Hi everyone,

Welcome to worship for this 2nd Sunday in Lent, landing on March 1, 2026!

The bulletin for this service can be found here. You can use it or the words that appear on your screen to follow along with the service. The sermon is also found in the bulletin as well as on this page below the video.

For a fuller worship experience online, you are invited to have a candle in your space, lit for most of the service until it can be extinguished near the end, after the sending hymn. You are also welcome to participate in communion if you are comfortable by having something small to eat and drink prepared and close by to be consumed at the appropriate time. Further instruction will be given then.

May God’s unending grace and steadfast love fill you with hope and peace, this day and forever!

God of signs and wonders, we come to you seeking your Word, your wisdom, your very presence among us, that we might be filled with your Spirit and be shown your ways of righteousness and grace, through Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord.  Amen.

Do you have someone in your life that you just can’t stand?  Hopefully it’s not me, but I’m talking about those that just get under your skin?  The people that can only be classified as thorns in your sides?  The ones where “never again” would be just too soon?

Maybe it’s that acquaintance you just can’t get away from, or a person at work who just won’t quit, or maybe even a family member who is such an annoyance that you can’t even take the sound of their breath.  Or maybe they’re not in your personal circle at all, but their nonsense still affects you.  Like maybe it’s that irritating and over-the-top influencer whose exploits keep popping up on your feed.  Or that celebrity whose no-talent self doesn’t really deserve all their fame and wealth.  Or that politician whose policies just make absolutely no sense whatsoever and it drives you bananas.  Or maybe it’s all 3 of those combined… I shudder at the thought.

Whoever it might be, just the sound of their name might be like fingernails on a chalkboard.  The sight of their face might make you squirm with a full-body eye roll.  The very notion of them being in the same room as you might cause you to break into a cold sweat as you perform the necessary mental gymnastics in finding how all of this is their fault. 

I mean, they caused the situations of the past has led us to think this way about them.  It was the interactions with them that have happened before that has shaped our opinions.  All the major irritations and annoyances all stem from who they are, how they are, and seem to be beckoning us to not like them at all. 

And while you might not have people like this to this degree in your life, I think that is more the exception than the rule.  I think at some point in our lives we’ve all encountered personalities that are really hard to be nice around.  We’ve all met people whose demeanor have led us to wonder how much better life would have been if we’ve never met them at all.  There are just some people we know or know of who make it darn near impossible to be Christian around them.  Because to us, they can do no right.  No matter what it is, we will just interpret it as wrong.  To us, they are unredeemable, incorrigible, and just… condemned to this fate of being on our “no thank you” list.

And that’s a problem.

Because when someone reaches that point in our minds, when we don’t have anything good to say about them, when we can’t see how on earth they ever could be loved, then we might feel that we are warranted to be angry at them, legitimized in our distaste of them, justified to even hate them.

Kind of like how the Pharisees did with Jesus.

I know, sometimes it’s really hard for us to imagine that they could see him that way, as Jesus is so easy for us to love, what with the whole salvation thing.  But if we put ourselves in their shoes, like if we were at the top of our game, admired from all fronts, and could do no wrong in the eyes of the public, and then some backwater hick comes and turns that all around, gets the people to unlearn all that we’ve taught them, and slowly takes away all of our hard-earned power and respect?  Wouldn’t we be a bit more than irritated?

So it’s a no wonder that the Pharisee always seemed to be at odds with Jesus.  Like they could never see eye-to-eye, were never on the same page, and can never even have a cordial conversation without some contradicting contradictions thrown in there.  Their feelings toward him wouldn’t let that happen.

All that tracks with the story we get today out of John, doesn’t it?  The conversation seems to start innocently enough, with Nicodemus offering pleasantries to Jesus.  But then in typical Jesus fashion in the eyes of someone who might not exactly be enamoured with him, almost without waiting for Nicodemus to even ask a question, Jesus goes on this theological tirade about being born again from above in order to see the kingdom, and how that’s the obvious truth that anyone, especially one as educated as a Pharisee, should see. 

Well, that escalated quickly.

But imagine it from Nicodemus’ perspective.  Like, he’s already a bit sensitive to Jesus’ counter-cultural teaching, a little raw from being burned by his own followers and students comparing his traditional teaching to this new-fangled stuff, somewhat on edge enough to see Jesus at night because perhaps fraternizing with the enemy so to speak wouldn’t be a good look for any Pharisee, and then Jesus lambasts him with more nonsense.  Tries to put him in his place with this never-before-heard theology.  Calls him and his very prestigious and expensive education out as inadequate.  We would probably be mad too.  We’d probably be throwing shade Jesus’ way.  We’d probably want him to disappear out of our lives as well.

But then the tone changes, almost drastically.  I wonder if Jesus notices the rising tension, because he quickly begins to talk about love, grace, and in one of my favourite verses of the bible John 3:17 that comes right after a much more favourited verse in the bible of John 3:16, Jesus reveals how he wasn’t sent here to condemn, but to save.

It’s almost as though Jesus is de-escalating the situation by saying, “It’s alright, dude, I’m not mad at you.”

But the words fell on deaf ears, then and now.  I mean they were correct and all, and the intention was in the right place, but it wasn’t enough for the eyes that already had it out for him.  Jesus didn’t do anything wrong but avoid conflict that he didn’t even start, but in their preconceived hate for him they interpreted his actions as hostile, malicious, and punishable by death.  Jesus acted out of grace, peace, and love, but they still killed him anyway.

See Jesus had every right to put them in their place, but he welcomed them instead.  He had every right to be angry and hate back, but he forgave and loved.  He had every right to condemn but instead he saved.  Saved them.  Saved us.  Saved all from that self-righteousness, from that religious indignation, from that sinful entitlement that has us thinking that it is all and only about us.

It’s that thinking that narrows our minds, tunnels our vision, and makes us gloss over that very important part of that widely favourite verse I just mentioned, that God so loved the world.  The.  World. 

It’s not God so loved me and people like me.  It’s not God loved only those who voted a certain way.  It’s not God loves those who love God first.  But it’s the world.  And it’s the world that Jesus saves.

So let’s not forget who we’re called to be and to whom we’re called to serve.  Let’s not forget the non-violent and gracious attitudes of Christ.  Let’s not forget that God sent the Son to save and not to condemn.  So maybe possibly hopefully we will lose the need to condemn to the outside margins those who we deem worthy to be hated on, to condemn ourselves to stew in our own anger toward those who don’t agree with us or who don’t look like us, to condemn Jesus to death for shining a light into our hearts and exposing our sin.  Again, Jesus doesn’t do this to condemn us, mind you, but to reveal to us just how saved we are even when we were seeped in our wickedness. 

Friends, in this season of Lent we are called to reflection and repentance.  Not so we can escape condemnation and save ourselves, but because we have already been lifted out of condemnation and have been saved by the love and grace of Christ.  Not so we can wallow in guilt and shame, but so we see how forgiven we are.  Not so we can hate ourselves almost as much as we hate others, but so we can feel just how big and how wide of God’s love for us is.  And not just for us, but for the world.  Not just for those like us, but for those who see and interpret things completely different from us.  Not just for those that we love and think we deserve it, but for all those that God loves and declares worthy of salvation. 

So in this season of Lent, may we always be reminded of and recognise God’s expansive and steadfast love for us and all people, that brings us together as a diverse community that might disagree, have different opinions, and maybe even conflict in some ways, but is never condemned but always saved through the life and teachings of Jesus Christ our Lord. Thanks be to God.  Amen.