Scripture
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with that person.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 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.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?
“Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen, yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
“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.
“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 3:1-17
Sermon
Some of my favorite memories involve late night conversations with people I love. Starting in 8th grade, my best friend Jennifer and I talked on the phone together until midnight or later, all the while watching “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” or any Fred Astaire/ Ginger Rogers film we could find. Another one of these happened when I was in my third year at Boston College, living in a six-person suite that included, for the first time in my college experience, a kitchen. Around the same time, I found and purchased “The Tassajara Bread Book.”
One night I decided to go ahead and give the book a test drive at about 10 pm. I had not, you see, done the math and added up the hours this whole enterprise would take. Soon, the kitchen became suffused with the scent of the yeast and honey, and later, the whole apartment was filled with the aroma of the bread baking. I took my first ever loaves out of the oven at about 3 AM, and sat down to enjoy some with my roommate, Jean, who was studying for a French exam. We dipped hot bread in metaphors and honey, and had a long, free-ranging conversation about everything from the reflexive verbs she was immersed in, to the state of the love lives of our best pals. She is still one of my favorite people on this planet.
We are in the gospel of John this morning, a gospel filled with some of the most beautiful and memorable stories we have about Jesus. In today’s story Nicodemus, a religious leader, seeks Jesus out for a conversation. The gospel of John is also filled with symbolism about day and night, light and darkness. Many scholars believe that applies to the fact that Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. Daytime is about openness and truth and seeing clearly, whereas nighttime is about secrecy, falsehood, and what is hidden—even spiritual blindness.
Given my affinity for late night conversations, I have a different theory. The conversations we have during the day are often practical and work-related. I get together with two colleagues on a regular basis, and at breakfast and lunch, even when we don’t mean to, we often default to work as the topic. During nighttime conversations, on the other hand, we let down our hair, so to speak. It can be a time of emotional intimacy, maybe because we’re a little tired, a little less guarded. Or maybe it's because nighttime is really the best time for conversations of the heart. I wonder what was Nicodemus’ reason for going to see Jesus at night. Was it really because he was hiding, afraid that people would be scandalized, seeing him visit this rabbi who was already raising eyebrows everywhere he went? Or was Nicodemus looking forward to having a conversation of the heart with Jesus?
The men sit together. Maybe there is a fire burning in a hearth. Nicodemus speaks: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with that person.” The signs Nicodemus mentions are very important in this gospel. They are seven miracles, deeds of power, that reveal who Jesus is to the world. The first one (in chapter 2)—is when Jesus changes water to wine at the wedding in Cana. This symbolizes Jesus’s creative and transformative work. John shows us that Jesus has come to change the world, to bring in the kingdom of God.
So, it's remarkable that a religious leader comes to Jesus to make this statement—we know you are a rabbi who has come from God. Jesus doesn’t demur, or say, “Thanks, I’m glad you think so.” Instead, he responds, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” In other words, Jesus is saying that Nicodemus seems to have seen the kingdom. Nicodemus seems to have had that spiritual rebirth Jesus is calling for. Nicodemus has made a statement about Jesus’ relationship with God. Jesus responds with a statement that Nicodemus is on the right track.
But there is a misunderstanding. The words Jesus used could be understood as “born from above” or “born anew.” Nicodemus pushes back at what he takes to be a literal impossibility—no one can go back and re-enter their mother’s womb and be born a second time. That makes no sense.
This is often how it goes with Jesus in John’s gospel. Jesus is speaking in metaphors and symbols, and Nicodemus is speaking in concrete terms. He doesn’t, at first, understand. Jesus is offering him eternal life. Jesus is stating that being born anew—allowing yourself to be transformed by the work of the Holy Spirit—will bring you eternal life.
I know when we hear that phrase, eternal life, we tend to think it refers to something that will happen after we die—eternal life with God and our loved ones in heaven. But Jesus has a more expansive idea of what that means. To understand it, you have to understand Jesus’s view of heaven and earth here in the gospel of John. One scholar says,
John sees [creation] as a two-story universe.
The “world” is the lower story, a sphere of hate, darkness, falsehood, slavery, and scarcity. The “world” for John is thus not just the creation, teeming with humankind, animals, and other nature, but is a sphere of existence that lives in pain with only partial knowledge of God…
The upper story is heaven, centered [on] God. It is a sphere of life, light, truth, freedom and abundance. God reveals the possibility of heaven through Jesus. Eternal life is an essential quality of heaven.[i]
But it is also possible to experience right here on earth. Jesus is recognizing that Nicodemus has access to eternal life now: Jesus hints at baptism—water and the Spirit—and says that this will open our eyes and heart to the presence of eternal life all around us. The world is still there, but there are people in the world who are able to see the kingdom, because they have undergone a re-birth, a spiritual transformation. Jesus even defines what this means, later in the gospel. In chapter 17, during prayer with his disciples, Jesus says, “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3).
Eternal life starts now, not later. Jesus is offering that glimpse of heaven—that place of life, light, truth, freedom and abundance—here, and now. The world is still a place of pain where unspeakable things happen. But if we have let our hearts be transformed by the love of God, we will know love, we will know life, and truth, and abundance. Eternal life starts now.
Jesus explains, in one of the most famous verses of scripture, why this is so. “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.” Remember John’s view of the world? That sphere of existence that is nothing but pain and ugliness? God loves this world. God loves the world, despite the pain, despite the ugliness. And the next verse explains further: “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.” Not just a few fortunate people, but the world. God wants to save the world.
Verses 16 and 17 seem to clash with one another, don’t they. Verse 16 specifies those who believe in Jesus, while verse 17 emphasizes the whole world. This is challenging to our 21st century sensibilities, that part about “those who believe in him.” We all know and love people of all faiths and of no faith at all. My assumption is that we all, no matter where we are on our journeys, have times of questioning and doubt. Will our friends and loved ones perish because they don’t believe that Jesus lived, or that he was truly God’s Son in a unique way? Will we perish if we have our doubts now and then, or if our doubts are most of what’s left of our faith?
I read a poem this week that expressed what I think about this better than I can. Here is “So Loved,” by pastor-poet Steve Garnaas-Holmes:
A child plays on the banks of a mountain stream.
He slips, falls into the icy current.
His mother's heart falls also—crashes—yet leaps,
with a parent's deep love-panic.
She rushes down the bank, out into the water.
Of course she will endure the rocks, the cold, the danger,
she will grab her child and bring him to safety.
She doesn't care how disobedient he was to go there.
She doesn't care that he told her he hated her.
Doesn't care he ruined the couch yesterday,
woke her three times last night, and is going to need braces.
Without reserve she plunges in and holds him tight.
Of course. Because she loves him no matter what.
This is how God so loved the world,
not in sending a rep, not in working a deal,
but by rushing down, diving into the pain,
saving us from ourselves, and holding us
without judgment or condemnation
because she will never abandon her flesh and blood,
never.[ii]
My hope is in the Lord, the Maker of the heavens and the earth—and you and me. If God so loves the world that God came to us in Jesus, then it is God’s intention that the world should be saved. When I pray, “Thy will be done,” I am praying that God will do what God clearly wants to do: save the world. This idea is called “universal salvation,” and there are many words of scripture that support it in addition to John 3:17. It’s what I pray for, and what I believe, even in the face of the other passages that seem to challenge it.
At a certain point Nicodemus’s voice drops out of this conversation, and we hear only Jesus’s voice. Is Nicodemus overwhelmed? Is this the heart conversation that he was hoping to have with Jesus? How has he been changed by this encounter? We meet Nicodemus two more times in John’s gospel. In chapter 7, both Nicodemus and Jesus are in Jerusalem for the Passover festival, when Jesus’ preaching in the Temple causes someone to send for the authorities. Nicodemus defends Jesus, saying, essentially, what about due process? Doesn’t he get a trial? (John 7:52). The last time we meet him, he and Joseph of Arimathea are preparing Jesus’ body for burial, and Nicodemus brings a hundred pounds of a mixture of myrrh and aloes. “They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths” (John 19:40). Has Nicodemus been changed? Has his ability to see the kingdom deepened?
And what about us? Have we been changed by our encounter with Jesus? Have we allowed the Spirit to do her work, so that the world around us is shot through with the beauty and goodness of heaven, even as we traverse through times of challenge and pain? God so loves the world. And you. And me. I believe that God does exactly what God wants to do. Saves us all.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
[i] Ronald J. Allen, “Second Sunday in Lent: “Commentary on John 3:1-17, Love is a Decision of the Will,” Working Preacher, March 5, 2023, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/second-sunday-in-lent/commentary-on-john-31-17-11.
[ii] Steve Garnaas-Holmes, “So Loved,” unfoldinglight.net, https://unfoldinglight.net/2023/03/02/so-loved/.