪	42:38
	♪ Give God all praise and glory ♪	42:44
	♪ Let all who own his power proclaim ♪	42:51
	♪ Aloud the wondrous story ♪	42:57
	♪ Cast each false idol from its throne ♪	43:03
	♪ For Christ is lord, and Christ alone ♪	43:09
	♪ To God all praise and glory ♪	43:16
-	Go forth in the name of Christ to serve God	43:27
	and your neighbor in all that you do.	43:29
	In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.	43:32
	("God Be In My Head" by John Rutter)	43:35
	♪ God be in my head ♪	43:40
	♪ And in my understanding ♪	43:46
	♪ God be in my eyes ♪	43:57
	♪ And in my looking ♪	44:03
	♪ God be in my mouth ♪	44:14
	♪ And in my speaking ♪	44:23
	♪ God be in my heart ♪	44:33
	♪ And in my thinking ♪	44:40
	♪ God be at mine end ♪	44:50
	♪ And in my departing ♪	45:03

Item Info

Title:

William H. Willimon - "How Can This Be?" (February 28, 1999)

Description:

Sermon start time: (Part 1) 0:08. Sermon end time: (Part 1) 23:30.
The preacher compares Nicodemus to the intellectual elite who think they know enough to frame God into their small box of mind. He argues that the Holy Spirit is like the wind, unpredictable and invisible, and blows their minds with the truth of God received by faith. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4sx64q58

Date:

February 28, 1999

Speaker:

Willimon, William H.

Liturgical Calendar:

Lent

Biblical Book:

John

Chapter and Verse:

John 3:1-17

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-0947
ref10051_avz
uachapelsermaud
duke:320386
dcrau001591
ark:/87924/r4sx64q58
c0cfa86a-faf2-4ac5-9668-f46017a05c0b

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

Related Resources:

See below

Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

This recording may contain 3rd party materials, such as music or readings that are therefore not covered by the Creative Commons license indicated here. For more information see https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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William H. Willimon - "How Can This Be?" (February 28, 1999)

Transcript

Item Info

1. William H. Willimon - "How Can This Be?" (February 28, 1999)

Duke University Archives

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William H. Willimon - "How Can This Be?" (February 28, 1999)

Transcript

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Duke University Archives

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