Notes from Night School and Beyond – A Sermon based on John 3. 1-17 – preached on March 3, 2023 at First Presbyterian Church, Clarks Summit, PA 

       I stand before you as a recovering Pharisee. My name is Nicodemus.  I was a teacher in Jerusalem, and took pride in my ability to understand and interpret the Word of God as it came to us  in the scrolls of the Torah, the Prophets, and the Books of Wisdom.  I was well versed in the teachings of the rabbis who debated the proper ways to live faithfully. Even so, I was always ready to discover new truths, and hungry to fill an emptiness all my learning failed to satisfy.

            And so it was that I found myself one night seeking out a new rabbi who showed up in the city just before the Passover.  Believe you me, he made quite a scene when he entered the temple.  He marched right in like he owned the place. He went to the spot where animals were sold for sacrifice. Grabbing some strands of rope, he cracked them above the sheep and cattle, and without touching their flesh sent them stampeding into the street.

            Coins clanged on the stones as he turned over the tables of the money changers. Pigeons and doves flew the coop.  In the quiet after all the commotion he shouted: “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”

            Someone stood up to challenge him: “What sign can you give for doing this?” Said he: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”

What an audacious claim!  Our Temple rebuilding project was in its forty-sixth year. Thousands of workers had labored to build this monument of praise to God.  There was no way one man could build it in a mere 3 days!

            For the rest of the week we kept our eye on him. We watched what he did. We listened to what he said. There was power behind his words. There was love displayed in the way he touched people. It was as if everything he did and said pointed beyond himself to God.

            Into the mix stories were poured of his teaching in synagogues up north.  “He doesn’t mince words,” someone said. Another added: “No hiding behind a wall of quotations for him.” He had been so bold as to claim that he had “come to fulfill the law.”

            We also heard reports of water turned to wine at a wedding at Cana, and healings per-formed along the way: A crazed man he’d spoken to became a model citizen. Lepers were left without lesions, blind eyes took in the sights, deaf ears let in the sound, and some who were lame no longer limped along.

            It was all quite puzzling. Everything about him became a subject for debate among us.  Was he a force to be reckoned with, or just another bright light that would fizzle out?  Should we celebrate him as a prophet who came from God, or denounce him as a fraud who did not?

            I was curious to know more. It felt like he had the piece I was missing …that something I hungered for.  So, I went to see him at night. Many of my colleagues were al-ready convinced he was a trouble-maker who needed to be silenced, so I had to be cautious about my curiosity.

            I greeted the teacher respectfully. What I couldn’t say in public, I said to him in private. Addressing him as his disciples did, I said.  “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher sent by God. No one could perform the miracles you are doing unless God were with him.”

            I was totally unprepared for his response. Yet the more I think back on it, I realize he cut through the fluff and got right to the heart of the matter.  What I wanted deep down was to gain entrance to this kingdom he talked about.  He told me what was necessary, but the way he said it was very much like a riddle. He said: “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

            The curious thing about the word Jesus used about being born is that it can mean “from above,” or it can mean “again or anew.”  He meant it one way; I took it the other. Had anyone witnessed our discussion they would have said we were talking past each other.

            I know now he was saying the kingdom of God can’t be experienced without being “born from above.” That is, access to God is a gift that comes only to those who are open and receptive to a new beginning initiated by God. At the time, all I could hear was “No one can see the king-dom of God without being born again.” How preposterous. What a physical impossibility. As any infant would tell you if it could, one trip through the birth canal is plenty!

            When I pointed this out to him, my misunderstanding became an opportunity for the teacher to teach.  My protest led to a deeper explanation, the meaning of which I did not get at the time. As a teacher of Israel I should have remembered how often  God met impossible situ-ations with new possibilities. Think of Abraham and Sarah outfitting a nursery for Isaac, young David swinging a stone at Goliath, or Ezekiel encouraging exiles with a vision of a valley of dry bones brought to life by the breath of God.

            When I asked, “Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” His answer was this: “No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.” That went right over my head. Now, long after his death and resurrection, I know he was talking about the waters of baptism and the empowering of the Holy Spirit.

              Have you noticed that some truths, like seeds, have to sink in, take root, and grow slowly before the heart and mind are ready to accept them?  He was telling me to be born from above has everything to do with the miraculous new start that comes as one accepts—all at once or gradually over time—that Jesus is the Son of God sent in love “not to condemn the world,” but to save it.

            He wasn’t talking about starting over from the beginning. He was talking about making a fresh start with the help of God’s Spirit.  He was talking about being open and trusting toward God.  My friend Mark helped me under-stand this. He told me about a day when some people tried to bring children to Jesus so he could bless them.  The disciples tried to head the kids off, but Jesus welcomed them and said, “I assure you that whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.”

            A child is a marvelous creation. In its innocence a child learns to trust those who provide its care. Unencumbered by the so-called “laws of nature,” the child believes stories filled with impossible happenings and learn useful lessons.

            Instead of a story, Jesus spoke of the wind to teach me the ways of the Spirit.  You absolutely cannot see the wind. You can see the leaves of a tree shaken by it, you can hear the sound of it passing as it roars through its branches, but you can’t see the wind. You can’t see where it comes from or where it stops. All you can see is the evidence of its presence. It is the same with the Spirit. We can’t see it, but we can feel it and see the evidence of its presence.

            Truth be told, I was still in the dark as Jesus laid this lesson on me. “How can these things be?” I asked. To his credit Jesus did not dismiss me in disgust. Like many a wise teacher, he knew that even if I didn’t put it all together in one night’s class, time and reflection would allow his teaching to take hold.  The older I get, the more I have come to appreciate how often my “new” insights are the result of bits of learning pieced together over time.

            Reading my eyes to see I was still lost, Jesus switched to storytelling. He told a story he knew I would know from the time of Moses.  In the wilderness, the recently freed Hebrew slaves were in one of their “what has God done for us lately” moods. They accused Moses and God of bringing them out into the desert to die. Tired of their murmuring, God brought forth poisonous snakes to nip at their ankles and put an end to their complaining.

            Repenting of their short memory of God’s gracious gift of bread from heaven, some Israelites approached Moses confessing their sin. Moses prayed to God and God provided an antidote to the snake bites. The One who had forbidden Israel to make images of anything, commanded Moses to make a bronze snake, stick it on a pole, and lift it up where the people could see it.  Anyone bitten was told to look up at the snake. Despite the poison coursing through their bodies, they would live.

            Even though I knew the story, what Jesus said about it next made no sense to me at the time. He said “…just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” Who could have guessed what he meant. But on the day he died, when Joseph of Arimethea and I came to claim the body of Jesus, I looked up at the cross and chills ran up  my spine.

            I’ve thought about his words and that moment a lot. His words start me thinking about where or to whom I look for help and guidance. The people who inhabited the land before us looked up the hilltops where they built shrines to the various gods they worshiped. From cradle to cross and beyond, Jesus sets our sights higher, as did the psalmist who wrote: “Our help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.” (Psalm 121. 2)

            The Hebrews who looked up at the serpent were given the gift of life.  As we know now, those who look up at the cross of Jesus and believe him to be the Son God sent to save, are given what Jesus called “eternal life.” Jesus spoke of it the night I visited him. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”

            Some people claim that “eternal life” starts after you die. But that doesn’t fit with a lot of what Jesus taught. He spoke of eternal life as beginning when you first believe. He said, “I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly.” He never said you have to wait for it. Eternal life is about more than life after death. It is about is living in the presence of God here and now, now and always—even when it doesn’t seem to be so.

            There are days when my faith is as strong as the walls of Jerusalem; but there are others when it is as fragile as a clay pot.  Some nights, after a full day of surprise blessings, I think to myself, ‘no way I’ll ever forget this.’ Comes the next day, full of unexpected challenges, and you would think I’d never heard of God or Jesus or the Spirit’s helpful presence.  But strong or weak, confident or confused, what I learned that night holds true: God is for us, not against us.  As Jesus told me that night, “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

            Just like Jesus took time to lead me from curiosity toward commitment, God is patient about allowing us the time to receive his Word, take it into our hearts, and choose to live in the ways he taught us to. 

Being born from above brings no exemption from life’s trials, but it does guarantee help for those who seek it. There are times when I still ask for God’s help to get through a dark passage. Yet not a day goes by when I am not thankful for the gift of eternal life. And how would I describe this most wonderful of gifts? God’s presence is with us always.  My own words don’t quite do it justice, so I’ll borrow words from one of David’s psalms. Speaking about what God does for the faithful, David captures what makes me treasure this gift:

The Lord will keep you from all evil;

he will keep your life.

The Lord will keep your going out

and your coming in

from this time on and forever more.

(Psalm 121. 7-8)

Amen!