Close Encounters: Jesus & Nicodemus
Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
The Second Sunday of Lent February 17, 2008
John 3:1-17
Why do you suppose he does it? Why does Nicodemus go to Jesus under the cover of darkness? We are told that he's a Pharisee and a leader of the Jews. This means that he's a member of the Sanhedrin, the official Jewish court. So we have here a man of education, influence and power. When he spoke, people listened. And yet here he is, at night, seeking out this peasant prophet and trouble-maker from Nazareth. It makes no sense. We know that Nicodemus' colleagues on the Sanhedrin will soon be plotting how to get rid of Jesus once and for all. And so this midnight visit cannot be a very good career move. He's taking a huge, huge risk. What is he looking for? Does he find it?
You may already know this, but it's curious - at least I find it curious - that we find Nicodemus mentioned only in the Gospel of John. The other Gospels do not seem to know this prominent leader, but we meet him three times in John. We meet him here in this text, the most familiar encounter. We also see him again right before Jesus goes on trial Nicodemus appears and asks that Jesus be given a fair hearing. And then we meet him a final time after Jesus’ death on the cross. He's there with Joseph of Arimathea bringing spices to the grave to anoint Jesus' body. The fact that there is no other mention of this highly placed, if secret disciple, has prompted some to question if Nicodemus really existed at all, or is he just an invented character, kind of like the characters who populate Jesus' parables. Now I have no definitive answer for this, and honestly, I'm not that interested in finding one. Because for me, the truth of Nicodemus and his faith journey is not, so much, whether or not he was a flesh and blood person, but rather this: When I see Nicodemus, I see just a bit of myself, my own journey, and indeed, a bit of all of us.
Now John makes it very clear: Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. And as you've heard me say before, in this most poetic of all the Gospels, day and night, light and dark, are more than just the time of day. Night in the fourth Gospel is all about unbelief, doubt, confusion, misunderstanding. So, with this one word, John gives us a peek into the spiritual life of Nicodemus. Even though he's a religious leader, in matters of faith, he finds himself in the dark, seeking the light. So he comes to Jesus.
Over the years, Nicodemus has often gotten a bad rap. Many sermons have been preached portraying him as a confused and cowardly man, skulking about in the darkness, clearly not the sharpest tool in the shed, unable to understand anything Jesus says. A literalist, he seems to have alarming difficulty with metaphor: "How can I possibly reenter my mother's womb?" He seems to think he's going to be the largest new born on record. He doesn't get it.
But as I said, when I look at Nicodemus, what I see is a searcher, a seeker. In fact, he's been called "the Patron Saint of Seekers." He's a man of faith, a man of great learning, and yet it would seem, for him, something is missing. And in Jesus perhaps he has seen that something, the possibility of night turning into day. The possibility of something more.
But what does he find on his midnight quest? Does he get what he's looking for? Does he get more than he's looking for? Does he wish, by the end of it, that he had just stayed home in bed? "Very truly, I tell you, Nicodemus, no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above." There you have it. Born from above, born again, born anew - choose your favorite translation. Jesus isn't telling Nicodemus to make a few changes in his life, to try to become a little better person. He is talking about becoming a whole new person. Is Nicodemus ready for that? Are we?
Do you know the comic strip, Dilbert? Dilbert's boss comes into his cubicle and announces, "I'm assigning you to 'the project that wouldn't die.' Everybody likes this project too much to cancel it, but not enough to fund it properly. So I want you to go out there and maintain the status quo!" To which Dilbert responds, "You really shouldn't mix honesty with your motivational speeches." Change never comes easily, if at all, in the world of Dilbert's cubicle. Or, there's that old story of the old Arab man who woke up hungry one night. He lit a candle, opened up a date, only to find it was filled with worms. He tried another date, more worms. Third date was tried, worms still. Whereupon he blew out the candle and ate the next date he found. Ah, rather than face the uncertainty of the new, it's often so much easier, much like that old Arab, like Dilbert's entire company, to stay with what we have, with what we know. Maintain the status quo. We prefer the comfort of the familiar to the discomfort of change, even when change might be for the better.
So here is an alcoholic of advancing years. He has tried AA, says he yearns to be free of what he calls, "My demon," but finally he says to his pastor, "It's no use. It's gone on too long. I just can't change the behavior of a lifetime." So much easier to leave things the way they are, even to live with the pain we know. And so Hamlet could say, "Rather bear those ills we have, than fly to others we know not of."
"No one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above." I tell you, it sounds like a lot of change to me. Not hard to imagine Nicodemus thinking, “I'm in over my head here.” Same might be true for us. We hear this text, and I think, “I'm way too old, or I'm set in my ways, I've got a family. I can't consider some kind of new birth, new beginning.” Then says Jesus, you better get out of here while you've got a chance, because "the wind - the spirit - blows where it chooses and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes." You can't control it, you can't get a hold of it, or even completely understand it...this spirit of new birth. You don't get it, it gets you.
In recent years, a host of critics has arisen to challenge the propriety of Mark Twain's classic, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. They ask about the language, about racism, stereotyped characters. And yet still, when I read that novel, what jumps out at me is the relationship between Huckleberry Finn and the runaway slave, Jim. After a number of adventures, as I read it, Huck grows to love him, to respect him. He comes to the realization that Jim is a fellow human being much like himself. He simply cannot think of Jim anymore as just a slave, a piece of property, and certainly cannot understand a law that insists he return Jim to slavery. Why? I suppose you could say that, almost in spite of himself, Huck has, in a rather curious way, been born again, converted to a whole new way of seeing another person. He has grown, he has changed.
You must be born from above...born again. Now you're never going to hear from this pulpit that Jesus is talking about some kind of one time experience that separates you from all other believers, or somehow makes you superior to other believers, some experience you can mark there on your calendar. Think about the context of this text. He's talking to an old and weary man, locked into a tired and barren faith, who is looking for something new. And so Jesus says to him, "You are never too old to change, never too old to grow, never so comfortable with your ideas that God's restless spirit might not be ready to give you a new idea." And so, one of my mentors in ministry, Bill Nelson, says, "I simply do not believe that Jesus intended for us to have one single, emotional, esoteric, religious experience called conversion and then leave it at that. He meant for us to have a style and an attitude, a way of being in the world, that is always in the process of being renewed, being born again if you please, being open to the surprising events within which God meets us." You might really talk about being born again, and again, and again.
Nicodemus, like us, really struggles with Jesus' language here. He can't quite figure it out. By the end of the conversation, he doesn't know what it means to be born from above. But he's not alone. I'm standing here, preaching on this text, and quite honestly, I don't know what it means either. But Nicodemus also decides that whatever way Jesus is going, that's the way for him. So maybe he does find what he's looking for. He doesn't have Jesus completely figured out, but he follows, trusting this restless spirit that blows where it will.
So does being a Christian mean that you are someone who has it figured out, who's defined Jesus, thank you, no other questions needed? Well, that might be true in some churches, but something tells me, it's not true here. When I think about Nicodemus and his journey, when I think about my own journey, I find myself returning to some words of another seeker, Albert Schweitzer. He spent years studying the historical Jesus - wrote a groundbreaking book on the subject. Along the way, he had lots of doubts. He began to wonder if anything in the Gospels was historically accurate. By the time he finished the book he doubted if one could ever actually construct a picture of the historical Jesus. But he also discovered that even if he could not define or completely understand Jesus, he still had to follow him. This brilliant man had no good intellectual explanation for it, but in his heart, he knew that his encounter with Christ had forever changed his life. And so he wrote this:
"He comes to us as one unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside, he came to those who knew him not. He speaks to us the same word, 'Follow thou me!' and sets us to the tasks which he has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey him, whether they be wise or simple, he will reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in his fellowship, and as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience who he is."