Sermon Text - Feb. 17, 2008
"Characters We Meet Along the Way (to the Resurrection) - Nicodemus and the Birth of Faith"
Rev. Susan Towner-Larsen
John 3:1-19
This morning in our scripture we meet one of the characters along the way to the resurrection. This morning we meet Nicodemus, and the story of Nicodemus is found in the third chapter of John in your pew Bibles if you'd like to follow along and it's going to be read today by our very own choral reading group... so let’s listen to this story from the Gospel of John.
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.’ Jesus answered him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.’ Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?’ Jesus answered, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, “You must be born from above.” The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’ Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can these things be?’ Jesus answered him, ‘Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?
‘Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. ‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.
I’d like us to take a moment for a prayer before we began, if you would join me in praying please. Holy one we come again to your word, we come with confusion we come with questions of our own, we come with hope, we come with joy, we come. Be with us in these moments that your word might be born anew in our hearts, Amen.
So let's think together about this story of Nicodemus. If you were going to ask someone an important question, may be something really burning in your heart, who would you go to? Who would you turn to? Anyone have an idea? I do think often we think about clergy, we think about mentors, we think about great teachers in our lives.
You can ask God your question, and that's sort of what Nicodemus did. Nicodemus goes to Jesus. In the story, early in the Gospel of John, we have this fellow, Nicodemus, who comes to Jesus. And we’re told right away that Nicodemus is a Pharisee. That means he was a teacher of the law, he was a leader in the religious community. If you were a Jew during Jesus’ time and you had an important question, if you had a question about law, or faith or some other important matter, a Pharisee is someone that you might turn to.
A Pharisee is someone very learned and scholarly. Yet here comes Nicodemus in this story, under the cover of night, to ask Jesus to talk to him. Why do you think he might have come at night? He is a Pharisee, Jesus is a rebel and itinerant preacher, and he addresses Jesus as Rabbi. There is some respect there – and perhaps he doesn't want others to know.
It could be he doesn't want other Pharisees to know, or if he’s come on behalf of other Pharisees they don’t want other people to know. So there are several reasons he might have come at night and John always had multiple layers to his stories. So this is a significant theme, this light and darkness theme, and throughout the Gospel we’ll hear about it more and more.
In fact in the very beginning of the Gospel of John, in chapter 1 verse five, John says, “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot put it out” – remember that famous line we often used at Christmas time? Light means to John to live in the presence of God, darkness means living apart from God, light means clarity and understanding, and darkness and confusion and not getting it.
In this passage in Nicodemus really never gets it. He stayed in the dark. Jesus, on the other hand, sort of shines. It's important to mention too that in the time of Jesus, it was not really unusual for the rabbis to study together at night. In fact it was a common practice for them to go to each other's homes and study together, asking questions of the text and quizzing each other about the deeper meanings of these verses. So it could be that John is using something that's fairly familiar to the people to convey his many meanings about light and darkness.
If you had the chance, if you were Nicodemus in the day or in the night, and you had a chance to talk to Jesus, what question would you ask? Let’s think about that for a moment. All great teachers know the importance of questions. And Jesus is a great teacher, so much that you have to few moments with Jesus and the one question that you can ask, what would that be? “Is my salvation guaranteed?” “Why don’t I always hear God’s answers to my prayers?” “What could I do to promote peace and justice?” “Are you really divine Jesus and what does that mean?”
We have lots of questions, and if we have a few moments of quiet to think about them, they begin to surface in our hearts or in our voices. They are faithful questions, they're a part of being a person of faith, we know that don’t we? When we studied how we are formed in faith over the last two years, one of the things we realized and said several times is that it's important to affirm one another's questions. And to sit and listen to one another and talk together about these important matters. And questions are a big part of our journey; they’re a big part of our faith, and a part of what we believe.
Nicodemus asked some big questions – the first one he doesn’t even get out of his mouth really if you look at the text carefully he goes to Jesus and says, “I know who you are, I understand this.” And before he can ask his question, which must've been something like, “What do your miracles mean?” Jesus launches into a dissertation about them. Or not about them but about light and life and so on.
His next question is how can one be born anew? These are deep questions, and Jesus replies with lots of words, and lots of themes that will keep coming up in the Gospel of John – light and darkness, flesh and spirit, eternal life, the reign of God. And how does Nicodemus respond to all of that? You sort of saw that in the person of Nicodemus here. He just sort of doesn't get it. In fact, he sort of faded away.
We could spend a lot of time talking about Nicodemus and his response. But this learned man who came to Jesus saying that he understood who he was, and what he was about, doesn't really get it. At least in this part of the gospel he stays in the dark. And, as if to underline Nicodemus’ confusion, or maybe just a result of his own frustration, Jesus lashes out with his own question. “Are you a teacher of Israel, and you don't understand these things?”
Now, given a choice, that's not the way I would have written the script. As someone who receives questions, we teachers like to affirm them. We don't like to just sort of zing it back at them. We might say, “Good question,” or “Let’s think about that together.”
There are a myriad of responses that Jesus could have made, but he doesn't go that route – he challenges him, he takes him to task so to speak, puts him on the carpet. Are you a great teacher? You came saying you understood and you knew who I was, and now you don't get the deeper meaning of things? And then comes the twist; the surprise at the end.
For God so loved the world that God gave God's own son, that whoever believes in Jesus has eternal life. Wow, we don't have to get it. We don’t have to have all of the answers. We can be confused, we can even asked the wrong question, if there is such a thing. And we still get God's love. Not only us, but the whole wide world. We don't have to get it right. And life now, life in God's presence, because that's what the metaphor eternal life means, life in God's presence right now is ours anyway. Even if we don't get it. Questions and all, that’s the good news. Amen.