No one seems more confused this morning than poor Nicodemus. To be fair, we should hear how he has been set up. From John 2:23-25; “When Jesus was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the sings that he was doing. But Jesus, on his part, would not entrust himself to them because he knew all people and needed no one to testify about anyone, for he himself knew what was in everyone.”
It is clear Nicodemus didn’t have much of a chance with Jesus. He comes to him by night. He was, after all, a leader of the Jews. It wouldn’t be good for his career for him to be seen with Jesus. Not realizing Jesus’ full power, Nicodemus starts out slow. He begins by stating the obvious. “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God.” Jesus, for his part, gets right to the point; he knows Nicodemus has come to him with a hidden question. He knows what is in his heart.
Nicodemus’ unasked question is similar to the one in Matthew 19:16, when the rich young man asks, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” Nicodemus, we discover, is really worried about his future. He wanted to be with God. This was to his credit. God offered safety and security in this world and the next. Nicodemus wanted to be saved and he saw Jesus as the way to his salvation.
Jesus knew this was his real desire, so he teaches him about who can see the Kingdom of God. He teaches him that to be in the Kingdom of God, we must be born from above. Now, this is where we join with Nicodemus in his confusion and nod our heads as he asks Jesus, “How can these things be?”
We were keeping our grandsons in San Antonio a few years back. One night, just before I fell asleep, the coyotes starting howling like only coyotes can. I chuckled. Here we were in a nice part of northwest San Antonio and behind the houses across the street, in the arroyos behind those houses, was quite a large pack of yapping coyotes. Even home security systems won’t keep that sound from invading your psyche.
We know the world is a dangerous place. We read about it in the newspapers, hear about it on the radio and television, know it with far too much detail from the stories our friends and neighbors tell and from the trials and tribulations in our own lives. Howling coyotes are just a gentle reminder. Inner and outer demons lurk about and we seem comforted by the security systems that cut the risks of invasions of space in our lives.
Nicodemus responds to Jesus’ claim with a confused question about entering as babies again in our mothers. Clearly, the idea that before we were born we lived safely in our mother’s womb has merit. We were all attached to the secure system our mother’s provided for us before our birth. Then life takes over and we search for what is missing. We search for a missing security. But Nicodemus is right. We cannot enter there a second time.
Jesus explains to a confused Nicodemus, no one will be safe in this world unless they seek the kingdom of God by being born from above. What Nicodemus doesn’t see is that Jesus is inviting him to a new inward birth where he will find eternal security, where he will become a disciple of Christ, where we will all see the Kingdom of God when we are born anew from water and Spirit. In our baptism we have this new inward birth.
What Jesus meant was the Holy Spirit must implant in our lives that which has its origin not on earth, but in heaven. In our baptism we are participating in a washing away of our old self, the sinful self, to dissolve us from all previous behavior that separated us from God in our sin. In a real sense we experience, just as Jesus did, a death and a resurrection. We experience the death of our old self and the birth of a new life, where we accept a new baptismal name, that of disciple.
We join Nicodemus this morning in this search for eternal life and like him we come to Jesus in the night, for we too have our desires and our questions. Because he loves us, Jesus answers our questions of substance by first revealing to us who he is. For in our knowledge of who Jesus is all questions are answered.
So, we join Nicodemus and ask: Are you the one who will bring security back into our lives? We hear the coyotes howling and we want to know. Are you the one?
These are fair questions, like Nicodemus, we have heard things about Jesus. How he performs miracles and water is turned into wine, evil spirits are taken from people, people are healed from disease and from infirmities, people are even raised from the dead, and thank you Jesus, our sins are forgiven. But can we be sure? Are we so skeptical? No miracle like those in scripture has ever happened to us. How can it be true what they say about Jesus?
I don’t know, perhaps the worst thing we can do is ask Jesus a direct question. We see what good it did Nicodemus, Jesus read his heart and his answer just may have made things even more confusing. Be born from above? Be born of water and spirit? Believe in Jesus and we will not perish and we will have eternal life? Really, who is this Jesus anyway?
It has been suggested that those of us who are confused and filled with questions about Jesus should take Nicodemus as our patron saint during Lent. We should strive to be as Nicodemus was these 40 days of Lent, come in out of the dark and ask Jesus anything that is on our minds, absolutely anything. Jesus can handle it. Jesus can answer any question.
We must prepare ourselves however. Jesus will likely read our hearts and tell us about the inward change that will be necessary if we are to ever truly know who he is.
The unexpected truth we will discover is that Jesus is the sovereign, living God who, rather than our making sense of God, God makes sense of us. Do we understand how impossible this seems? God, being God, will make sense out of us. We may think our life is grounded and secure as we try and make sense of God but, no matter how hard we try or how good our intentions, we cannot.
The totality of our security rests instead in the comforting truth that God has made sense of us all along. God seeks us out and liberates us from ourselves. God finds the core ‘us’ that we have hidden from ourselves and loves us. God finds us and, if we will listen, God will make complete sense of our lives.
God can do this because God made us and it is God’s desire that the Holy Spirit will live in us. It is God’s desire that the power of Jesus’ love and redeeming grace will consume our lives and we will be made one with God for we will be born anew, becoming one with the kingdom of God, believing in a God who so loved the world he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
This dear one’s is our real security. Ben Campbell Johnson tells us, “This is the depth of relationship we have with God when we learn to be open to God so that we can learn to love God with all of our hearts; it is to know ourselves as we appear to God; it is to respond to the initiatives of God’s grace that shape our lives and transform us so that we participate intelligently in God’s plan for the world.” A plan that includes us in God’s kingdom when we have the desire that God’s will becomes ours.
Most of us are familiar with the letters in the paper written to Ann Landers. One recently could have come from Nicodemus. It read; “Dear Ann: I am not a religious man. In fact, I consider myself an atheist. I am also very ethical and have high moral standards. I donate to more than a dozen charities. I am kind to animals, children, and the environment. I would never raise my hand to my wife or children, and I treat them as the precious people they are. I strive to make the world a better place and understand those different from myself. I am intelligent and kind, and stand up for what I believe. I never impose my beliefs on those around me. So, why is it that as soon as people find out I don’t believe in God, they tell me I am going to hell? One woman said, “You cannot possibly have good morals if you don’t believe. “ This is non-sense. I know plenty of “God-fearing, church going folk” who have rotten moral standards, I am sick and tired of people making moral judgments about me based solely on the fact that I do not believe in religion. How can I get these well meaning, but mistaken people off my back? Signed, Unbeliever in Maryland.”
Ann responded; “Dear Unbelieving friend, You sound a lot like someone else I know, a man named Nicodemus. Oh, Nicodemus was a religious person, in every sense of the word. He went to the synagogue, kept the laws and was a believer. That is not what you have in common with him. Nicodemus also lived an upright life: he was kind and responsible, intelligent and thoughtful. He was as comfortable with his life as you seem to be with yours.
Yet Nicodemus seemed to know there was something missing. When a new prophet, preaching a message of love and forgiveness came to town, Nicodemus realized he was searching. He was searching for the presence of God in his life. He went by night, anonymously to see Jesus.
You have come anonymously as well. I wonder if you, too, are seeking God’s presence. I wonder if you are seeking love and forgiveness. Do you, too, sense something missing in your life? The language you use to describe yourself is telling; you say that you are ‘sick and tired.’
There is good news for you. It is the same good news that Jesus spoke to Nicodemus. It is the good news of life, born of water and spirit, life for Nicodemus, life for you, life for all people. The good news for all of us is that God is present in our lives, bidden or unbidden, God is present.
Your friend, Ann”
Dear friends, here is our Lenten focus, the desire to have God’s will in our lives. Living God’s will brings the security we desire. Living God’s will fills the missing void in our lives. Living God’s will frees us to live by God’s love and God’s grace. As God’s will fills our heart with joy and our lives with strength and security, we are being saved.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him many not perish but may have eternal life.”
Let the coyotes stop their howling, we can truly rest now in peace.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Additional Resources:
“Lectionary Homiletics”, Volume XIX, pgs. 21 – 27.
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