“Throughout [this] gospel, Jesus’ teachings elicit one misunderstanding after another [with the people he encounters].”[i]
Today we overhear his conversation with the religious leader, the Pharisee Nicodemus, when he asks what it means to be born again; next week Jesus will talk about living water with the Samaritan woman at the well; and then, he will heal a man who was been born blind and, on the last Sunday of Lent, he will astonish Mary and Martha by going to their brother Lazarus when he has been dead for more than three days and restoring him to life.
Time and again, the gospel will not be revealed in the answers to people’s rational questions —“How can a person be born twice?”, “What is living water?”, “How can a blind mean see?”, or “How can the dead live?”
Instead it will be revealed in the demonstrated acts of forgiveness and mercy that Jesus offers.
Today’s gospel introduces us to Nicodemus. The evangelist doesn’t tell us very much about him, but we know he is a Pharisee, a religious leader who kept the ritual laws and practices that the Jews believed earned them righteousness, or right standing with God, and he taught others how to do the same.
And he has noticed Jesus — uncredentialled, and followed by fisherman and dock workers, turning over tables at the temple and driving out the money changers. Curious, Nicodemus wants to know more about him, and about his teachings, so he goes to find him so that they can talk about matters concerning faith.
In his book Cast of Characters, Max Lucado imagines the scene:
As the shadows darken the city, Nicodemus steps out, slips unseen through the cobbled winding streets. He passes servants lighting lamps in the courtyard and takes a path that ends at the door of a simple house. Jesus and his followers are staying there, he’s been told. Nicodemus knocks.In the conversation that follows, what Jesus offers isn’t a list of recitable facts or solutions to the Pharisee’s rational questions;
instead he offers an invitation to faith.
But Nicodemus doesn’t understand.
Faith is not a ladder to climb, or an object to acquire or “something that falls ready-made from heaven.”[ii]And it isn’t about knowing the right answers to a catechism exam, or memorizing Scripture. In fact, it isn’t about what’s in our heads at all.
Faith is about our hearts and our lives. And, especially in John’s Gospel, “having faith” or “believing in Jesus” gives witness to a relationship with God.
When Jesus says,
16 "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. 17 "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. (John 3:16-17 NRS)
he echoes the prologue of this gospel, in the first chapter, where the Evangelist writes:
12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12-13, NRSV)
What God offers in God’s son Jesus is the presence of God in our midst.[iii]
Just as Nicodemus sought to speak to Jesus about matters concerning faith, the early church asked questions about what kind of person God is and what God does. In the fourth century A.D., we have the earliest references to the apostles’ creed with its Trinitarian structure, describing God the Father and creation, the Son and redemption and the Holy Spirit and being made holy or sanctified.
Martin Luther teaches about the creed in the second part of his Small Catechism, writing that while the commandments teach us what God wishes us to do and not to do, the creed “teaches us to know God perfectly.”[iv]
Luther writes that, “In all three articles [of the creed] God himself has revealed and opened to us the most profound depths of [God’s] fatherly heart and pure, unutterable love.”[v]
The nature of God’s love for each of us, revealed in God’s Son Jesus defies our human nature and logic and rationale. Which of course, is the point.
As Luther writes in his explanation of the creed,
Neither you nor I could ever know anything about Christ, or believe in him and receive him as Lord, unless these were offered to us and bestowed on our hearts through the preaching of the Gospel by the Holy Spirit.[vi]
That Holy Spirit – pneuma, breath or wind – is the same Spirit that confounded Nicodemus when he spoke to Jesus. In their conversation, Jesus says
7 Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.' 8 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." (John 3:7-8 NRS)
It is this same Holy Spirit, that theologian Kalbryn McLean calls the
“wild child” of the Godhead,[vii] that daily “imparts, increases, and strengthens faith [in us] through [God]’s Word and the forgiveness of [our sins].”[viii]
This Lent, let us remember that we are born again of water and spirit as children of God, and we are being invited to faith, to learn what God promises in God’s Son Jesus.
Let us pray….[ix]
God of all who call upon you,
Stir your Spirit within us to trust that you indeed sent Jesus to us, and that through him we can witness and experience the fullness of your love.
Help us to remember that you come to us with your light to reveal to us your grace, love, and forgiveness.
Amen.
[i] Jarvis, Cynthia A.. Feasting on the Gospels--John, Volume 1: A Feasting on the Word Commentary (Kindle Locations 2162-2166). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.
[ii] Helmut Thieleke, I Believe: The Christian’s Creed. 12.
[iii] Working Preacher, www.workingpreacher.org
[iv] Large Catechism, Book of Concord. 431.
[v] Large Catechism, Book of Concord. 440.
[vi] Large Catechism, Book of Concord. 436.
[vii] Jarvis, Cynthia A.. Feasting on the Gospels--John, Volume 1: A Feasting on the Word Commentary (Kindle Locations 2162-2166). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.
[viii] Large Catechism, Book of Concord. 439.
[ix] Faith Lens, http://blogs.elca.org/faithlens/
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