What are the thoughts that keep you up at night? I think those thoughts give us great insight into what is important to us, what really concerns us, or what must be confronted in the day/s ahead. Talk about honest moments. What are the insights that come to you in the wee hours of the morning, the ideas – like a skittish deer that creeps up to the creek at dawn? One sound, one distraction and they’re gone again. Do you write those ideas down?
Nicodemus, in our Gospel text, must have had one of those nights. I wonder if he couldn’t sleep, if he was pacing around his home. Something was keeping him up. This episode follows the dramatic scene in the Gospel of John where Jesus overturns the money tables in the temple. In John, already in Chapter 2, Jesus is driving out the money changers, then he says, “Destroy this temple and in 3 days I’ll build it up.” And Nicodemus, one of the Pharisees, one of the good teachers and keepers of Jewish law had witnessed and heard it all. And something about what he saw, or what Jesus said, was keeping him awake. [pause]
Nicodemus was a lot like a good, life-long Lutheran. He had been in the church for years, he had family that had been in the church for years. He had roots. He could tell stories about his father and mother and their faithful involvements with the church… the Jewish equivalents to altar guild, choir, confirmation. He knew all the traditional songs, he had been on councils and committees, he understood the flow of the liturgical year, and he had long eaten the traditional dishes – the ancient Jewish versions of our favorite dishes. He really knew everything there was to know about religious life. And the more he thought about it, in those wee morning hours, the more he felt like he really should be the one instructing and inspiring and impressing Jesus. His words and actions ought to be keeping young Jesus awake at night, not the other way around. Do you know anyone like Nicodemus? Are you like Nicodemus? Nicodemus was like a good, salt-of-the-earth Lutheran. He was one of the charter members, on all the boards, the keeper of memories and customs and the great “how we’ve always done it.” There was a formula for being religious and Nicodemus knew it.
But something had rocked his safe and familiar world. There was something that shook him the day before, and he needed to iron it out, smooth it over -- he needed to get back to sleep. He probably just misunderstood Jesus in that big public display the day before. “Jesus couldn’t have really meant what it seemed like he was saying, could he?” Nicodemus just needed to clear it up, a little one-to-one time oughtta do the trick...
Are we long-time Lutheran types ever kept up at night by Jesus like that? Could we, who have heard before the message of salvation 1000 times, we who have sung the hymns of the faith, and sampled the potlucks and congregational meetings through the years, like Nicodemus, really have anything more to learn…from one of the most popular passages in the entire Bible – John 3:16?
You know, on a few occasions I’ve had people say to me, regulars, salt-of-the-earth Lutherans say, “You know, I wish [so-and-so] could have been here to hear this message today. They would have really benefitted.” Translation:... [pause]
I think I understand that sentiment…it usually comes from a place of concern and love for a dear one who is lost or struggling, but sometimes it’s almost as if John 3:16, for example, isn’t really for the good, long-time church people anymore. “Yeah, yeah, we’ve already heard this; wish all those others could hear it.” But “God so loved the world...” is for all of us! There is more room for all of us to grow in faith, that is, to hear with new ears of God’s love. Kierkegaard said that the hardest people to reach with the Gospel are Christians. Either we think we already know it all, maybe like Nicodemus, or we just can seem to trust that it is for us too – the gifts of God. And the gifts of God are life in the Spirit, unconditional love and grace in the face of our faults. Rebirth – a gift from God…this is what Jesus discusses with Nicodemus. [pause]
Rebirth is really all about baptism. [pause] In fact, “being born again” was always a reference to being made new in Christ by water and the Spirit (baptism). I was only in the 20th century in the United States when some Christians made it into a formula. They felt that Christianity was being seriously threatened by scientific inquiry and the wake the Enlightenment, and so they started talking (and making threats of their own) about being born again as a formula to avoid the fires of hell. But we aren’t born again by decision or formula. Rebirth in Christ’s love is what God decides to do for us. God so loves the world. And when we trust that – “whosoever trusts that God so dearly loves this world, that God was made flesh and embedded into this earth”…God so dearly loves this whole world (Greek: the cosmos), and when we trust that, then life in the Spirit will be ours, salvation, which starts here and now, will be ours. Trust that God so loves this world, and you will have joy – not “surface joy”, deep joy. Not just after you die…you will live joyfully and peacefully and eternally starting now. Let this Lent be a time of quieting ourselves -- which can be very difficult (like welcoming a sleepless night) -- and then receiving anew this gift of God’s love and forgiveness .
Sometimes, those of us church folks have the hardest time receiving gifts. We’re used to giving gifts, not receiving them. We’re used to offering of ourselves, our time and our treasures. But this gift is for us to receive.
One of the great themes of Lent has been this theme of honesty before God, as we discipline ourselves for change and turn-turn-turning back to God, as we discipline ourselves for honesty. And honesty often starts in the darkness. And the darkness is a gift.
When I was a little boy, it was about that time apparently for Mom to have a talk with me about the birds and the bees: the sex talk. And I remember she came back into my room just after she had said good night. And I had two twin beds in my room and she laid down on the other twin bed and talked to me about sex as a wonderful gift of God, perhaps the most wonderful thing about being human, and therefore as something that should be revered and not cheapened or degraded. Still, as a prepubescent boy, I remember feeling awkward about the conversation with my mother, even if I suspected she was probably right. And I remember being thankful for the cover of darkness -- that I didn’t have to have a face-to-face conversation about this. This Gospel story of Nicodemus struggling with Jesus under the cover of darkness is in part about that space to be honest. Sometimes there are things that are difficult to admit or talk about by day. But if we can be in the dark at night, I give thanks for that space to be honest. Night time and darkness is not just for wickedness and deceit, as it’s often imaged. The shadows give us some space to be honest before God. Pillow talk with the Almighty. In the safety and silence of night we can say, “God here I am, a sinner, you know my thoughts and my wrongdoings. And you love me anyway. Mold me again God, in this safe space, in the cover of night. Reshape me again to be the daughter/son, that you made me to be. Give me courage. Give me wisdom. Give me the willingness to trust in you.” And God responds to us once again, “I so love you; I so love this world. Trust and know that I am your God. I will not forsake you, though the mountains be moved, though tidal waves come crashing. I will never forsake you or fall asleep. My peace I give you. And I will love you and the world in which you live...always and through it all. Turn back to me.” AMEN.
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