Lent 2
Sermon preached by the Reverend Anna Matthews
It’s night when Nicodemus comes to find Jesus. In the darkness there’s less chance of him being recognised. By day he’s a respectable Pharisee, a guardian of the law and a leader among his people. Already this rabbi from out of town has been causing trouble, overturning tables in the temple and causing a stir among the crowds. Nicodemus would be risking a lot if he approached Jesus in the daytime.
The night time also gives a different sort of cover. By day he has a reputation to uphold, a role to fulfil. He’s the one with the answers, not the questions. At night, there’s a bit more space for the roles to be reversed: time for his curiosity to stretch, and the questions he normally stifles to be asked.
So he approaches Jesus respectfully, as a fellow 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.’
He hasn’t got beyond this greeting before Jesus comes back at him with a response to a question he hasn’t even asked. ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.’
For Nicodemus this makes no kind of sense. He’s already been born, years ago. There is no way to repeat this. He’s a living, breathing, grown man with responsibilities. What does Jesus mean when he talks about being born again? Who is there who can be born from above?
The one he’s talking to. As John tells us in his first chapter, Jesus is the Word become flesh to dwell among us. He is born from above, and as John goes on to tell us, to those who receive Jesus and believe in his name, ‘he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.’
Jesus is born from above. And, he seems to be saying to Nicodemus, so can he, so can any of us be, if we receive him and believe in him. Our lives can become new creations when they are opened up to the Holy Spirit of God.
What is settled becomes unsettled. Our certainties get shaken as the Spirit of God blows where it wills, upending convention, expectation and habit as it goes. Lepers can be touched. The condemned are given a future. Hearts shrunk in grief can swell again. Captives can go free. Respectable Pharisees might just become disciples. The dead can live. That’s the sort of new life the Holy Spirit will give as it makes of us new creations. The places and things we are so certain are fixed, immutable, just the way things are and the way things have to be – these can unfold through the gentle breath of the Spirit into a newness we’d neither imagined nor expected. Think of Peter on the shore of Lake Tiberias, restored and forgiven by Jesus, freed from the weight of his guilty denial. Think of Mary Magdalene, healed and restored in the company of Jesus, given a community to belong to and a future. Think of all the others in the gospels whose lives are set on a new trajectory by their encounter with Jesus.
Nicodemus begins his conversation with Jesus certain of what he knows: that Jesus is a teacher who has come from God. Jesus’ reply shakes his certainty. He starts out with what he thinks he knows. By the midpoint of his conversation with Jesus his certainty’s gone and he’s left with his unknowing, his lack of understanding. With questions rather than answers, just a perplexed ‘how can these things be?’
If you’re someone who feels like you have more questions than answers then Nicodemus might just be a good role model for you. Daytime Nicodemus knows the answers. Night time Nicodemus is willing to stretch his understanding, to let Jesus unsettle his theology, his understanding, his life. Only when Nicodemus has realised that the pre-prepared answers that keep God safely contained and neatly defined aren’t much use is the Holy Spirit able to get in to send him in a different direction.
John’s Gospel gives us clues about this different direction; about the way Nicodemus is being made a new creation as he receives Jesus and believes in him. We hear of him twice more. In chapter 7, when the Pharisees are trying to get Jesus arrested, Nicodemus speaks up to say Jesus should be given a hearing before they issue any judgement against him. They take no notice, dismissing his intervention and redoubling their plans to trap Jesus. It’s a fleeting appearance in the narrative, but is this a sign of the Holy Spirit working in Nicodemus to make him braver? To care more for truth than reputation?
Nicodemus reappears at the end of the Gospel, not by night this time, but before dusk. The Passover is approaching, and Nicodemus joins Joseph of Arimathea in removing Jesus’ dead body and preparing it for burial. Nicodemus comes by daylight, loaded down with spices – more than enough for the lavish burial of a king. Has he finally recognised who Jesus is? Not just a rabbi who’s come from God but God himself descended from heaven, born from above in human flesh which now lies bloody and torn before him. We hear no more words from Nicodemus, no confession of faith. But he is a man who has stepped out of darkness into light, a man whom the Holy Spirit is crafting into a new creation. And so it’s fitting that we last see him at the tomb, that place of deep and abiding darkness where a stone seals Jesus’ body away from the light for ever.
Because the Holy Spirit isn’t done, yet. In the darkness of the tomb new life stirs. And on the third day the door will be opened to the dazzling light of the resurrection. This is where Nicodemus’s journey leads him: from the cover of darkness to the radiant dawn of everlasting day. By way of unknowing, which is the way of openness to the wild, unruly Spirit of God.
I want to imagine a fourth encounter for Nicodemus, though John’s Gospel is silent. I want to see him meet the risen Lord, in the full light of day, all concern for reputation and status gone, all his answers questioned as he follows Jesus into the new creation, enters in full into his birth from above. For this is where our Lenten journey is leading us, too: drawing us along that path, or catching us up in the breath of the Spirit, where all our darkness turns to light; where all that is dead lives; and where we are given our lives back in Jesus in being born from above.