We had twenty-five in our class this last Sunday morning for the 7th-9th grade men. That is an increase of four and is a good thing. We continued to set the ground rules and expectation level for our time together. The first week we covered John Chapter 3 and Christ's conversation with Nicodemus about how we must be born not only in the flesh of our bodies, but also in the eternal spirit which is a gift from God to us through His son Jesus Christ. It is always good to review especially when the review is about such a wonderful and incredibly important subject as our eternal life in relationship to our creator.
This week we did a short review on John Chapter 3, then added some additional text, which the men in our class are going to have to look up on their own. I am not going to do all the work. We talked about Jesus meeting with two other people. One is the Samaritan woman at the well. The other is the woman who was caught in the act of adultery and brought before Jesus by the rulers of Israel. We consider the application of the term "bipolar." Magnets are this way with each end being either negatively or positively charged. From physics we know that opposite ends attract and like ends repulse. There is something magic about magnets and there is power in them too. We also talked about how some folks have a mental disorder known as being "bipolar". Victims will have wildly swinging emotional states that are uncontrollable. A person can go from being very excited and happy one moment to instantly depressed within seconds. It is a terrible problem to those who suffer such mental challenges. It is part of the "brokenness" we all experience at some level in our fallen world. I am thankful for the medical people who have studied mental health issues. They have done so much for those who suffer such deseases and have contributed to making lives more whole than they would otherwise be. But the idea of a "bipolar" situation means that we are presented with extreme opposites and that is what Christ does in these stories.
Nicodemus was part of the ruling class, a Pharisee. He would have been highly educated and somewhat wealthy. He came to Christ in the night as he was afraid of what his peers would think of him having a personal discussion with the man they were growing to hate. On the other end of the spectrum of society Christ meets with the Samaritan woman who Nicodemus's friends would have considered an outcast or unclean. Also, the woman taken in adultery was considered so unclean and sinful as to be worthy to be put to death. Christ talks to all three, both ends of society, the high and the low, and he tells them exactly the same thing. You need to be saved and I am the one who can and will accomplish this for you. "Believe in me...drink of my living spirit" and you will be saved. The Gospel (Good News) of Jesus Christ knows NO special classification. It covers, "to the opposite polls," the human experience. As God separates us from our sin as far as the east is from the west, so he embraces people regardless of social status, ethnic background, health, intelligence, body type, whatever "defining differences" we humans can come up with in our sin filled and broken world .
Our ground rule is simple, yet it is so difficult. We want our class to be like Christ. We want to embrace and love everyone. Everyone is welcome. We are not to have cliques, clubs, exclusive friendships. We are to look for the weak and help them to strengthen. We are to be compassionate and forgiving when someone is having a bad day or is perhaps ill. Our ground rule is that here, in our class, we are all part of the same team, the Body of Christ.
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