Genesis 12: 1-4 (New Jerusalem Bible)
John 3: 1-17 (CEB)
Among the most important people in the Bible, Jesus, Moses, Saul of Tarsus, certainly Abraham must be included. For one thing, Abraham was the first real historical person in the Bible. And another thing, the three major religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam claim Abraham as the father of their faith. The call of Abraham is celebrated in all three of those religions.
God’s call for Abram to leave his country and kindred was a move to leave the old behind and take a leap of faith to embrace the new. The Spirit of God was working through Abram, telling him, what you leave behind will not compare what your name will achieve by moving forward into a new land.
Now flash forward nearly two thousand years later. Nicodemus was a person seeking something new. Nicodemus was one of those good Pharisees, and there were many good Pharisees, although the word gets a lot of bad PR in the New Testament. Pharisees were the keepers of the Law of Moses which Jesus even praised. The corruption of the Law began when legalists began adding by-laws and regulations to them which made them next to impossible to keep. This is what angered Jesus and possibly even Nicodemus.
In his relationship with God, Nicodemus was a person who probably was going through the motions of worship. He knew the Law of Moses, he was a strong teacher of the Law but his inner enthusiasm for God wasn’t there anymore. Maybe Nicodemus was tired of the legalism that had been added to his faith over many years. This happens to all religions. Besides Judaism, it’s happened to the Christian and Islamic faiths. Less than three centuries after Jesus, the Christian faith developed creeds and dogma and later fundamentalist Christians forbade what you could do - no dancing, no card playing, no theater, no mixed swimming and heaven forbid if you drank an ale or anything stronger!
So undoubtedly at some time Nicodemus had gone to hear Jesus preach at the Temple in Jerusalem. Nicodemus sensed that Jesus had something inside him that Nicodemus no longer had. So he decided to take a risk and talk with the charismatic preacher from Nazareth.
But Nicodemus was cautious. He told Jesus to come during the night so he wouldn’t be seen. This tells you that Jesus was a very controversial figure. Jesus told Nicodemus about being born again. The Pharisee was brain-locked because he took those words literally. Jesus explained to be born again is nothing physical. You need to be born of the Spirit, you need to permit God to let you see something new and different from what you thought before. And Jesus says the most important words in the Bible to Nicodemus, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life.” That one sentence is the gospel, the good news, all summed up in 26 words.
What happened to Nicodemus after his encounter with Jesus? We can only speculate. My guess is he was open to leaving the old behind and embracing the new. In John chapter seven, verse 51, Nicodemus later defended Jesus against his fellow Pharisees, by saying, “Our Law doesn’t judge someone without first hearing him and learning what he is doing, does it?” And later in John’s gospel, chapter 19, verse 39, it is written that Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloe weighing nearly 75 pounds for Jesus’ burial arrangements in the tomb after the crucifixion. So was Nicodemus “born again?” Did he begin to see things in a different way? I like to think he did.
Just like Nicodemus, most of us do whatever we can to avoid the darkness, even if we have to be in it. Nighttime living isn’t much fun unless you’re a vampire. It’s difficult and uncomfortable. Just think about workers on third-shift jobs. It’s not called the “graveyard” shift for nothing. I’ve been there and done that. It really does a number on your circadian body rhythms. Almost as bad as Daylight Saving Time, which unfortunately starts next Sunday.
But what is really painful is living in the darkness of our own minds and realizing our lives will come to an end. That is why we are marked with ashes and reminded of our mortality. We must remember that which is born of the flesh is flesh and there is more to our lives than what we can create for ourselves. This is why the season of Lent focuses on the very opposite of daytime living, letting go of possessing things, self-denial instead of self-satisfaction, change instead of the status-quo and self-examination instead of blissful ignorance in the darkness.
To reach the Light is to realize that to be born of the Spirit is not just to have a spiritual high. Think of having a religious champagne, becoming all spiritual bubbly inside. But when you open it the next day, it tastes flat. So what does it really mean to be born of the Spirit? It means having the love and compassion of Christ within you. It means moving beyond the old ways and with faith embrace the new.
Abram did exactly that. God’s Spirit told Abram to leave the old establishment in Haran to create a new thing in a new land. Perhaps God’s Spirit is calling to churches today since they no longer have a dominant cultural voice. God’s call is a journey into unfamiliar territory, reimagining the mission of churches in a changing world. Time for churches to move beyond the cliche “we’ve always done it this way,” and let the Spirit guide us when she says, “let me show you my way.” Abraham and Nicodemus listened to the Spirit’s advice. Can we do the same?
AMEN
