Born in Love

February 17; Second Sunday in Lent

(Genesis 12:1-4a; Romans 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17)

There are many people in the Gospels and in the Bible who are overcome by

God’s presence and who appear to experience a sort of conversion or transformation

instantaneously. God came to Moses in a burning bush. Isaiah received an ecstatic

vision. Paul was blinded by light. As we heard in our reading this morning Abraham

seems to have dropped everything at the call of God. Far from being a thing of the past

these types of experiences continue to be expressed in various contemporary forms. In

songs, books and movies we hear about how love can turn someone’s world upside down

or knock them off their feet. This is not the story of Nicodemus. Nicodemus is an

ambiguous character and I think an important character for us. It is hard to know just

what to make of him. In our reading this morning things begin well. He comes to Jesus

and tells him that many of the Jews recognize that he is a teacher from God. However, as

things progress Nicodemus becomes confused by Jesus’ responses. Jesus even criticizes

him for being a leader among the Jews and not understanding this. And finally Jesus

enters into a long monologue and the character of Nicodemus seems to disappear and we

never find out what his response is.

Nicodemus does however show up two other times in John’s Gospel. In chapter

seven there is a controversy over what Jesus was saying and the Pharisees were asking

why the guards did not detain Jesus. The guards thought that perhaps what Jesus said

was true. And so the Pharisees pull rank on them and say confidently that none of them

have believed Jesus. Then it says that Nicodemus who “was one of their number” asked

if it was appropriate to condemn Jesus without first hearing what he is doing. The rest of

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the group challenged Nicodemus and asked if perhaps he too was associated with Jesus.

And again there is no last word from Nicodemus.

Then at the end of the Gospel Nicodemus shows up alongside Joseph of

Arimathea who asked for the body of the crucified Jesus. We find out here that Joseph

was a disciple of Jesus but did so secretly for fear of certain Jewish authorities. We can

perhaps assume this is also the case with Nicodemus but it does not say so explicitly.

The only explicit statement connected to Nicodemus is that brought a huge amount of oils

and spices for the burial. This has been interpreted in two ways. Positively it could be

said that Nicodemus was preparing a burial as fit for a king with the large amount of

spices. Others, however, have suggested that Nicodemus had respect for Jesus as a

teacher and simply did not want Jesus’ body to decay too quickly out of respect for him.

In this way Nicodemus did not acknowledge or understand Jesus’ claims to divinity or

resurrection.

However we might understand Nicodemus it does appear that he is in some sense

ambivalent about Jesus. He is sitting on the fence. He is neither quite here nor there.

Nicodemus confronts us in our own ambiguity and ambivalence. If we cannot relate to

those who were overwhelmed by God’s presence or to those who outright rejected Jesus

then we would do well consider Nicodemus.

He appears to come well intentioned to Jesus. Though what perhaps sets the

whole context for Jesus’ response is that it says Nicodemus came at night. It is our

activities that we intentionally do in the dark that we want to keep separate from our lives

in the daylight. Things that would threaten our security, things we are ashamed of, we

perform in the dark. And so it is in the dark that Nicodemus confesses that he believes

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Jesus is from God. To make such a confession in the day time would risk his status in the

community. Jesus is a controversial character, odd, at the margins of everyday life. It is

the classic high school scenario of being treated like you can only be someone’s friend

when certain people are not around. We are still careful not to associate too closely with

someone who may have views that we think are unacceptable or may act in certain ways.

Even now I find little expressions of this. For instance I notice in certain circles that the

term ‘evangelical’ is not used to identify a group but rather to label an expression in a

negative light. Depending on where I am I can feel the temptation to be careful of how

closely I would identity my own experience in the evangelical Mennonite church despite

the fact that I admire much of what that conference stands for. This is a terrible tendency

for many of us. Whenever we have that feeling we are essentially revealing the power

that we give to certain groups or people. We are also revealing our insecurity of not

belonging.

Nicodemus has come at night thinking that he can preserve his relationship with

his fellow Pharisees and also learn what he can from Jesus. Before Nicodemus even has

a chance to ask a question Jesus says, “No one can see the Kingdom of God without

being born from above.” Jesus already loses Nicodemus in this question as Nicodemus

asks about the logistics of being born for a second time. What is happening here that

leaves Nicodemus without understanding? In his position as a Jewish leader he is

certainly an intelligent man with good reasoning skills. Jesus, however, is not interested

in imparting knowledge. Nicodemus is looking to learn something that will improve his

knowledge and not unsettle his life. His identity is already born in his peer group. To be

born from above is to be released from the pressures of people and groups around us.

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Jesus is not looking to impart knowledge rather he is looking to forge an intimate

relationship between Nicodemus and God. What Jesus is proposing is that Nicodemus

move from an objective understanding of God, which is seeing God as an object of

knowledge, to a subjective relationship with God.

There is perhaps no one better to help us understand this shift in thinking than the

philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. He argues that treating God as an object of knowledge

turns God into a kind of currency that we can gain and use. The more we gain the more

we think we can purchase status and happiness to improve our lives. So we amass

currency through our moral acts or our knowledge. We domesticate God and include

God into our economy. This is the kind of thinking that leads people to refer to God as a

type of insurance policy. Kierkegaard maintains that objectively speaking it is absurd to

believe in God. If it were not absurd then God would not be God, we would. We would

be greater than God to be able to examine God objectively as a scientist examines

something with a microscope. He maintains rather that Christianity is a paradox. He

finds it entirely inappropriate to try and clarify through objective knowledge what is

essentially offensive to our objective thinking. He writes that,

indeed it would seem strange that Christianity should have come into the world
just to receive an explanation; as if it had been somewhat bewildered about
itself, and hence had entered to the world to consult that wise man, the [objective]
philosopher, who can help furnish an explanation.

This objective philosopher seems to look a little like Nicodemus. Nicodemus appears to

be attempting to clarify knowledge of God so that he can translate it into doctrine and

practice. Kierkegaard writes that, “the object of faith is not a teacher with a doctrine; for

when a teacher has a doctrine, the doctrine is more important than the teacher.” What is

of outmost importance to Kierkegaard is that Christians understand that basis of faith is

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relationship. He goes on to say that, “the object of faith is the reality of the teacher, that

the teacher really exists. . . . [and that] the maximum of attainment within the sphere of

faith is to become infinitely interested in the reality of the teacher.”

Jesus came not to teach us in the sense of imparting particular knowledge to us.

Jesus came as a way of being in relationship with God. This is why so much of Jesus’

teaching is viewed as strange and often confusing. The parables became an excellent

form of teaching for Jesus because they do not give us clear knowledge they force us to

consider or lives and relationships. This sort of teaching makes things more difficult.

Objective knowledge can be cold and clinical but considering life and relationships forces

us wade into messy situations. Kierkegaard says that if we continue with the objective

approach “it is a sign that [a person] seeks to shirk something of the pain and crisis of

decision.” This is what Nicodemus seems to be doing as he appears to Jesus at night. He

is not willing to face the implications of entering into a relationship with Jesus. When

Jesus says you must be born from above he is talking about specific relationship. We are

born out of specific relationships. Jesus continues and says that flesh gives birth to flesh

and spirit gives birth to spirit. Nicodemus is caught between the pull of two identities.

One identity is born out of our goals and fears on earth. Our goals of status and power

and fears of rejection and humiliation. Here flesh gives birth to flesh. We can begin to

identify how we are birthed in this way when our sole priority is stability and security. In

the advent season we talked about the mountain of God. One Sunday we looked at Isaiah

who saw that individuals were trying to set up their own mountains. They were setting

up their own castles, or fortresses or you could even say kingdom. It is important to think

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about safety and security but if that is our primary concern then it will take us out of

meaningful relationships and not into them.

Jesus calls Nicodemus to be born of water and the Spirit. Wind blows wherever it

pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.

So it is with everyone born of the Spirit. Those born of spirit are open and receptive.

They cannot predict where they might be going. They are born of an intimate

relationship. An intimate relationship, whether a friend or spouse, can be one of the most

unpredictable experiences we have in life. We let this person know things that could

embarrass or hurt us. We open up our feelings to them in the hope that they won’t take

advantage of them. Our future begins to be tied up with theirs. It really is much more

safe and secure not to be in an intimate relationship. But this is not our calling.

Jesus prepares Nicodemus for what is required to be born from this intimate

relationship. Jesus says, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of

Man must be lifted, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” This is

strange image to help someone into an intimate relationship. I am not sure any of you

picked out the poisonous snake Valentines card for Thursday. The reference comes from

the book of Numbers where the Israelites are wandering in the desert after being

delivered from slavery in Egypt. The people are getting grumpy and impatient and so

they start grumbling against God saying that God brought them out into the desert to let

them die. Then it says that God sent poisonous snakes out among them. Many of the

Israelites were bitten and died. The Israelites were frustrated but not because God was

not coming through on God’s promises. God was providing for them daily with manna, a

type of bread that was coming from the sky, but the people were getting sick of it. The

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people were tired of living in a trusting and intimate relationship with God where they

needed to rely on God daily. One writer says that mistrust is spiritually poisonous in a

relationship and so God punctuates this by sending poisonous snakes among them.

When the people realize that they are no longer trusting God they turn to Moses

and ask what they should do. Moses prays to God and God says, “Make a snake and put

it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” This is a difficult image to

understand. If indeed the poisonous snakes represented the poison that was coming

between them and God then raising a snake up on a pole told the people that in order to

be right with God you must face your fears, you must literally look your fear in the eyes.

Their fear of death and of insecurity hung above them. Fear and mistrust are the greatest

inhibitors of intimate relationships. Marilyn Adams writes,

To bring healing . . . Jesus becomes the serpent lifted up in the wilderness. His
career stirs up the poison that is already at work shutting down our systems.
Finally, at the right time, when His hour had come, Jesus provokes His enemies to
bite, to shoot the full force of their venom into His body. The cross dramatizes on
the outside what is going on inside. Jesus’ crucified body becomes a portrait of
what our fears and mistrust of God are doing to ourselves.

God calls us out of comfort and security. God addresses the fears that motivate this sort

of the lifestyle. Jesus came and was understood correctly as a threat to the lives that were

born of flesh. And so Jesus was lifted up for all to see and confronted us with the result

of our fears and mistrusts which is separation from God. But to those who look up at

Christ raised it says in the following verse, in John 3:16, for God so loved the world that

he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have

eternal life.

This is what it means to have a relationship with God. It is not that you first

believe the right things or even that you do the right things. It is to look up to Christ

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raised on the cross. To look at Christ who was put there because of how we act out of

fears and the threats to our security. To look at Christ whose life is abundant to

overcome and heal those fears and mistrusts. To look up and receive new birth from that

place above.

What of Nicodemus? Did he get it? The text remains unclear. Nicodemus

emerges again when he sticks up for Jesus in chapter seven but is quickly silenced by his

peer group. Then we find him again carrying and preparing Jesus dead body. This may

have been the last chance for Nicodemus do as Kierkegaard says, to shirk the pain and

crisis of decision. He can no longer live as a Pharisee by day and visit Jesus at night.

Soon there will be stories of the resurrected Jesus and group of followers who form a

distinct community.

Jesus forces us to consider our relationships. At times we hold only the dead

body of Jesus. Perhaps we hold a body of knowledge or a body of tradition and we also

look over at our peer group of Pharisees, our friends, family, co-workers perhaps even

our church at times. We are called face our fears and mistrusts that so often define our

decisions and identities. And if we can turn our face there we may yet see the face of the

resurrected Christ and be healed. This is the end to which we seek Christ not for the sake

of knowledge but for a trusting and intimate relationship.

In closing I would like to hear from another person who sought meaning from the

Lord. I would suggest that this person did not confuse the doctrine for the teacher but as

Kierkegaard said this person took “infinite interest in the reality of the teacher.” Julian of

Norwich lived at the turn of the fifteenth century. She received what she believed to be a

series of divine revelations which she later recorded. Incidentally her work is considered

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to be the first book written by a woman in English. At the end of her work she

considered the meaning of what she received.

And from that time that [the revelation] was showed [to me] I desired often to
learn what was our Lord’s meaning. And fifteen years after, and more, I was
answered in ghostly understanding, saying thus:
Would you learn thy Lord’s meaning in this thing? Learn it well: Love was His
meaning. Who showed it you? Love. What did He show to you? Love. Why did he
show it? For Love. Hold yourself therein and you will learn and know more in the
same. . . .Thus was I learned that Love was our Lord’s meaning.
And I saw surely that as God made us He loved us; this love was never slacked,
will never be. And in this love He has done all His works; and in this love He has
made all things profitable to us; and in this love our life is everlasting. In our
making we had beginning; but the love wherein He made us was in Him from
without beginning: in which love we have our beginning. And all this shall we see
in God, without end.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever will believe in
him will not perish but have eternal life.

Amen.