Are you smarter than a 10 year old ?

From Helen
I am not sure if you have given anything up for lent, or if you have taken something new up. One lent I decided that the best thing I could do was to stop watching rubbish on TV and read something Christian instead. In my watching rubbish on TV I would channel hop, in the hope that I would find something that I could watch. One day I fell across a programme called “Are you smarter than a ten year old ?” thinking that I was bound to be … I was very, very wrong.

Basically on this programme an adult has to answer questions that are based on different aspects of the national curriculum. These questions should be really easy, if a seven year old, or a ten year old can answer them, then an adult should be able to. There is in the studio a group of children who answer the questions nearly always correctly and then adults who answer the same questions with varying degrees of success. At the end of the programme when the adults have failed they had to say, “I am not smarter than a ten year old.”  I never fancied the idea of going on myself ! 

I was reminded of this programme when I looked at the gospel reading for this morning (John 3:1-17). A very learned man went to Jesus and came away confused. We don’t really know what Nicodemus wanted from Jesus, except he wanted some answers. It’s possible that he was trying to work out what Jesus was up to, it’s possible that he wanted to hear that Jesus was dangerous and should be stopped, and it’s possible that he really was interested in seeing if what he heard of Jesus being a great man was true.  

As a very learned man, who could probably have done very well on the programme “are you smarter than a ten year old” he would not have expected to be given an answer that at first seemed very stupid. You can almost imagine Nicodemus, sitting there ready for a great argument, and then Jesus provided an answer that at first may have seemed ignorant.  The answer Jesus appeared to give was that the way to Heaven was in being born again. Poor Nicodemus, if he had been looking for an answer to debate well then this was not it. 

Back to the television programme, in it the adults often look very upset at the fact that they have been trumped by a child. Nicodemus, has this type of experience. This type of experience is that he thinks logically. Physically you cannot be born all over again. However, in a moment of completely missing the point, a moment of being completely lost. Jesus trumps him as he explains that Nicodemus is looking at things in the wrong way. Jesus shows Nicodemus that he needs to admit his need for God, and realise that the most important thing is being someone who has accepted God and knows Him. 

Nicodemus thought he knew all there was to know about God and yet Jesus was showing that actually the most important thing is to become as new, to accept that actually we do not have the answers only God does. That it is God we need and we need to be born of Him. We need to have a relationship with Him where we realise that we must become a new person, a new creation, someone who believes that God can and does make a difference. 

When we do this we can be seen to be a little at odds with society around us. We can be seen as not quite normal, and no I am not just talking about myself there, or being rude to you all. 

Although thinking of being normal, I have some statistics that may surprise you !

21% of people don't make their bed daily. 5% never do.
58.4% of people have called into work sick when they weren't.
53% of women will not leave the house without makeup on.
46.5% of men say they ALWAYS put the seat down after they've used the toilet, yet women claim to ALWAYS find it up.
71.6% of people eavesdrop.

4 out of 5 people sing in the car.

I am not sure if you think any of these apply to you, but it makes a point that it is hard to define what is normal. It’s even harder to stand against the norm

It’s not always easy to make sense of everything going on around us. As we look at the pain in society we find it hard as believers to always understand how pain happens and yet we continue to trust, because as this mornings Psalm (121) reminds us, God is there for us. God is one who protects and comforts. As we look at Psalm 121 with the eyes of faith we see its truth. As we see the Psalmist praising God and knowing that God will protect Him then we have an understanding.  We understand the ways in which God does provide us with comfort and with strength. 

We believe not only that God comforts us, we also believe that we need God in our lives in a powerful and life changing way as we follow Him and try to be more like Him. In the gospel reading we heard perhaps one of the most famous verses from the Bible.  John 3:16, “That God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.” This verse sums up our faith, we believe that God loved us so much that He would die for us. 

As we go through the season of lent, which prepares us for Holy Week and Easter we remember these words. We can see that in the readings our belief is in a God who comforts, who gives strength and who died for us.

We need to let these words change us as we try to be more and more like Jesus. We stand out in society and we should. It may be that some of the statistics I read earlier are true for us, it may not. The thing that is true for us is that we are different. We have committed ourselves to being more like Jesus, to following Him and we need to point people to Him. 

May we celebrate this lent, as we remember that God has shown us the way to knowing His love. May we pray for those who are lost and confused, and may we help each other and show that Jesus really does make a difference in our lives. AMEN.