John 3:1-17
April 19
David A. Davis
Jump to audio
For the next four Sundays, we are going to be in the Gospel of John, reading about, preaching about, and pondering several conversations with Jesus. Nicodemus. The Woman at the Well. The man born blind. Mary and Martha. As to gospel comparisons, all of them are rather robust in terms of dialogue and number of verses. Because we are in John, each of the conversations comes with a phrase, a metaphor, an image that lingers: born again, living water, light of the world, resurrection and life. But when you string these four conversations together and ponder how the gospel writer seems to use the dialogue to slow the narrative, the drama, it is as if the reader is being invited to linger for a while, to sit with the characters for a while. Instead of rushing to figure out what it means to be born again, or trying to pin down a definition of Living Water, or falling in with the disciples who want to know who sinned, the blind man or his parents, or arguing about whether Lazarus was really dead or just sleeping, what if we just allow ourselves to listen in on the conversations, to sit a while with Nicodemus and the woman at the well and the man born blind and Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. This morning, it’s the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus.
When the reader of John’s gospel comes to chapter 3, it is hard not to rush to John 3:16. It is so easy for the preacher, the listener, to be influenced by the interpretive landscape which has been so dominated by what it means to be “born again”, “born from above”. When Jesus says to Nicodemus, “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above”, all eyes and ears focus on “born from above.” But the term “kingdom of God”, “see the kingdom of God, it is the only time the phrase is used in all of John’s gospel. In Mark, right off the bat Jesus is preaching: “the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near.” In Luke Jesus comes right out and affirms “the kingdom of God is among you.” In Matthew, Jesus tells those parables about the coming kingdom of God: the wise and foolish maidens, the talents, the sheep and the goats. But not John; as for the kingdom of God in John, only here: “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above”.
Nicodemus: a Pharisee, a leader of the Jews. Nicodemus acknowledges Jesus as a teacher, as one who comes from God, and as one who has done these signs. “Signs” are key throughout John’s gospel. Here so early, one sign would be the water turned to wine at the Wedding in Cana. Nicodemus, though he comes to Jesus in the cover of darkness, begins with an acknowledgement, an openness, some kind of recognition. “Rabbi, 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.” Jesus answered Nicodemus, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” The phrase could be “born from above” or “born again,” and Nicodemus, like the readers of John and the church pretty much ever since, immediately tries to figure out what on earth Jesus meant. “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”
Jesus takes the opportunity provided by the ambiguous metaphor and the watery language and moves in a spiritual/theological direction. A fairly common move for Jesus; using the ordinary to then leap to the extraordinary: a mustard seed, a fig tree, a man who had two sons. This time, the ordinary comes from his use of words; a term like “born from above”. “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 from 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.” Jesus’ reference to the wind and the Spirit here is not to be missed. It is not just “born from above” that is perplexing. For “wind” and “spirit” is the same word in the Greek text. The wind, the spirit blows where it chooses. If it wasn’t at night, if it wasn’t just Jesus and Nicodemus in conversation alone, one can imagine someone listening in saying, “I see what you did there, Jesus.” Wind and spirit.
Now, with his head spinning, Nicodemus loses the title of Rabbi or teacher in responding. He settles for something more like “huh” or “what”; “how can these things be?” One can imagine Nicodemus taking a step or two back from Jesus. Jesus tosses the teacher label right back at Nicodemus. Just as Nicodemus addressed Jesus as teacher when the conversation started, Jesus effectively shuts down the encounter with Nicodemus by questioning the Pharisee’s educator status: “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?” And it all started with “no one can see the kingdom of God without…” the Spirit blowing where it chooses.
I say Jesus ends the conversation with Nicodemus because at this point, Nicodemus appears to leave the stage. He has no more lines. John’s Jesus continues the teaching about earthly things and heavenly things, but the dialogue with Nicodemus is over at v. 10. Not only does Nicodemus come to Jesus by night here in John’s gospel, but his character also fades to black much quicker than you think. By the time John’s Jesus gets to “For God so loved the world….”, by the time someone stands up at a sporting event with John 3:16 on a sign, by the time the church gets to talking about being born again and “whosoever believes in him may not perish but have eternal life”, by the time all of that happens, Nicodemus has long since disappeared.
A careful reading of John’s gospel reveals that Nicodemus didn’t go away completely or forever. Later in John chapter 7, the temple police and the Pharisees were in a bit of a tizzy about whether to arrest Jesus. It is Nicodemus who offers a bit of a defence of Jesus, reminding the others that the law does not judge people without giving them a hearing. It’s hardly a major appearance and far from a strident defence, but in John’s gospel, Nicodemus is still around. Then, when Jesus was crucified (John 19), it is Nicodemus who went with Joseph of Arimathea to remove the body of Jesus and prepare his body for burial. According to John, Nicodemus was carrying a mixture of myrrh and aloes that weighed a hundred pounds. That’s a lot.
Nicodemus, the one who had first come to Jesus by night, the one who so quickly faded into the night when he couldn’t understand, the one whose questions and hesitations set the table for John 3:16, the one so easily defined as the prototypical intellectual cynic and doubter and religious leader who tries but doesn’t get it, Nicodemus is the one who shows up the cross with an extraordinary and extravagant amount of ointment to care for the crucified, dead, Teacher who came from God. Maybe it’s not a big old exclamation point when it comes to the role of Nicodemus, but he’s still there. There is no Thomas like affirmation, “my Lord and my God”, but he’s still there. There is no indication in the gospel that Nicodemus was ever able to fully understand what it meant to be born from above, but there he was, taking down the body of Jesus and bearing the weight of absolutely all that was needed to give Jesus the burial fit for a king. He was still there. Even there in the margins of John’s gospel, on the edges of the ministry of Jesus, Nicodemus saw something. Nicodemus saw something of the kingdom of God. He was there. Right there until the end. Serving the Son of God, the Saviour of the world.
In a season when politicians and pundits and elected officials are questioning, criticizing, and belittling how the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church reads and interprets scripture, how he reads the bible, one might be tempted to see the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus as a debate or even an argument. As Nicodemus moves to the background of scripture’s page, he somehow was the loser in an encounter with the Lord, who put him in his place. But then there he is, at the end. Along with Joseph of Arimathea, doing what seems an ordinary task. Burying the dead. Because he saw something.
Hanna Reichel was here at Nassau Church a few weeks ago talking about their book For Such A Time as This: An Emergency Devotional. In the introduction to the work that is worth reading way more than once, Professor Reichel writes this: “I have increasingly come to appreciate the less dramatic and more mundane, less corporate and more individual, less exceptional and simply ongoing task of faithful living as the world around is rapidly transforming; the task of doing all our life and work as confession- as a response to God that, even so responds with a different kind of resolve to the world around us….Only some of us have the necessary time and platform to proclaim the faith of the church, or even the bandwidth to write the kind of forceful manifestos that might, or in some future, become something like a confession of the church. But all of us must keep living despite what feels like the end of the world, and this task requires just as much discernment, just as much attention, just as much resourcing.” Less dramatic and more mundane. Less exceptional and a simple task of living in the face of what feels like the end of the world. That sounds like Nicodemus to me, from the margins. Not understanding everything. There at the end. Burying the dead. “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.”
“No one can see the kingdom of God without…” It’s not a prescription, it’s a promise. It’s not a test, it’s an affirmation of God’s Spirit. That for those who follow Jesus, it’s less about right answers and more about glimpsing the kingdom; less about being able to figure it all out and more about finding ways to further serve him and his kingdom. It’s less about having a doubt-free life and much more about caring, anointing and working for those who suffer, knowing that in the broken-hearted you will see the very face of Christ. “No one can see the kingdom of God without…” Jesus wasn’t seeking a following of people who thought they were right all the time. He was searching for any and all who would bear the weight of servanthood, even from the margins. Bearing the weight of serving him and his kingdom, and still being there until the end. Because when you are born of the Spirit, when the Spirit of God is at work, when the wind blows, you will see the kingdom of God.