“Nick at Night”

John 3:1-17

February 20, 2005

St. Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John A. Fleming

Doctors and preachers, and I guess some other professions, have in common that phone calls in the middle of the night are a real possibility. The telephone in our bedroom, at the parsonage, is on my side of the bed, just in case something happens in the middle of the night, or early in the morning. I will admit to you, though, that in eleven years of being a pastor, I haven’t answered many late night phone calls. But the possibility is there. And if you call me at two o’clock in the morning, it had better be an emergency! I will say that the times that I have gotten phone calls in the middle of the night, significant ministry has happened. In one case, I got dressed, and drove a man from Camden to Little Rock to see his wife, who was not expected to live much longer. It was important and I was glad that I could help.

A United Methodist preacher and pastor from Atlanta tells of getting a phone call, late one night, around two o’clock in the morning. He was startled out of bed, reached for the cordless phone on its cradle, said “Hello” and walked out of the bedroom in hopes of not keeping his wife awake longer than a minute. As he answered, he knew that there was trouble somewhere. As it turned out, that was not the case. On the other end of the line was a woman that he did not know, she was not a member of his church, she had found him by letting her fingers do the walking in the yellow pages. He remembered that they had decided to put his home phone number on his church’s advertisement in those pages. When she told him that that is how she got his number, he silently promised to have that changed as soon as possible. Now she had a problem, and it was a significant one, it was an important one, but it was one that definitely could have waited for daylight. Since he was now wide awake, this pastor tried his best to offer could counsel and top notch advice. As he was doing that, it occurred to ask this woman if she had a church home and a pastor. She said, “Sure, of course. I never miss a worship service. I am really involved in the life of my church. We have a wonderful pastor.” He was taken aback by that. He still had some sleep in his eyes, he was still a little groggy, but he was sure that he heard her right. And so he asked, “Ma’am, why didn’t you call your pastor and ask him what you are asking me.” She said, “Oh, I wouldn’t dare do that. He works so hard. He’s up at the church all of the time. I just hated to call him in the middle of the night.” The preacher said, “Good night, ma’am. Please hear this with all of the grace and love that I have at this hour. Do not call me again!”

It is an after hours call that we read about in our gospel lesson for this morning. Our Bibles do not tell us that Nicodemus came in the middle of the night. Most likely he did not. He did come after the sun had set and after Jesus and the disciples had retired for the evening.

We know a little we know a little about Nicodemus. John tells us that he was a Pharisee and a leader of the Jews. Which means that he was important. Such an office was reserved for the privileged, the educated, the responsible, the good people. He had made it. Most likely he was materially comfortable, most likely generous. This is who he was. You may remember that this story is found only in John’s gospel. Matthew, Mark and Luke all place Jesus in Jerusalem during the last week of his life. John does, too. But John also puts him there earlier, in the first part of his ministry.

No doubt you will remember the scene. Jesus was there, in Jerusalem. He walked into the Temple and saw the money changers there. He was angry. He walked to where that was happening, and flipped over the tables. He caused a ruckus, not just because of what he did, but because of what he said. He said that the religious practices of his day were empty and hollow. He said that if the Temple were destroyed, no one would miss it. Then, in a reflective moment, said that if people would come to him, they would find new life. The leaders were there, most likely Nicodemus was there. They talked about what had happened. And when the meeting was over, Nicodemus headed home. Only he found himself walking in a direction that he had not planned on walking. Sometimes that happens. Instead of walking home, Nicodemus headed towards Bethany, where it was rumored that Jesus was. The same thing happened to the founder of our denomination, John Wesley. On a May evening in 1738, he attended a worship service at St. Paul’s Cathedral, and then headed home. Writing about it, he tells that he went, “almost against my will” to a meeting of the Moravians on Aldersgate Street. John had longed for an inner fire, some kind of assurance. And he found it there, he experienced it there, that night. Writing about it, he says that he felt as if his heart was strangely warmed.

So Nicodemus walked towards Bethany, almost against his will. Something led him there. He went at night. A lot of ink has been spilled on that issue. Nicodemus came at night, incognito. You see, people like Nicodemus do not do things like this. A man in his position should not go to someone else, especially a Jewish carpenter, for answers. Something must be wrong with old Nick. Maybe he is falling apart. Maybe the old boy’s got a weakness. I would like to tell you that I do not think that it is a weakness that leads people to Jesus. I think that it is honesty that leads people to Jesus. It is looking at yourselves honestly and saying, “Something is missing. Something is not quite right.” Now, Nicodemus comes as a leader of the Jews, an important man, and he leans on the things that he knows. So he begins, “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.” Jesus doesn’t let him get away with that. He knows that there is something else. So he says, “Very truly I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Church, I want you to see this. Nicodemus is open to something. He doesn’t ask why he has to be born from above. He wants to know how such a thing can happen. To understand it, maybe you ought to think back to your own birth.

A couple of weeks ago, I called my mother on my birthday and wished her a happy labor day. She asked, “You don’t know that story? You’ve never heard it?” I told her that I did not know it, that I hadn’t heard it.” She said, “On February the 7^th, we went to see Dr. Truex, about ten o’clock in the morning. He said, “You are going to have this baby before noon. You had better get to the hospital. I will call and tell them that you’re coming.” My mother told me that they got in the car and drove to the hospital. She told me that my dad let her out in front of the hospital, and went to park the car. She said, “They wheeled me off and before your father could park the car, you were born. There wasn’t much labor to it!” That is the story of my birth. What is the story of your birth? If you could go back, rewind the tape of your life, and see for yourselves your own birth, you would see that everything about you was new. Your hands were new. Your eyes were new. Your mouth was new. Your heart was new. All of the materials that you have are original parts. That was your first birth, and if you had the chance to see it again, that is what it would be like. What about your second birth?

These days we don’t have a high opinion of the phrase born again, do we? We think that it belongs to folks who think a little different than we do. Many times we have this opinion because we do not understand what the word means, what the experience is like. For sure Nicodemus did not understand it. “How can anyone be born after they have grown old?” was his question.

Maybe Nicodemus is evidence that this experience, this being born again, will happen when you are a little older. It’s been pointed out that people often leave the church during their college years and come back to it when their kids are born. For a while, they think that they don’t need the church. They can take on the world without anybody’s help. Do you know anyone like that? Have you been like that? Often they come back because they face their mortality. Sometimes they come back when children are born and they face the fact that they ar responsible for someone besides themselves. They come back because they have learned that in this life, they need help.

A man was in the grocery store with his young son, who was sitting in one of those shopping carts, facing his father. The father would put something in the cart and the son would pick it up and throw it out again. They would go by the shelves, and he would reach for things and throw them on the floor. At one point, the child, somehow, when his dad wasn’t looking, got out of the cart and ran down the aisles of that story. The father, ran closely behind, trying to catch his son. All the while he was saying out loud, in a whisper of a voice, “Just be patient, Tommy. Just a little longer, Tommy. Tommy, hang in there. It’s ok, Tommy.” A woman noticed this, had pity on the young father and said, “I have been watching you. You have a remarkable way with Tommy.” The man said, “I am Tommy.”

At some point in our lives, we discover that we don’t have the power that we once thought that we did. At one point, we think that we can save ourselves. But when we are older, we realize that we cannot do that. We realize what we cannot do, what cannot be recovered or changed. When you are older, life becomes a matter not only of what you dream, but what you must live with. And when you are older, you realize what you really want in your life, for your life, is something that you can’t get by yourself. You see, it is a gift, from above. I know people who want this more than anything else. They want to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God loves them. They want to feel that inside. Maybe that is what happened to Nicodemus. He had done all of the right things. He had reached the heights. No one, or at least, not many had the measure of success that he had. And then he heard what Jesus said that day in the Temple. He heard him say that rituals are empty, and if the Temple was destroyed, that no one would miss it. How rituals are empty, that if the Temple were destroyed, people wouldn’t miss it, and how if they really wanted life, they should follow him. And he did. And what started out as a comfortable debate ended up being, I believe, a life changing experience.

How does this new birth, this new life happen? Well, I don’t want you to miss it. Jesus says that it is like the wind, it comes and it blows and you see the affects of it, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. Which means that it is not something that you do. It happens when and where it wills. And all you can really do is to prepare for it, to wait for it, and to pray for it. If I asked you to tell me what your participation in your birth experience was like, you would think that I had lost my mind. If I asked you if you were in communication with the doctor to measure contractions or to report on the conditions of your mother, you would say, “No, of course not. Of course not.” You are not in control of your second birth, either. These experiences come on their own time, in their own way, and they probably will not happen the same way for me as they do for you. But they do happen. They happen in remarkable ways and in pretty calm ways. And all you can do is to prepare for it by waiting for it and praying for it. Let us pray.

(Special thanks to my mom for the story of my birth, found in the middle of this sermon. And thanks to God for the second births that God gives to all of us in their due season).