Since I have this week off from preaching, I am cheating today and posting a sermon that I wrote for my preaching class last spring. Since then, my mother-in-law has received a clean bill of health (thanks be to God) and my grandfather has been born into eternal life (both of whom appear in the sermon). Reading through it again, I find it interesting how the Word keeps speaking through the text, telling us a different angle to the story each time we read it. This text, however, uses a slightly different section of John than the appointed text for today (John 3:1-16 instead of John 3:14-21). I'll be back at it tomorrow with original information!
While I was growing up, my parents listened to talk radio. If you’re from Iowa, and your parents listened to talk radio, you know Paul Harvey. Paul Harvey’s radio broadcast, “The Rest of the Story,” presented complicated storylines. Given the beginning and the end of the story, the audience was challenged to figure out how the characters made their way from the beginning of the story to the end. Suffice it to say, I could never do it. As Mr. Harvey filled in the details of the story, the audience began to put together the whole picture. Just as everyone figured out how all the characters went from the beginning to the end of the story, he would chime in, “And now you know the rest of the story.” The text for today is a lot like that: through Nicodemus, we learn the rest of the story. In many ways, Nicodemus’ story is our story. We cannot understand John 3:16 without understanding that we are Nicodemus. But how?
If you had to be a character in John’s gospel, who would you be? No, I am not asking who you think you are – who would you want to be? Would you be John, the beloved disciple; John the Baptizer, the one who always points to Jesus; Mary Magdalene, the first person to whom the risen Christ appeared; would you be Peter, always there beside Jesus? John presents a cast of characters who, despite their blemishes, appeal to us. Though a motley crew, it seems we can see a lot of ourselves in these characters. But what about Nicodemus, the temple leader that approaches Jesus under the cover of night to ask him deep theological questions? Nobody ever says, “I want to be a Nicodemus when I grow up.” I must confess, I too wrote off Nicodemus. Reading the story more slowly, I think I wrote him off a little too quickly. For whatever reason, I want to take John 3:16 and John 3:17 without taking the story of Nicodemus before it. Like the billboards and religious tracts, I like these verses without Nicodemus complicating them. I want John 3:16 and 3:17 to tell a story about me, but I do not want that story to include John 3:1-11. The reason I didn’t like Nicodemus was I am so much like him. His questions are my questions. The reason I didn’t like Nicodemus was that I didn’t hear the rest of his story.
It does not seem we are supposed to identify with Nicodemus. Everything about this passage paints him as the bad guy. Just before this story, in John 2:23-25, we read, “When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all the people and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he knew what was in everyone.” Assuming this remains true for Nicodemus, the plot thickens as he approaches Jesus “by night” (DUHN DUHN DUHN). Nighttime is when they come to arrest Jesus. Nighttime is when Jesus is betrayed by his friends. Nighttime is when Jesus dies. So, Night + Nicodemus = Bad Guy. Here’s the part where you all should start to think: “Mandy, are we really so bad?” Well, let me ask this: “Is Nicodemus really so bad?” As we read on, we see Nicodemus’ confession: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one is able to do these signs apart from God.”[1] This is a lot for Nicodemus to put together. At this point, nobody has any idea of all the miracles to come or Jesus’ death and resurrection. Knowing the rest of the story about Jesus, it seems we assume we know the rest of the story about Nicodemus.
We often gloss over Jesus’ response to Nicodemus. Nevermind that it doesn’t really seem to follow Nicodemus’ statement (we’re used to Jesus doing that by now; *sigh… it must be another teaching moment). We read it not only as a teaching moment for us, but as a challenge to Nicodemus: “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”[2] But wait. Didn’t Nicodemus correctly identify Jesus as coming from God? From the beginning of John’s gospel, we see Jesus and God united as one. Nicodemus isn’t too far off the mark. In fact, it seems Nicodemus gets it right: seeing Jesus, Nicodemus sees the work of God. Nicodemus, however, can’t seem to wrap his mind around rebirth: “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”[3] Nicodemus’ question seems like a real question. How are we really reborn? Sure, Romans 6 and Luther’s Small Catechism teach us that we are reborn by our baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus, but they don’t really tell us how it happens. If Jesus were here, I would want to ask, “How does it happen, exactly, that we are baptized into eternal life?” In other words, “Jesus, did you actually save me?” Jesus’ response feels like a slap: “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.”[4] But Jesus, aren’t we all born of flesh? Like jumping into a cold pool of water, our heart lurches as we realize Nicodemus’ question is our question. How can I know that I am saved?
Nicodemus is not the only person to struggle with this question. Luther himself did until he realized: “The devil will sorely assail your faith in an effort to make you doubt that Christ is the Son of God and that your faith is pleasing to God. He will torture you with thoughts of predestination, with the wrath and the judgment of God.”[5] In many ways, Nicodemus is braver than we are. Our fears of asking the question or our assumption that we already know all the answers often prevent us from asking. “The wind blows wherever it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.”[6] We are so smart. We have figured out so many things. Science can tell us how tornadoes form and about the geological formation of the earth. But there was a tsunami in Japan Friday, “The wind blows wherever it chooses…” claiming the lives of thousands. “And you hear the sound of it…” We have put a man on the moon. But a child dies every 5 seconds of starvation. “You do not know from where it comes from…” We can calculate how much each person should give to alleviate poverty, but my brother lives in Kenya, where only 64% of the population has safe drinking water and they are having a drought right now. “Or where it goes…” We can connect to our friends and family on facebook, but Tony has had cancer on and off since he started seminary, and my grandpa is dying of cancer, and my mother-in-law is starting chemo and is going to lose all of her hair, and I can’t figure out how to explain where God is in all of this. The reason I don’t like Nicodemus is because he is too much like me. Jesus’ question, “And yet you don’t understand these things?” is my indictment. No Jesus, I don’t understand. I don’t understand tsunamis killing thousands. I don’t understand when Africa feels close to home. I don’t understand when a person’s body becomes home to the predator cancer. I don’t understand how to be a person of Spirit when everything around me is flesh.
But this isn’t the end of the story. When I realize Nicodemus’ questions are my questions, I realize Jesus’ words are as much for Nicodemus as they are for me. John 3:16 and 17 only make sense with Nicodemus in front of them. We live in a world where so much fails to make sense. We live in a world where God doesn’t make sense. What makes even less sense is that this God would send Jesus to be with us in all of our confusion, who came to show us God’s love, not to condemn us when we don’t get it right or when we just can’t pretend that everything is okay. Nicodemus’ debate with Jesus is what makes us realize we might be okay. You see, John 3:9 is not the end of Nicodemus’ story. It is only the beginning. We see Nicodemus again in John 7:50. In this scene, the authorities want to arrest Jesus. “Has any one of the authorities or of the Pharisees believed in him? Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus before, and who was one of them asked, ‘Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?’”[7] Nicodemus, is that you? No, it’s me. It’s me and my questions. It’s me and the things I can’t quite understand. It’s me not knowing if I can really claim Jesus but knowing I can’t let him go either. It’s me watching tsunamis and famines and people having cancer and wondering if God has gone on vacation and left us to our own devices.
“For God so loved the world…” Jesus, stop it. You can’t fix this. “That he gave his only son…” but what about tsunamis? “That whoever believes in him…” but what about famine? “Will not perish…” but what about cancer? “But have eternal life…” We see Nicodemus again at the end of John’s gospel: “Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds. Then they took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths.” Nicodemus isn’t a story about somebody else. It’s a story about us. It’s a story that takes all of our failings, all or our inabilities to understand, our questions about natural disasters and cancer, and reminds us who we are. John 3:16 and 17 isn’t about somebody other than Nicodemus. John 3:16 and 17 is about Nicodemus. And if it is about Nicodemus, it is, then, a story about us. Now you know the rest of the story. Thanks be to God.
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