“Nick at Night”

John 3:1-17
February 17, 2008

St. Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John A. Fleming

Over the next four Sundays, as we journey with Jesus towards Jerusalem and his cross, our sermons can best be described as personal encounters with Jesus. We will look at four people and what happened to them when they came face to face with the Messiah.

Today is the first of these four encounters and it is one that happens with Jesus and a man whose name is Nicodemus. The writer of the gospel of John tells us three things about Nicodemus. First, he says, he was a Pharisee. Second, he tells us that he was a leader of the Jews. And third he tells us that he came to see Jesus at night. Our sermon title for today picks up on that third detail and borrows the line from a popular television network.

What I would like for you to do this morning is to imagine the scene between these two. I will describe it using words. See if you can go there in your mind’s eye.

Nicodemus must have been waiting for the shadows and for the sun to set in Jerusalem. He probably sipped some tea and waited in his chair on the second floor of his house. He was biding his time. Jerusalem, I am told, is enchanting at this hour. Nicodemus must have looked across the slate roofs at the square just below his house. He had been in the courtyard earlier in the day. In fact he was down there everyday. We would be back tomorrow. In the courtyard Nicodemus would gather with the other religious leaders to talk about God. They would debate and ponder and solve problems and puzzles and dilemmas. They would think about what could and could not be done on the Sabbath day. They would consider what the good book said about those who dishonored their parents, those kinds of things.

Nicodemus is a holy man who leads holy men. He is one of the seventy two seats on the supreme court for religion. He is well along in years and a well-born and moderately wealthy Jew. He was also a Pharisaic Jew, one of a number of no more than six thousand men. These men were always devout and always good. More than that, he is a ruler of the Pharisees. He is the best of the best, you might say. Nicodemus had credentials and clout. He also had questions, questions no one really understood, so when the sun set, he slipped out of his house and walked through the courtyard. He traveled down the cobbled winding streets of Jerusalem and he stopped at the door of a simple house. Nicodemus had been told that Jesus and his followers were staying there. The leader knocked on the door. Someone answered and when Nicodemus walked in, the voices suddenly became quiet. Everyone in the room knew who Nicodemus was. The leader walked towards Jesus. He sat down beside him and he initiated what may be the most famous conversation in the entire Bible.

Nicodemus begins, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs you do apart from the presence of God.” Nicodemus begins with what he knows about Jesus. He has done his homework. He knows about what happened at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. He’s been told what happened when the wine ran out.

Nicodemus basically says, “Your work impresses me.” Nicodemus may have hoped for a similar greeting in return. He hoped Jesus knew him, too. If Jesus did, his greeting doesn’t suggest it. Instead of returning the greeting, Jesus says something like this, “I am glad you are impressed, but anyone can be impressed. What’s more, you didn’t come here tonight to tell me how impressed you were. You came looking for something else, something more. So here is my word to you, ‘You need to be born from above.’”

Friends, if you want to translate the verse as, “You need to be born again” go ahead, be my guest. What I want you to see is that from the very beginning of the conversation between these two, Jesus stands on one side of faith and Nick stands on the other. And Jesus pulls no punches about the differences between them. Jesus knew that Nicodemus lived in a land of good efforts, sincere gestures, good intentions, and hard work. Nicodemus was the kind of guy who believed that you give God your very best and God will take care of the rest.

Jesus stood opposite of him. Jesus knew that your best will not do. He says that your works do not count. Jesus says that your finest efforts are for naught unless, unless you are born from above. If you’re not born from above, you cannot even see what God is up to.

Nicodemus, you will remember, cannot get his mind around that. He asks the question for all of us. “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born again?”

I don’t know about you, but being born again and being given a second chance sounds like a pretty good idea to me. Who of us would not want a do over? Who of us would not like a second chance? Who of us would not want for our hearts to have not been broken and opportunities missed? Who of us wouldn’t want, to borrow a term from the world of golf, a mulligan? We all would want that.

What Nick could not understand is how that can happen. A preacher I know tells that his niece invited her mother and her brother into the delivery room when she had her first baby. The labor was long and difficult. Finally the baby was born. The son turned to his mother and said, “I’m sorry for every time I talked back to you!” She smiled!

We have little to do with the day we are born. The same may be said about when we are born a second time. Look how Jesus explains it. Listen to his words, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit…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.”

Let’s think together about what this being born again business is all about. Jesus says that it is like the wind. You cannot control the wind. Given half a chance we would like to do that. You can’t control the wind, you can only receive it. You can move with it and go with it, but you have little control of it.

I have been in the winds of a tornado in west Tennessee one spring evening. I have also stood on a golf course or on the beach in Alabama and Florida and felt a gentle breeze slip across my face, blowing ever so gently.

I hope you will not make the idea of being born again harder than it is. If being born from above or born again is really from above and if it is really like the wind, then there is not one way that it happens, nor is there one day when it happens. It can happen to anybody, in any way, at any time.

I hope you will remember that it was John Wesley, the founder and the Father of our church who was experiencing a faith crisis. He desperately wanted to have some kind of a life changing moment. He watched as others had it. He longed for it for himself. He prayed for it to happen. But it did not happen. Then on a spring night in May of 1738, John reluctantly went to a church meeting on Aldersgate Street. John writes that about a quarter past nine, he felt his heart strangely warmed. John had questioned his faith. He found it hard to pray for his own salvation, but that night the wind blew. John had no idea where it came from or where it went after it touched him. He only knew the feeling in his heart.

How will the Spirit come? For many of us it won’t be a dramatic moment. For most of us, it will not be something you can circle on your calendar and tell your grandchildren about. For many of us, there will be no spiritual rush. Instead it will be like a gentle breeze that has led us over a long journey, a journey marked by a pull here and a push there. It could be that there has been something living in you for some time, but you didn’t know what to do with it. Over time this something has pushed you in a direction you never intended on going or it has led you to do something with your life you never thought in a million years you would do.

Nicodemus asks, “How can this be?” Jesus says that it can be because of the love of God. Jesus offers Nicodemus and us twenty-six hope filled words. They are words we turn back to. They are words that begin with God and end with life. They are brief enough to be written down on a napkin at a restaurant and short enough to be memorized in a moment. These words are also solid enough to stand the test of time and storms and questions.

Jesus gives us four things. First, he tells us of the love of God. “For God so loved the world…” Second, he give us Jesus. “….that he gave us his only Son…” Third, we can believe the promise, “...that whoever believes in Him shall not perish…” And finally, he gives us life, “….but may have eternal life.” These are words we can trust. These are words we can count on.

I am told that when the great reformer, Martin Luther was near the end of his life, severe headaches left him full of pain and in bed. He was offered medicine. He declined and explained, “The best prescription for my head and heart is that God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Jesus says this to Nicodemus and then he moves on to another encounter, one we will witness with him next week. Have you ever wondered what ever became of Nicodemus? Fast forward in your Bibles to John’s nineteenth chapter and you will find him there. He is with Joseph of Arimathea. The two came to pay their respects and to give Jesus a proper burial. This is no small thing given the climate of the day.

When word hit the streets that Jesus was out of the tomb and back on his feet, I am told that Nicodemus smiled and thought about their late night chat. Reportedly he said to himself, “Born again, huh? Who would have thought he would start with himself?” Let us pray.

(I am indebted to the writing of Max Lucado for help with this sermon. I used some materials from his book 3:16 The Numbers of Hope. Thanks Max!)