A question that must echo through the centuries is this: Did Nicodemus ever get it? Did this righteous, sober, pious man ever let go of the letter of the law, of seeing and believing only what his eyesight perceived; did he let go of security to plunge into the uncertainty and wonder of mystery?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was obviously a perceptive man. His first words to Jesus that night show that he understands what his eyes see: The signs of Jesus, known to us as miracles, are proof to Nicodemus that this young rabbi has come from God and acts in the presence of God. \u201cYou are a teacher who has come from God,\u201d he says to Jesus, and he continues by admitting that no one can do these signs \u201capart from the presence of God.\u201d This is a powerful statement, even though a question mark, a \u201cbut,\u201d is about to follow. Why doesn\u2019t Jesus accept it as is? What was it that he saw in this pious man that caused him to turn the conversation in another direction?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is possible that the author omits a great deal; maybe there was quite a bit more said between them before Jesus speaks the words that have been repeated by Christians through countless testimonies, words that have been misused and misunderstood to the exclusion and detriment of many: \u201cto be born again, to be born from above.\u201d How many have gloried in these words, and how many have spoken them in derision in our troubled and divisive time!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus does what he always does. He turns the conversation to what matters and points Nicodemus\u2019 attention to the transforming power of God and to the reality of God\u2019s kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He sees in Nicodemus the desire to see God\u2019s will, God\u2019s kingdom, this new order that gave the power to Jesus to perform his astounding signs. And Jesus wants Nicodemus to have his heart\u2019s desire; if he would simply let go of what he knows as true, because it is thus written<\/em>, in order to enter into the Spirit of the One who is not willing to be imprisoned by words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nicodemus doesn\u2019t get it. He asks the literal questions: How can the old be born again? How can one reenter the mother\u2019s womb? He is thinking of flesh, not of spirit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus tries again. He has come to open for us the door to God\u2019s kingdom \u2013 to the truth and justice and love of God. He reminds Nicodemus of the baptism of repentance, being born of water; and the baptism of transformation, being born of the Spirit. He gives him the analogy of the wind that is felt but invisible; the origin and destination of the wind is not known. Everything that is real is not perceived by our five senses alone. The effects of God\u2019s Spirit, God\u2019s breath, are all around us and we feel them when we are born of the Spirit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Nicodemus again doesn\u2019t get it. \u201cHow can these things be?\u201d he asks, and we continue to hear his question phrased in similar ways all around us today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow can there be a God?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow can you call yourself a Christian when you are not born again?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow can you claim that you believe the Bible literally?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow can you ignore what the Bible says?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Together with Nicodemus we cry, \u201cHow can these things be?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We live in an age of astounding technological and scientific advances. We are used to having everything explained. Even religious desire, even the longing for God, we are told by experts, has a biological basis in the brain. Everything depends on the body and on chemical balance or imbalance. We are losing the gift of mystery, the gift of being born of the Spirit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Everything in today\u2019s remarkable story is surrounded by mystery. This is what has made it so irresistible through the ages. Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. Given Jesus\u2019 status as a man who had nowhere to lay his head, the meeting probably took place outside, under the stars, beneath a tree, probably shortly after Jesus had lain down to rest and perhaps to sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A man better dressed than Jesus and his companions arrives in the night. He is probably well known to them by sight. He comes to reassure Jesus that he recognizes in him the gifts of God\u2019s presence because of all the visible signs performed by him in the light of day. And Jesus takes the man and plunges him into mystery. Nicodemus, a man who has spent his whole life studying the Law and the prophets, studying the Scriptures, does not get it. He is too committed to what he has known until this point. This talk of being born of the Spirit, of participating in God\u2019s life through eternity, of death on the cross \u2013 these are new concepts and he cries out, \u201cHow can these things be?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In sorrow, Jesus says, \u201cYou are a teacher and you do not understand these things?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n To paraphrase: Oh, Nicodemus, if you don\u2019t believe me, the one who has come from the Father, whom are you going to believe? God loves you and all these friends around me, yes, even the whole world. God sent me to testify to this love. All you have to do is trust in this love and be saved from despair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is much talk of spirituality in our culture. \u201cI am a spiritual person,\u201d we hear friends tell us, \u201cbut I don\u2019t believe in God, and I don\u2019t go to church.\u201d Others say, \u201cI am a spiritual person, but I don\u2019t believe in Jesus as the Son of God.\u201d And many other variations of this same theme, the vogue of vague spirituality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet here is Jesus offering us someone visible and recognizable who embodies the Spirit of God, himself! And unless we take the plunge into the mystery of the incarnation, we, like Nicodemus, don\u2019t understand, and reject him. \u201cHow can these things be?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The answer is that these things are real because Christ is real and present. As Jesus said, \u201cVery truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen, yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things, and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is a question to meditate upon throughout Lent, a daily discipline in the dark of night that can lead us to the light of Easter Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This sermon was written by Katerina Katsarka Whitley<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A question that must echo through the centuries is this: Did Nicodemus ever get it? Did this righteous, sober, pious man ever let go of the letter of the law, of seeing and believing only what his eyesight perceived; did he let go of security to plunge into the uncertainty and wonder of mystery? He…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":201212,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[51,43,52,3],"tags":[151],"class_list":["post-512034","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lent","category-sermons","category-sermons-that-work","category-worship-and-prayer-menu","tag-lent-2a"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":51,"label":"Lent"},{"value":43,"label":"Sermons"},{"value":52,"label":"Sermons That Work"},{"value":3,"label":"worship_and_prayer_menu"}],"post_tag":[{"value":151,"label":"Lent 2A"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":[],"comment_info":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/512034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/sermon"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/512034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3478288,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/512034\/revisions\/3478288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}