He Came By Night, Pilgrim, Lent 2A, March 5, 2023

This was my third sermon at my Ministry in Context Field Placement at Pilgrim Lutheran Church and School in my third year at LSTC.

Children's Sermon

Did you ever have a question about God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit?

· Where does God hang out?

· What was Jesus like as a little boy?

· Why do people talk about God as up there?

· Does God hear all our prayers?

· Will my dog or cat go to heaven?

· Why aren’t dinosaurs in the Bible?

· What will heaven be like?

· Did God write the Bible?

· Do you think grown-ups have questions too? Let’s find out…

In the Gospel today, we read a story about Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a pretty important guy. He was a Jewish leader, and a member of the council, called the Sanhedrin. He was the person people came to for answers. So he didn’t want people to know he had questions, so he went at night, when it was dark and no one was out and asked Jesus his questions.

So when you have questions about God and about your faith, it’s completely OK to ask them. You don’t have to be afraid to ask them, like Nicodemus. Because asking questions is the only way to learn, no matter if you are a kid or an adult.

Sermon

Title Slide

Let us pray,

Good and Gracious God, Help us live into the questions of our faith, trusting that while we can only know in part today, one day we will know you fully, just as we are fully known by you. Amen

“He came to Jesus by night.”

In his Gospel, John emphasizes the setting of this story of Nicodemus’ meeting with Jesus. As a Pharisee, and probably a member of the Jewish council known as the Sanhedrin, his appearance as an upstanding, faithful Jewish man would be beyond question. He would not want to be observed talking to the itinerant teacher who had just – at least in John’s version of events – caused a stir at a wedding in Cana then created chaos at the temple marketplace. But here he was, under the cover of nightfall, talking with Jesus of Nazareth.

I’ve always thought this story makes Nicodemus look a little foolish. Sneaking around, asking a couple of awkward questions, then disappearing into the night. Nicodemus shows up only in John’s gospel, where he manages three separate appearances.

Nicodemus is not celebrated as a saint in the Lutheran Church as he is in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. You won’t find Nicodemus on the Lutheran calendar of lesser festivals and commemorations. Some scholars and pastors believe that the story of Nicodemus never would have been included in the lectionary, the Bible passages we read in worship, except as a set-up to read John 3:16, which Martin Luther called “the Gospel in miniature”:

Slide

“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.”

Certainly no verse in scripture has been learned by as many Christians – children and adults – as John 3:16. And no Bible verse has showed up as much in secular culture, from billboards to major sporting events. No matter your faith background or lack of it, we who live here in the United States are used to seeing John 3:16 signs on the news or while watching a playoff game.

But John 3:16 is far more than a trope. John 3:16 was a message of life and peace to a curious Jewish leader, and by extension, a message of life and peace to all of us.

Slide

Let’s examine this encounter a bit more closely. Nicodemus’ first statement to Jesus begins with a plural pronoun: “Rabbi, WE know that you are a teacher who has come from God…” Did Nicodemus come as the envoy for a group of Pharisees who were curious about this Jesus? Or was Nicodemus trying to ascribe more power to his questions by implying that he wasn’t acting alone? Jesus responds to Nicodemus individually, but his challenge is given in the plural you: “All y’all must be born again.”

As a Pharisee, Nicodemus certainly know about baptism. It had been used for centuries – although not universally – as a purification rite for Gentiles converting to Judaism, or for a ritually impure person to become clean again. So Nicodemus isn’t being sarcastic or disingenuous when he tells Jesus he can’t return to his mother’s womb. He’s trying to rule out what Jesus can’t be telling him: “Obviously, we can’t be physically born again, so that’s not what you’re saying. Be born again? How can I become a Jew when I’m already Jewish?” Jesus tells him, “No – not just immersion. Be born of water and the Spirit.”

By this point, Nicodemus must have been looking really puzzled, as Jesus describes how the Spirit moves. What had started as a curious question, a reassurance that Jesus was a prophet sent by God in whom Nicodemus could put his trust, Jesus had turned into a challenge: “All y’all must be born anew, born from above.”

By this time Nicodemus was really exasperated: “How can these things be?”

Jesus said the signs are there – Nicodemus and others merely need to open their eyes and minds. Short of taking them to heaven, he couldn’t make it clearer. Then he foreshadowed what was going to happen to him: “The Son must be lifted up,”

Slide

And then Jesus gives Nicodemus that well-known assurance: “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.” So much to unpack in one short verse:

· The whole world – in Greek, the Kosmos, so God loves all creation

· Jesus, God’s Son – the promise is fulfilled through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.

· For everyone. This promise excludes no one.

· Eternal life. The promise that we will experience resurrection and everlasting life with God

· Believe. Since our faith is a gift from the Spirit, we just have to be open to believing.

The text doesn’t say that Nicodemus was baptized, or that he fell down on his knees before Jesus. The verses don’t even mention when he slipped back into the shadows. One can imagine that Nicodemus left, his head churning with new information, caught in the cognitive dissonance, the gap between what he thought he knew as a Pharisee and a Jewish leader, and who Jesus was claiming to be – God’s Son.

Slide

There are people in the Bible who have spectacular conversion moments. God appears to Abram, and he and Sarai take their family and their livestock and go, believing in God’s promise. Jesus calls Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John, and immediately, they leave their nets and follow. Christian persecutor Saul gets hit by a lightning bolt and becomes Paul, apostle to the Gentiles. Even Martin Luther had a “come to Jesus” moment in a storm and gave up his dad’s dream for him to become a lawyer and took his priestly vows. It’s not hard to find stories of people who had instant conversions.

Slide

Nicodemus, I would suggest, is the patron saint of the rest of us.

· Those of us who left the faith after confirmation and came back in a midlife crisis.

· Those of us who had questions and were never given the space to ask, or worse, were reprimanded for asking.

· Those of us who never grew up with Christian parents and came to faith through an invitation.

· Those of us who went to Christian schools and eventually rediscovered the joy of learning and growing in faith.

· Those of us who were hurt by a church leader.

· Those of us who felt unheard, unloved, or rejected.

· Those of us who felt a call to serve but didn’t say “Yes” immediately.

· Those of us who wonder, who wander, who stumble, who seek.

Slide

You see, Nicodemus doesn’t leave this encounter, never to be seen or heard from again. John uses Nicodemus as the model of people who caught a spark of this movement, let it kindle within them, and eventually followed this Jesus. A few chapters later, when the Pharisees and chief priests first consider imprisoning him, it is none other than Nicodemus who defends Jesus, telling his colleagues that Jesus deserves a fair trial at the very least.

And Nicodemus continues to grow in faith and curiosity. When Jesus finally does come to trial and is sentenced to death by crucifixion, Nicodemus doesn’t abandon him. Instead, according to John, it was Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea who take Jesus’ body from the cross and cover it with spices to give him a proper burial.

Slide

So the next time you see John 3:16 on a sign – on a billboard, a bumper sticker, painted on an overpass or wherever it shows up – remember the promise. For everyone. For you. Say it with me:

“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.”

Final Slide

And remember that Jesus came for everyone, the whole world, to all who believe, no matter what our backgrounds, no matter how many questions we have, and no matter how long it takes us to get from “How can that be?” to “I believe.