Good morning. A great deal of prayer and reflection has gone into preparing this sermon. I can’t tell you how many times someone has said to me this week, “what are you thinking?” and my reply was, “about my sermon.” I don’t tell you that to impress you. Quite to the contrary, I tell you this to impress upon you how complicated and nuanced this passage is. In fact, I fear that if you don’t take notes, you may get lost but I’m trusting that the Spirit will reveal something of use to each of us today regardless of my ramblings. So here we go.
You may be wondering why this is such a difficult passage. It sounds simple enough. Nicodemus comes to Jesus seeking guidance. Jesus offers a response. Nicodemus doesn’t quite get it. Jesus then tries to clarify and a central passage of Christian teaching is born. Simple, right?
Oh if it were only so. First of all, I should tell you that I have a history with this passage and I bet some of you have had similar experiences. See, my family are all from an evangelical Christian tradition and I was raised in that. I was scared into believing in God by threats of the fires of hell and eternal damnation. I was also told that if I believed hard enough and said the right “sinners prayer” that I would be “saved.”
Not wanting to be burned eternally, I prayed and tried to convince others that they needed to believe too. At the very center of this experience was John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” The emphasis was on the perishing, not God’s love.
I’m not telling you this to mock evangelical beliefs. In fact, I concede that I first recognized my calling into ministry from within that denomination. So, I know that God was alive and working in our lives. There were people of great sincerity who committed every waking hour to gaining converts. We’re not talking about televangelist charlatans but rather people of sincere faith and love trying to do what they thought was right.
But by the time I was a pre-teen and a teenager, I had begun to question whether the fear of God was the path God wanted us to take. Did it produce a mature faith that Paul talked about in 1 Corinthians 13? Did fear of God make me do the good deeds because it is the selfless, right thing or because of selfish fear of judgment?
My questions led me back to this passage and others with new eyes. I began to see that God was of such abundant love that no action on my part could ever separate me from it. And I continued that faith journey that would soon land me in the Presbyterian Church where I found others that embraced an abundantly loving God. I found the words in the Brief Statement of Faith and heard what I believed to be true about God. Those words were:
And so my overarching belief in God’s abundant love and grace was nurtured and I began the path to a fearless faith of selfless acts rather than a fear filled one chock-full with compulsory deeds.
Yet God acts with justice and mercy to redeem creation.
Loving us still, God makes us heirs with Christ of the covenant. Like mother who will not forsake her nursing child, like a father who runs to welcome the prodigal home, God is faithful still.
We trust in God the Holy Spirit, everywhere the giver and renewer of life. The Spirit justifies us by grace through faith, sets us free to accept ourselves and to love God and neighbor, and binds us together with all believers in the one body of Christ, the Church.
—lines 40, 47-57
I’ve offered this long preface to say that this passage has for many been reduced and boiled down, combined with popular notions of afterlife, and turned into a slogan on a bumper sticker. That slogan holds truth but misses God’s abundance because it was too quick to strip away all that lies around it. Sometimes the good stuff is as much in how something is said as much or more than what is said… and this is one of those times.
You see, as soon as the story starts, we don’t just get Nicodemus coming to Jesus. He comes to Jesus in the cover of night. We’re talking about a Rabbi, a minister who’s seeking deeper understanding of God. This is a good thing but he’s not able to do it out in the open which will hamper his faith and understanding as we soon will see.
Nicodemus is very complimentary to Jesus by acknowledging that he is surly of God. This is a big deal because the rabbinical belief at the time would have commonly held that the Rabbis and other educated teachers were the only ones with special knowledge from God. But what I want us to hear were his exact words because they come to bear later. Nicodemus says, “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.”
“We know” is the word I want us to hold onto here. See, we’ve got this educated minister type who is professing to “know” something of God’s truths. Hold onto that thought… we’ll come back to it.
Jesus replies to his nighttime visitor’s compliment by saying, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” This is where things start to get interesting and I need to give a quick lesson in biblical study.
First of all we need to look at this phrase “the kingdom of God.” We usually read this phrase through current imagery. That imagery of the kingdom of God is usually imbedded in some notion of afterlife and heaven. But in Jesus’ time, they did not use this phrase that way nor did they have a notion of heaven in the same way modern Christianity has developed one.
This phrase meant to be in the presence of God. That presence is both an earthly experience and a spiritual experience. So it can include images of afterlife but it is equally about experiencing the presence of God here and now. As a side note, that’s what the Lord’s prayer is asking for when it invites God’s kingdom on earth. It is inviting the experience of God in its fullest sense.
Next, we need to look into translation issues. Most of you probably know that the New Testament was originally written in Greek and the Old was in Hebrew. We still have some scrolls that are quite old that those are considered the most authoritative for translating into any other language, be it English, Spanish, Korean, or otherwise. The older scrolls are considered more authoritative because they have fewer edits or copying mistakes. All that makes sense, right?
Well, translation into any language is still not an easy thing. Sometimes there are just not words that translate exactly. Other times, we use phrases that don’t translate well either. For example, earlier I said that we “boil down” meanings. You know that I mean we take out all the extra stuff rather than cook it until it has no water in it. But if we were trying to translate my sermon into another language, they would be confused as to why I just dumped a bible into a pot to cook all the water out of it.
So translation takes time, skill, and faithful seeking in order to be done well. But most of us aren’t going to learn Greek and Hebrew. Trust me, I’m thrilled when I realize how much I still know and can use it well. But I’m even more grateful for commentaries & a really good study bible because smarter people than me have spent their lives working this stuff out.
So, I want to call your attention to all the footnotes in the book of John. If you have a good study bible, it will show you lots of word choice variations from the original Greek. Often it will say that an alternative meaning exists and the book of John is full of them compared to other books of the bible. And we’re not talking about synonyms here. It’s actual different meanings. Well, most scholars believe all the dual meaning Greek words in the book of John are very intentionally picked for their nuance because more concrete Greek words could have been used but they weren’t.
And that’s where we find ourselves in this reading. Jesus says, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” If you pick up a study bible, you’ll see that the Greek word we translate as “from above” also means anew or again. In fact, many translations like the NIV and King James use the word “again” instead of “from above.” But this is not an either/or choice here. This is a both/and situation. When Jesus is talking about this rebirth it is one of time and space and beyond. It is both “again” and “from above.” We know this by what happens next.
Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Nicodemus, zeroed in on the meaning of being born again. But Jesus offers new images to help him wrap his mind around it. He says, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is 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.”
So we have this set of images of being of both water and Spirit. Water birth as in the birth at a certain time and place… like the waters of baptism or of the womb. Spirit birth as in something that has no bounds and is purely of God. By the way, the word we translate as Spirit is another double meaning word. It also means wind. So, Jesus is working hard to get Nicodemus to see a more complicated image of rebirth that will reveal the Kingdom of God, the presence of God. He goes on to try to explain that this birth of Spirit is like the wind. He tells Nicodemus we can’t control it. This is another key point, so hold onto that one too.
Nicodemus is still baffled and questions Jesus. Jesus responds with a monologue that holds even more imagery to point to how mysterious this rebirth is. Now, we’re tempted to read this monologue as the only thing that matters but I’ve had us hold onto earlier points because they do matter.
First of all, Jesus calls into question how a teacher who is supposed to “know” things and earlier claimed to know what was of God could miss the truth of the Spirit. Next, Jesus uses heavenly descended and ascended language. This is key because it comes back to the Kingdom of God. By pointing to Jesus’ direct connection with God, Jesus is confirming his status as having knowledge to share from God. Then Jesus uses some more dual meaning words when he makes a comparison between himself and a story of healing with Moses.
This is where we get into the talk of belief and eternal life and I’ve spent so much time getting here because we can’t understand what is being said here if we don’t understand how complicated the road was to get to him saying this. Jesus said, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
Now, I could have just written a sermon focusing in on those two verses but I believe that does a disservice to God and to us. We’ve taken a journey with Jesus through a dialog about being born anew and from God. When we first understand that this birth is full of mystery and is of God, we see these verses with different eyes.
First of all, we’re told that “God so loved the world.” We are not told that God loved people who liked Jesus, or worshiped only God, or Israelites, or any other group of people. God’s actions sprung from an abundant love of the whole world. That alone is radical enough.
Next we see that God gave us Jesus. It doesn’t say that God “gave up” Jesus as some are tempted to hear it. That reduces Jesus to only his death. Rather, we are given this gift, not as a sacrifice but as a piece of God with us. This gift is for our good and salvation. In fact it tells us the gift gives eternal life.
Eternal life… again, this is one of those phrases we often hear through the ears of modern beliefs but when Jesus and Paul and others in the bible talked about eternal life, they were talking not only about beyond this time. They were talking in present and ongoing terms as well. Eternal life is synonymous with abundant life and liveliness.
And finally, we are told that this gift is not to condemn the world but to save it. This is still wrapped up in that abundant love. Yet, these verses are so frequently used in unloving ways to condemn non-Christians. Is it that not believing in Jesus is the same as being condemned?
Well, that’s not exactly what this says. It only says that Jesus is a way to eternal and abundant life. And this is one of those places I choose to stay humble. I’m not sure what God’s plans are in the life of the Buddhist, the Muslim, or the atheist. And I’m definitely not sure how God reveals God’s self to the sheep from another fold that are referred to in John 10 yet we’re told they still recognize God’s voice. So I don’t concern myself with the job of God nor with the judgment of God. Our lives are full enough just trying to tap into that abundance that God has very clearly called us in this flock to.
Okay… I know I’ve taken you on a winding road that probably leaves you either wanting to read more or so tired you want a nap but our hope is that God has revealed something. So what is God’s message to us this second Sunday of Lent? I think there are several things. First, we need not have the assuredness of Nicodemus when we seek God. Come humble and seek what God has to tell us, not the other way around. Second, this rebirth is full of mystery. Some of it we can control like the waters of baptism. But other parts, like the birth of Spirit are like the wind, we can’t control it. It’s tied up in God’s grace. Third, God’s love is abundant and precedes us and anything we could ever do to deserve or earn it. That alone is salvific even if we never hear anything else. And finally, the kingdom of God made manifest can be found in Christ. Jesus is our abundance not only in the hereafter but here and now as well. May this Lenten journey reveal more of Christ’s abundance in our lives. Amen.
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