Andy King

How can these things be?

I have been a member of St. Alban’s for forty two years and I have served on many committees, was part of the St. Alban’s Institute for the Humanities, a founder of the St. Alban’s Ukulele Orchestra

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.  Indeed God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

John 3:16-17

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Devotional

In these two verses, Christ transcends the tribalism of earlier belief systems with the greater spiritual authority of his church.    His words offer freedom to his followers from parochial and ethnic boundaries and from the bondage of hierarchy, caste and class,

Christ presents the sacred realm as a path that frees us from our intense human secularity. Following this path night not be easy to do for it requires a new way of seeing spiritual matters.  The difficulty of acquiring this new mode of religious understanding is illustrated when the Jewish leader, the Pharisee Nicodemus is puzzled by concept of being born again.   “How can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”  And when Christ separates things of the flesh from things of the spirit the rabbi is still confused and asks, “How can these things be?”

Christ makes a clear separation between the secular and sacred realms. While his message asserts the superiority of heavenly over profane things but it certainly does not deny our deadly human longing for the power of worldly things, the seductive trio that the martyred Thomas More named power, rank and pleasure.   I recall being strongly moved when I heard the minister speak of Christ’s innovation at my Father’s funeral now manly years ago.  He said that “everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”