John 3:1-22
Second Sunday in Lent
When you are in the dark, how do you feel? Do you feel at peace, enveloped by the quiet? Are you unsettled and afraid? Does darkness feel more secure than what you might discover in the light, or vice-versa? Are there things you would rather do in the night? Nicodemus came to Jesus in the dark of the night. Of course, they had just changed the clocks, so now it was dark an hour earlier than it was the day before. Try explaining that to your dogs.
Here’s what happened before setting the clocks forward an hour. Passover was near, and people were gathered in the Temple. It smelled of cattle and sheep. There were dove droppings on the pews. Everything was for sale, and don’t worry if you do not have the right currency. You could buy that there, too. Jesus could not tolerate the house of God becoming a marketplace. He turned over tables, threw stuff around, and dumped money on the floor. Then he shouted, “Stop! This is my Father’s house. Get out!” The finance chair called the treasurer, and the treasurer called the property manager. It was not long before word of Jesus’ actions and his claim to be God’s son got around town.
Is this why Nicodemus comes in the cover of darkness? A bit of trivia for those of you who may not know,–this is where the expression “Nick at Night” comes from. Nicodemus was a Pharisee. His religious education was stellar, and he was well respected as a leader in his community. In the Gospel of John, dark and night are contrasted by light and day. Jesus will say, “’I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.’” [1]
“Rabbi,” Nicodemus addresses him, acknowledging Jesus’ status. Then he says, “’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.’” The things Jesus does, the signs that he shows, are outside any human ability. They are different than Nicodemus’ knowledge of how God works.
“Very truly,” Jesus says. “Very truly” is our clue that what follows is very important. What Jesus said is very important, but sounds a little crazy, too. “’No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.’” The Greek word translated “kingdom” has more of a sense of experience than a physical place. “Realm” conveys the meaning more accurately. No doubt you have heard “Born from above” translated as “born again.” The Greek can be translated both ways.
As we have been studying Martin Luther’s writings, here is what Luther writes in his sermon on this text:
Christ’s words are as if to say: ‘No, my dear Nicodemus, I am not moved by your beautiful words. You must give up your old life and become a new man…. [This] is not concerning what you must do or not do, but concerning what you must become. It aims not at the performance of new works, but first at being born anew; not at a different life, but at a different birth.”[2]
Born from above, not a different life, but a different birth, Jesus says and Luther writes. This is not a distinction between those who “truly believe” and those who just say they do. It is not a measure of religiosity. It’s an experience of the realm of God. Being born from above, this different birth, is not something we can do ourselves. Being born is not a decision that we make, is it? Birth is more work on the one giving birth than the one being born. The one being born comes out vulnerable and fragile.
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.
“How can these things be?” Nicodemus wants to know. “How can these things be?” we want to know. The light of Jesus draws this Pharisee out of the dark, calling him to be open to God in a new way. Jesus calls Nicodemus to go beyond his training and his boundaries of rules and laws and logic. God calls us to go beyond what we know so that we can see what really is. The light beckons us to go beyond our human assessment of who in in and who is out, and who God loves.
For God so loved the world, the world as shown in John’s gospel to be hostile to God.[3] For God so loved this world [that hated him], 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.
For God so loved the foreign Samaritan woman Jesus met at the well, and the man blind since birth, the woman who bled for twelve years, and the Gerasene man with evil spirits. For God so loved the poor, and the one in prison. For God so loved Peter who said, “Jesus who?” and Judas who betrayed him. For God so loved the condemned criminals, hanging on crosses to Jesus’ left and to his right. For God so loved Nicodemus out of his darkness so that he would to prepare Jesus’ body for burial. For God so loved the world. For God so loved you and me, we who have lost our way in the darkness. Claimed as God’s children in the waters of baptism, forgiven through bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ, we are called to love the world, too.[4]
~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin
[1] John 8:12
[2] Bruner, Frederick Dale. The Gospel of John: A Commentary. Grand Rapids: Wm B. Eerdmans, 2012, 172. Referring to Sermons of Martin Luther 3:412 and 3:326.
[3] See John 15:18-25, 16:8-10, 20, 33, and 17:9-16.
[4] Stjerna, Kirsi, ed. The Large Catechism of Dr. Martin Luther, 1529. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2016. Concerning baptism, Luther writes: “This is the simplest way to put it: the power, effect, benefit, fruit, and purpose of baptism is that it saves. For no one is baptized in order to become royalty, but, as the words say, ‘to be saved.’ To be saved, as everyone well knows, is nothing else than to be delivered from sin, death, and the devil, to enter into Christ’s kingdom, and to live with Christ forever. …our works are of no use for salvation. Baptism, however, is not our work, but God’s work…(393-394).