John 3: Jesus the Great Teacher (pt 1)

Maybe you’ve had an experience like the one I had in the fourth grade. Actually, I have had several of these experiences through the years, but I particularly remember this one.

I was at that age - if you know what I mean. Well, maybe you don’t know what I mean. What I mean is, I was at that age when all boys begin to notice that there is something profoundly different about the opposite sex – GIRLS. That’s not to say that I was prepared to take the plunge and actually have a girlfriend – shoot, I wasn’t even prepared to admit to any living soul that I might be ready to admit that I possessed even the remotest interest in girls. But just between you and me, I was beginning to notice. And I liked what I saw. Well, forget the just-between-you-and-me thing – I’m an old man – who cares if you tell now?

Well, there I was on the playground hanging around with all the other boys who were also beginning to like girls but wouldn’t admit it when all of a sudden, Debbie Underwood came running from across the sandy lot where the girls congregated in their segregated coven. It took a minute to realize it, but she was headed straight for me.

And I’ll never forget her words – Can we talk? Oh, what profundity.

So Debbie and I sauntered off to the side together. We stopped. We looked one another in the eyes but only briefly because back in the day, looking girls in the eye caused my intestinal track to writhe in spastic rhythm.

Karen Thurston wants to know if you like her.

Well, sure I did. I had in fact been worshiping from across the playground the ground that Karen Thurston walked on for months. She was everything to me. I could not have imagined life without her. But I had not dared to offer my hand to her. In fact, I had taken great pains not to show any interest in her at all. Even though I loved her with all my heart, I would not make myself vulnerable to that one human experience that we all loathe with every fiber of our being – rejection!

I know now what I did not know then – Karen suffered the same phobia as I. She feared that I would reject her, and it was safer to experience it second-hand, as it were, coming from me to Debbie to her than had she heard it from my mouth. So she sent a surrogate.

Just so you’ll have closure on this story, I looked Debbie in the eye (briefly again), laughed, and said those ill-fated words I shall never forget - Is she nuts?

Thus, a romance that might have rivaled that of Romeo and Juliet never took root. The seed of love never germinated. The blossom of love… you get the point, don’t you?

The story John tells of Nicodemus in chapter three is where I am headed, of course. Just hang on! I think you’ll get the point. But more about that tomorrow.