the first kiss

from my sermon on March 20, 2011, from John 3:1-17

Do you remember your first kiss? I don’t mean kissing the sandpaper skin of your grandmother’s cheek, but your first kiss with a person of the opposite gender with passion and hormones involved.

It was my sophomore year in high school, in the spring, and we were coming back from Concert and Sight Reading Contest. I was sitting on the back seat of one of those yellow buses. Billie Ruth was sitting on the seat in front of me. She was talking about a world that I could only imagine, a world of lips, and teeth, and tongues. She noticed my interest, and asked, “What kind of kissing do you like best, Lynn?” I stammered and stuttered and turned red. She immediately recognized my distress and as one of the best pastoral counselors I have ever encountered came back and sat down beside me. No, she did not kiss me. She did offer some sage advice. She said, “When you go to have your first kiss, make sure you do it with a girl from out of town…..that way if you blow it, no one will ever know it.”

That summer I went to a student council workshop at Texas Tech. There I met Sharon. She was ideal. She had brown hair and brown eyes. She was shorter than me! And most important, she was from out of town, Sudan, Texas. Things went so well between us that I didn’t get her telephone number at the end of the week. However, at the end of the summer, Sharon called me. She was at the community pool in Littlefield. Sudan didn’t have one. I screwed up my courage and asked her out on a date on Saturday night.

That week before my junior year in high school started, I cleaned up my mom’s Ford Galaxy 500, that car with the big front bench seat. I picked out all of my favorite 8 track tapes. I drove the 15 miles over to Sudan, picked up Sharon, and we drove back to Littlefield to watch a movie. After the movie, we went to DQ to get a soda. Then we drug main. That is we went up and down Main Street, driving very slowly, watching all of the other people watch us.

And it was night. Did you notice that Nicodemus met Jesus at night? Why was that? Some scholars think it was because Nick was scared. After all, he was a leader of the Jews. He probably didn't want to be seen talking to Jesus. Or secondly, some scholars take a metaphorical meaning. Nick was "in the dark." He didn't get it. He didn't understand who Jesus was. But I like this third possible track best. I think Nick met Jesus at night to be alone with Him. It was a time and place for intimacy, to be close to Jesus, with no other agenda.

So it was dark as I drove her home. I don’t know what was on her mind, but all I was thinking was THIS WOULD BE MY FIRST KISS. Then I got scared. I got to worrying: what if I miss? What if I lean over and plant one right on her glasses? What if she doesn’t like it? Or worse…what if I don’t like it? We make ourselves vulnerable when we enter into relationship.

Nick had lots of questions. How can one be born again? Can one reenter his mother's womb? How is this possible? You may have lots of questions. Do I have to believe everything in the Bible? There seem to be contradictions. Do I have to keep all of those OT laws? Do I have to have all my faith worked out before I commit? How about the Church and all of it problems? The Crusades? Clergy sexual abuse? Televangelists? Do I have to give up my ability to reason and to ask questions?

Jesus welcomes Nick and all seekers and their questions.

It was time for me to "cowboy up." I had Neil Diamond on the 8 track. I kid you not ...the song that was playing was ….Do It. So I leaned over and I did it. And it was…..wonderful.

I am here to tell that a relationship with Jesus is just that wonderful. It is the gift that God offers us to accept His love for us. There are many words for this experience of grace. Some call it accepting Christ as Savior and Lord, or being saved, or being born again, or being born anew.

God wants this loving relationship with us. I would have you read the Bible as a love story. In Genesis, when we overreach and do the one thing God asks us not to do, God comes looking for us. I used to read the story in Genesis 3 as if God were angry, but now I understand it as God’s missing us. “Where are you?” God calls out. “I want to take our daily walk together.” As you read the Bible, you see that God never gives up. God is always trying to find another way to be in relationship with us. God creates a covenant people through Abraham and Sarah to be a blessing to the whole world. God works through Moses and Aaron and the Hebrew people. God uses judges like Deborah, and prophets like Elijah, and priests like Eli, and kings like David, and finally at the right time, God comes as one of us. The Word becomes flesh. Emmanuel, God with us. Jesus lives and dies and is raised again to bring us into right relationship with God. It is as if God keeps saying, "I will find another way for me to show my love."

My relationship with Sharon grew. She talked easily of her faith. She talked of heaven. I said, “I wish I could be sure of going to heaven.” She said, “You can be.” It planted in me a desire.

Sharon graduated and went on to college. I had my senior year of high school to complete. It was going to be the best year of my life. I was student council president. I was going to graduate as valedictorian. But most important of all, I was the captain of the football team. Football is the national religion of Texas, right? I was the starting quarterback and defensive half back for the Littlefield Wildcats.

The first practice of 2 a days, in the first minutes, during a warm up drill, I sprained my right ankle. I instantly lost my starting positions. Through rehabilitation and scrimmages, I worked my way back up to starting both ways. During our first game of the season, we were winning, when I resprained my ankle. We were winning right to the last play of the game. The other team was on their own 20 yard line. They threw an 80 yard touch down bomb over the defensive halfback who took my place. That weekend, our head coach had a heart attack.

It began an awful pattern of us getting beat every week. Little towns don’t react very well to losing underneath the Friday night lights. One day the acting head coach called me out of history class into the principal’s office. He asked, “Do you know why we are losing all of these games Lynn?” “Duh, no, coach.” He said, “It’s because of you!” As a 17 year old, I didn’t handle that real well.

I wanted to shout, “It’s not fair!” You see I had a theology. I wouldn’t have called it a theology but that is what it was. I thought, you work hard, be good, be nice….and everything was supposed to go well for you.

During that losing season, my new girl friend, Mary Gail, took me to a revival. Before it even began, she showed me a verse in the Bible that has become my key verse. You want to write this down, Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God; not because of works lest anyone should boast.” I had spent my whole life trying to be good enough for God to love me. I had been trying to earn my salvation.

In the story we usually call the parable of the Prodigal Son, I am the elder son, the other brother. I resented the fact that the younger one, the wastrel gets welcomed home. But who is further from home? The one who had to leave in order to find himself and God? Or the one who lives in the father’s house, but is so caught up in his own self-righteousness, he doesn’t even know that he has a home.

When I read that verse, I felt a great weight lift off of me. It is not about my goodness, but about Christ’s. It is not about my earning salvation; it is about Christ’s gift. As John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

You don’t have to do this. You get to. It is a gift.

As I look back over my life, I see many examples of justifying grace, many moments of conversion. I was baptized as an infant, confirmed as 6th grader. I had the emotional conversion my senior year in high school. I had the call to ordained ministry. I had a deep mindful conversion as I studied the Bible in its original languages and new layers of meaning came to me. More recently I have had the conversion of the practice of centering prayer. All gift…all Christ’s love for me and in me helping me become the me Christ intends.

As we read John's Gospel this Lent, you will find that it is different from Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In John, Jesus will have personal encounters with various persons, all in order to have a personal relationship with them.

Do you think Nick becomes a believer after this first kiss? In the 7th chapter of John, Nick stands up before the Sanhedrin, the court for the Jews, and advocates for Jesus. He says, "Doesn't Jesus deserve due process, a fair hearing?" After Jesus is crucified, Nick joins Joseph of Arimethea in taking Jesus' body for burial. He brings more than 100 lbs of spices to prepare the body. I think that Nick becomes a follower of Jesus.

How about you? Do you know this intimate relationship with Jesus?

Do you remember your first kiss?