Lent 4B Sermon Notes 15/03/15 As we heard last week the city of Jerusalem was packed with people, mainly strangers during the Passover feast, so you could walk a long distance and never see anyone you recognised. Jesus’ mysterious visitor was counting on that, as he quickly moved along the streets with this head held low and his face covered. He moved from alleyway to alleyway, looking carefully in all directions before stepping into the openness of a street, making sure there was not someone there who might recognise him. Finally, he came to the end of his search, walked up to a certain house, and knocked on the door. We’re not told who answered the door but we can be certain that whoever it was, the expression on their face when they saw the visitor would have been the same look of amazement, mixed with pure terror. Even without his robes, they would have recognised this man, a Pharisee. More than that, this man was one of the key leaders of the community, a member of the Sanhedrin itself. The Sanhedrin was an exclusive group of 23 men who made up the official religious court of the Jewish faith in Jerusalem. They were the judges of the faith with powers that no other Jewish court had, and with such strong connections with the Temple that their court building, called the Hall of Hewn Stones, was built into the side of the Temple mount itself. Whoever it was, this is probably what went through their mind during that first fraction of a second after they opened the door and recognised Nicodemus standing there. There is Jesus sitting on a mat on the floor, and sitting on a mat next to him is one of the top religious leaders of the nation, one of the most powerful men in the country. We’ll just ignore all of the disciples standing around the edges watching: Peter trying to work out the quickest escape route from the house and Judas keeping one hand on the sword he has tucked under his tunic. Instead, we’ll focus on the conversation between the two men sitting on the floor. John tells us that Nicodemus started the conversation with “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God…” (v. 2). These are great setup words, spoken to sound like you are paying someone a compliment to get them off-guard just before you move in for the kill. When Nicodemus said these words, I can see Peter rolling his eyes and mumbling to Judas, “Okay, here it comes.” But instead of using his authority as a leader of the Jewish faith to attack Jesus, Nicodemus’ voice lowered a bit, and even seemed to take on the sound of true respect, as he said: “I tell you, no one can do the things you do apart from the presence of God” (v. 2). Peter and the others were completely confused and began looking around at each other hoping someone could make sense of what was going on. Instead of attacking Jesus, Nicodemus was talking to him as a student talks with a teacher. It slowly began to dawn on them that Nicodemus had come at night to hide from his fellow Pharisees
in order to ask questions that no good Pharisee would ask, especially not a member of the Sanhedrin. Nicodemus was trying to understand. Jesus then spoke and told Nicodemus the reason he was having a hard time understanding what Jesus was doing, saying: “Very truly I say to you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above” (v. 3). I would love to see the look on Nicodemus’ face. You see, Nicodemus was a logical man. His entire life as a Pharisee and member of the Sanhedrin was based on interpreting the stacks of books filled with religious laws and making decisions that impacted people’s lives. Nicodemus was used to dealing in facts, in concrete matters, interpreting laws to make decisions between black and white, good and evil, right and wrong. So we need to feel some sympathy for him as he looked back at Jesus and asked, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” (v. 4). To Nicodemus, being born again meant exactly that: being physically born again. He wasn’t trying to argue or disagree with Jesus, he was just completely lost and befuddled, with some pretty ludicrous images going through his mind as he tried to make sense of it all. This is where our piece of scripture picks up the story today. It is as if we’re standing against the wall in that room listening to the conversation as Jesus tried to help Nicodemus understand. Over the next few minutes, Jesus explained that he wasn’t talking about another physical birth, but something else, a birth that occurred in the spirit, a birth that changed what was inside the person more than what was outside. He told Nicodemus that the way to have this second birth was to believe in what Jesus was saying about God, that God loved the world so much that he sent his own Son to deliver the message and to give his life to make sure it was understood. He explained the idea of being born again using terms that Nicodemus would clearly understand, by comparing what he was offering with what Nicodemus and the Sanhedrin were offering. He said that God’s goal was not to condemn the world, not to hold some holy session of court, find people guilty of things, and condemn them to some eternal punishment. They already had that. There were so many religious laws that it was impossible for anyone to follow them all, which meant that everyone was already condemned. What Jesus was offering was an opportunity to start a new life in which no one was doomed to be condemned. Jesus explained that God saw every person as having value, loved as much as every other person. Jesus was offering light to replace the darkness of the old way. We’re not told what went through Nicodemus’ mind or how the conversation ended. John immediately takes us back to Galilee for more stories. In my imagination, I watch Nicodemus as he sat there listening to the things Jesus was saying. I suspect he was almost in shock, as he slowly began to understand the
truth of what Jesus was telling him. He had lived his entire life studying and enforcing laws and knew it was true that no person could ever follow them all, not even himself. And if the truth was known, every person, even those Sanhedrin members themselves, would be found guilty of breaking religious laws and would be condemned. He knew that the only reason this did not happen was that they hid their sins, they covered them in darkness and pretended that they did not exist. They lived a life that was not true, a life that was just an act, constantly in fear of someone shining a light into their dark places and revealing who they really were. If a person could truly believe that God loved them regardless of their mistakes, instead of condemning them, that would truly be like being born a second time. And at that moment, something began to change inside Nicodemus. Some spark of a new hope, a new life, as if he actually was born again. Being born again is sometimes a difficult concept today and it has many interpretations. Too often, churches end up creating rules and laws about what it means to be born again. They create tests for people to pass in order to prove they are born again and use it as a yardstick to judge someone’s value. As a result, it turns out to be just another way of creating darkness in people’s lives. That’s not what being born again is all about. If we want to understand what Jesus meant when he said that a person needed to be born a second time, all we need to do is look at Nicodemus. How do I know that? Although John ends this story and moves on, this is not the last time we see and hear from Nicodemus. During another visit to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Unleavened Bread, the Temple police saw Jesus in the Temple and ran to the authorities to come up with a plan to arrest him and see that he was silenced once and for all. One of those authorities was Nicodemus, and as the group plotted about how to trap Jesus, Nicodemus spoke up saying, “Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?” Although they all turned on him and called him names, the result was that Jesus was safe. We see Nicodemus once more, this time in a very different role than as a religious authority. John tells us that after the crucifixion, two men found a tomb for Jesus’ burial, purchased and carried one hundred pounds of oils and spices to the tomb, and wrapped the body to give it a proper burial. One of those men was Joseph of Arimathea. The other was Nicodemus. According to tradition, Nicodemus ended up being killed as a martyr, by the very laws he had once lived for. Today there are religious holidays and churches named after him and he is considered a saint in the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Church. That, is what it means to be born again.