Sermon - 2nd Sunday in Lent (3/8/2020)
Gen. 12:1-4; Ps. 121; Jn. 3:1-17
Today we have the first of four gospel readings from the gospel of John that relate stories of the encounters Jesus had with four very different people. You may see yourself in one of these people more than another, but each encounter also tells us something important about Jesus.
Today’s story is about Nicodemus. Nicodemus is a learned and devout man, a religious leader – a pastor type. He has an important position in the religious community in Jerusalem, where he later plays an important role in slowing down the chief priests in their attack on Jesus and then in arranging for the burial of Jesus after his crucifixion. In other words, nobody’s idea of a bad guy. Nicodemus comes to see Jesus at night – quietly, without drawing attention. Jesus is a controversial person, after all. Nicodemus is a leader, someone people look up to, he has to be concerned that people might misunderstand the purpose of his visit.
Nicodemus begins by praising Jesus – we know, he says, that you are a teacher sent from God. Because we see the signs that you are performing and we know that no one can do such things without God’s help and blessing.
“You’re an impressive young man,” says the senior religious scholar. “I see you have a lot of potential.” Perhaps Nicodemus thought Jesus would be pleased to get the approval of so eminent and prominent a rabbi. But Jesus rejects the compliment. “If you have not been born from above, what can you know about the kingdom of God? If you do not put aside everything that you know and start over again from the beginning, what do you know about who is and who is not sent from God?” Nicodemus thinks he’s doing Jesus a favor by placing a cautious seal of approval on him, and Jesus responds by saying, in effect, What do you know? Can you be born again?
And Nicodemus responds with a very interesting comeback: Can someone really be born again once they are old? The Greek word being translated here as “old” is γερων, which is the root of the English word “gerontology,” the study of aging. Sometimes people think Nicodemus is just being dense and taking Jesus literally, and asking how a grown person can physically go back into the womb and be physically born again. But everything we know about Nicodemus is that he is an intelligent, devout, and well-meaning person, so I think we should take his question quite seriously. I don’t think he is offended by Jesus rejecting his compliment, I think he fully understands what Jesus is saying and wants to have an honest conversation with him about it.
You say, Jesus, that I need to be born from above, that I need to start over again from the top. Do you really think someone like me can do that, when I am old? I am a mature person, set in my ways. I have a lifetime of study and experience, do you think I can just toss that away and start over again? Do you really think it’s practical to expect someone to be born again, once they are old?
Now Nicodemus is a man who has studied the Bible for many years. Jesus could have responded by pointing him to today’s first reading, where God calls Abraham. Tells him to leave behind his city and his relatives, and to head off to an unknown land and to serve an entirely new and different kind of God than he has ever known before. And we read that Abraham was 75 years old when he left Haram and followed God’s call. Now, 75 years old may not sound all that old today – for us, it’s a good age to run for President. But I suppose Jesus could have pointed out to Nicodemus that, when God wanted to call a people to whom he could reveal himself, when God wanted to find a family that will leave behind the pagan world and begin a completely new adventure and found a brand new nation, God chose a 75-year-old man and his 65-year-old wife, who had no children. Jesus could have pointed out that old age and impracticality have never been a reason for God not to invite someone into a completely new relationship with God.
But instead, Jesus reminds Nicodemus of another Old Testament story that Nicodemus would know well. After the crossing of the Red Sea, Moses led the people into the wilderness, and, famously, they complained. They complained that they were thirsty and God gave them water from a rock. They complained that they were being attacked by powerful armies and God gave them astonishing victories. They complained that they were hungry and God gave them manna, and they complained about the manna. Like Yogi Berra, who once said of a restaurant he didn’t like, “the food is terrible, and the portions are so small!” Nothing God did for the people was good enough. And then the people started being bitten by snakes, and some of them died. Then the people came to Moses and said, OK, we’re sorry that we’ve been complaining so much. We’re sorry that we’ve been so ungrateful to God who has given us so much. But can you please do something about these snakes?”
And what God tells Moses to do is to make a statue of a snake out of bronze, to lift up that bronze serpent, and to demand that the people look at it. To demand that the people not turn away from the consequences of their ingratitude, but to literally face up to it. The only way to avoid the consequences of their actions is to face up to their actions. And Jesus says to Nicodemus, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up” on a cross. When we do not turn away from the appalling sight of a tortured and suffering man on a cross and face up to the consequences of who we are.
For we are the ones who are ungrateful for the gifts God has given us. We are those who will not abide the one who comes, not to be served, but to serve. We are those who live as if violence is capable of bringing a solution to our brokenness. We are those who continue to act as if the death of an innocent person is not a tragedy, if we can benefit from it. Looking at the bronze serpent was hard: but it was how the people of Israel had to face up to their ungratefulness. Looking at Jesus on the cross is hard: but it is how we face up to our culture of violence and our willingness to let others suffer so we don’t have to.
And this is the context for the famous John chapter 3 verse 16: For God loved the world in this way, that God sent God’s only Son even to die in order to show us who we are, so that by facing up to who we are we might be transformed into a completely different way of living. Not to condemn us for being what we are, but to make us face up to who we are so we can be healed.
This transformation and new way of life is the being born again that Jesus urges on Nicodemus. This is the being born again that Jesus urges on each one of us. In the Lutheran tradition, we don’t think of being born again as something that happens once when you “get saved.” Facing up to who we are is something we need to do over and over and over again. And each time we recall God’s gift of baptism, each time we recall how we are reborn in water and the Spirit, each time we gather at the table to look up and remember the one whose body was given for us and whose blood was shed for us so that we might have life, each time we face up to the one who shows us who we are, we discover again and again the God who comes not to judge but to save, and who makes all things new.
Especially in this time of uncertainty and disruption, let’s not turn away from what Jesus wants to show us about who we are and take refuge in what we think we know about God. Let’s look our fears right in the eye, for this is how God loved the world: God sent his Son so that we might look upon him and let go of all of our illusions about who we are and about our need for healing and peace, and let ourselves once more be born again for the life that comes from God.
In this sermon, I have borrowed freely from Rev. Dr. D. Mark Davis, whose insights and commentary on John 3 can be found at https://leftbehindandlovingit.blogspot.com/2014/03/water-flesh-spirit-wind-breath-newborns.html.