Confessions of a 'Groupie'

Yesterday was not a good day, up until the point where Levor preached. The service had run long, so he had to ditch the sermon he'd prepared and instead he did a dramatic reading of the text with some others (that had already been arranged) and then took a couple of questions, and then preached the application part. So, it was a bit odd and only took 10 or so minutes (which for those you who know Levor would know is uncharacteristic. And it was particularly funny because he described what he was about to do as a '10 minute phenomenom'. Indeed)

But it was absolutely fantastic!

I haven't heard a sermon on the trial of Jesus from John as good as that one, even though it was mostly not a sermon. Levor drew out the motif of the glory of Christ in real terms (so it didn't sound ethereal and waffly, but real and concrete and... glorious, actually). He covered the authority of Jesus and his actions of love for those around him from the arrest through the trial, without being sentimental.

In fact, the effect was similar to reading the Narnia series - where you're left feeling afterwards as though you've encountered someone you don't ever want to leave and won't be whole without being with them. Most preaching from the Gospels doesn't leave you with that sense, though I'm beginning to think that it should, particularly if preaching from John where I believe we are meant to want to know Jesus and miss not being with him when we leave the book. (I think we should be able to top the Narnia series because we aren't preaching about a lion in a mythical country.) I'd had this thought independent of Levor's sermon last night, but when I was listening to it I thought, "This is it! This is Narnia preaching!"

So, I'm a Levor groupie. He's sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo cool. *scream*