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Someone just asked me about the greatest sermon I have ever heard. I’ve heard lots of good sermons, but I know which one was the greatest. It was about 25 years ago, in @spurgeoncollege chapel. [1/12]
+Lesslie Newbigin was the preacher, right towards the end of his life. Blind, so he couldn’t see us, and so bent that we almost couldn’t see him behind the pulpit. ‘When you go out into the ministry,’ he began, to a chapel-ful of ordinands, ‘what are you going to do?’ [2/12]
He started listing some options: ‘some people will want you to be a social worker…’ colourful details followed. ‘But there are professional social workers; why should you do what they do less well?’ [3/12]
Other examples came … counsellor … politician … I can’t remember them all. He spent virtually all of his time dismissing options for us. [4/12]
Then he paused. ‘So what should you do?’ He smiled a true saint’s smile—it lit up most of south London—and gently but urgently said two more sentences. [5/12]
‘Tell them about Jesus. Tell them about the wonderful thing that God has done.’
And then he sat down. [6/12]
And then he sat down. [6/12]
Why was this the greatest sermon I've ever heard? It was brilliantly constructed & preached, but I’ve had the privilege to hear lots of sermons like that. The brevity of the ending was as powerful as it was audacious, but I’ve heard more than a few like that too. [7/12]
This one stands out because it spoke with shattering clarity into my key existential questions at the time. I didn’t write down that closing line. I didn’t need to. It’s been branded or tattooed somewhere deep inside me ever since. [8/12]
At my ordination we sang ‘Happy if with my latest breath, I might but gasp His name, preach him to all, and cry in death, “Behold, behold the Lamb!”.’ ‘Tell them about Jesus. Tell them about the wonderful thing that God has done.’ [9/12]
25 years later, whenever I look at a preaching gig & wonder what to do with it, because of what’s happening in their life or in my life or just happening, I always end up with the same answer: ‘Tell them about Jesus. Tell them about the wonderful thing that God has done.’ [10/12]
As preachers, we have to strive for excellence in all our sermons of course—but greatness is a gift of grace, when the best we have to offer is taken up by the Spirit and given to someone who needs to hear just that truth, in just that way, just then. [11/12]
Newbigin did that for me, one Wednesday morning, quarter of a century ago, in a chapel in south London. Thus far in my life, it is the greatest sermon I have ever heard. [12/12]
