Sermon given by Revd Dr Elizabeth Welch
Lent 2, March 1st, 2026
Genesis 12: 1 – 4a; Psalm 121; Romans 4: 1-5, 13 – 17; John 3: 1-17
We’ve heard our readings, about the journeys of Abraham and Nicodemus. We’re now going to look in more depth at each one of these, and what their journeys means for us today.
First we read about Abraham who was sent on a very particular journey – a journey full of promise, but a journey which meant that he had to leave everything behind. It’s a story told to explain the background and development of the people of Israel.
Abraham hears the voice of God. We don’t know how he hears the voice. The scriptures record it in a matter-of-fact way: ‘Now the Lord said to Abraham’.
We can’t tell whether he heard the voice out loud, or in the silence of his heart, or by looking back on his experience and interpreting what had happened. What’s clear is that he believed that he heard a word from the Lord, a word which carried authority, a word which led him to respond.
His response was no small matter. It’s recorded that he was summoned to leave behind his country and his family and his father’s house. And without further ado, he went.
I can imagine that at this point the scriptures only give us a tiny part of the story. They don’t tell of the emotional turmoil he might have gone through, the discussions he might have had with his family and friends, the inner searching as to whether this really was God’s purpose for him.
These few verses capture a picture of faith. Abraham hears God, he trusts what he hears and he acts on God’s word.
The other character in our readings for today is Nicodemus.
He’s a different sort of person from Abraham. For a start, he’s rather cautious. He comes to Jesus by night. He doesn’t want anyone to see him. He’s obviously worried about what his family and friends and fellow Pharisees might think.
And he’s got lots of questions, including
- about being born again – ‘how can anyone be born after they are old?’
- about Jesus’ response – ‘how can these things be?’
Nicodemus is on a journey, but it’s an inner journey – a spiritual journey, and an intellectual journey. He’s trying to make sense of what he’s heard of Jesus and test out whether what this Rabbi says is really worth listening to, and even more, is worth changing his life for.
Jesus makes it clear that Nicodemus needs to make a whole new start – he needs to be born again. It’s not surprising that Nicodemus is a bit puzzled by this, for he takes it literally. ‘how can anyone get into his mother’s womb a second time?’ (a rather shocking thought when all is said and done)
Jesus says that it’s not about a physical birth, it’s about a birth of the Spirit. It’s about a new beginning with a different orientation to life – it’s about putting his life in God’s hands rather than in the hands of the letter of the law. Nicodemus needs to start a different journey in his life. But he’s not on his own, the Spirit will make this possible
Abraham and Nicodemus are two very different people: Abraham is full of courage, outgoing, prepared to leave everything behind, however uncertain the future might seem; Nicodemus is fearful, cautious, questioning.
Yet both of them are of equal value in God’s sight and both are there as people in whose lives faith plays a key role. Both are names that have been familiar down the history of the church. But the better known one is Abraham, the one who was bold and took risks and was willing to go wherever God led.
And in the story, we know that Abraham was indeed richly blessed and became the father of many nations, and not just of many nations, but of three of the main world faiths. – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. One fruitful point of encounter for us today as people of different faith is to go back to that common origin in our forefather Abraham and his trust in the one living God.
Paul in Romans continues the reflection on people of faith and what faith means.
Over the years I’ve heard a whole variety of comments about Paul – some of them not all that polite.
E.g. ‘Jesus came with a simple Gospel, but Paul confused matters by complicating it’. OR ‘Couldn’t we just stick to reading the Gospels and not worry about these complex and long-winded letters.’ And so forth.
Paul’s not the easiest to understand, but his writings have given birth over the centuries to some of the most lengthy and profound commentaries. He’s wrestling with the intellectual questions of the day – trying to make sense of why Jesus came and what the background to Jesus coming was.
It’s still an important task for us today to wrestle with the questions asked us about our faith – even if these questions may be very different from the ones that were being asked in Paul’s day. Paul was addressing issues that arose out of his Jewish, Greek and Roman worlds, we’re addressing issues that come from contemporary western culture.
In the passage we read today Paul’s trying to unpack why it was that it was Abraham’s faith and not what he actually did, that justified him. He’s trying to point beyond Abraham to God and to point out that it was Abraham’s relationship to God that was significant and the source of his journey. What was significant about Abraham was not that he obeyed the letter of the law, but that he trusted in God. He did not need to feel certain about what the future held or where the journey might lead. He placed himself in God’s hands.
The stories of Abraham and Nicodemus are both about saying that there’s more to life than the material world; there’s more to life than we can touch or see or feel. That ‘more’ is about faith in God.
What does this faith mean for us today?
I want to touch on four dimensions of faith: mystery, openness, risk and embrace.
Firstly, faith is about mystery. We live in a world in which people like to have things pinned down, to be able to understand and explain all that there is. Yet, faith, by definition, can’t be pinned down. It’s in the heart of all things, and yet it points to God who is beyond all things.
Nicodemus was in many ways unsure and uncertain with regard to Jesus. He had many questions. He asks Jesus ‘how can these things be?’
God works in ways that are sometimes shrouded in mystery, yet God does work in redemptive ways – bringing hope, and new life out of suffering.
Faith is about saying that there’s something mysterious about life – and that mystery is revealed in who God is.
Secondly, faith is about openness.
Abraham was boldly open to hearing the word of God;
Nicodemus was a bit more cautious – and found the thought of the Holy Spirit hard to take.
It’s easy to want to close down the options that are before us, to think that we know it all, that we can know everything that there is to know.
Faith is about being open to new possibilities – to putting our trust in the God who we can’t see and yet who we believe will be there for us, leading and guiding us on in new directions – in our lives and in our thinking.
Thirdly, faith involves risk.
It’s often easy to try and hold on to the past. The future when it’s unknown can feel threatening. We prefer the old securities – of how we are and how we’ve always been, of how the church is and how the church has always been.
When we put our trust in God, we take the risk of leaving the familiar behind, of travelling on in new directions, of being changed people. For Abraham a physical journey was involved, for Nicodemus it was his mind and his spirit that were being addressed. They were each called to move on from the old ways. But underlying this move was the continuity of God’s presence, which remains the same across all time.
The church needs to look today at the area of the risk is God calling us to take on our journey of faith. But we do this on the basis of putting our trust in God, who is still the same God as God has been since the beginning of creation.
This brings me on to my fourth point – faith is about embrace – the embrace of God.
The text we heard from John has rung down across the years. ‘God so loved the world that he sent his only Son.’ It was one I learnt in Sunday School and was continually reminded of at college. At the heart of our faith is God’s embrace, God’s unconditional love, shown in Jesus Christ, who has come, not to condemn, but to save.
When we’re open to God, what we receive is God’s embrace. When we take the risk of trusting in God, what carries us into the unknown is the undergirding hand of God.
Faith is about trusting that at the heart of all things we discover the God who is love and who wants us to live in love, for him and for one another. For when we are caught up in the embrace of God, we are at the same time set free to surround others with that love.
Faith is about there being more to life – mystery, openness, risk and God’s embrace.
May we each as we travel through Lent, each on our different journeys, be touched by the mystery, be open to the risk, be surrounded by God’s all-embracing love and be willing and able to share this love with those around us.
To God be the praise and the glory for ever and ever, Amen.
