Lent 2 Jesus and Nicodemus
“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.”
It is one of the best known verses in the Bible,
For many people it is their most beloved verse as well. A summary of the entire “good news” in one sentence.
But for others it has become a bit of a cliché.
And for others it raises uncomfortable questions about the relationship between grace and belief and God’s relationship with humankind. Does it all really come down our intellectual assent to certain theological doctrines? And if so which ones? Is this Bonhoeffer’s so called “cheap grace?”
While, I certainly have my “go to” verses for comfort or guidance or whatever else, I do think that taking one verse from Scripture out of its context can often be problematic. So today I thought it would be good to read the entire conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus from which this verse comes.
This is the first of a number of long, somewhat mysterious dialogues in John. Two weeks ago we read about the wedding at Cana where Jesus turns water into wine. From there he goes to the temple in Jerusalem where he drives out those selling sheep and cattle and overturns the tables of the money sellers. “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace,” he tells them.
This conversation takes place after this incident. Presumably, the Jewish leaders are not happy with Jesus. But Nicodemus, a Pharisee is curious. He wants to know more but he doesn’t want anyone to know so he goes at night and they have this strange conversation.
They begin with a discussion about being born again. Jesus is trying to tell Nicodemus unless he allows God to change his whole way of being in the world (not just his belief system so to speak) then he will not be able to perceive God at work.
But Nicodemus takes Jesus at the most literal level. To be honest I am not totally convinced that Nicodemus really thinks Jesus is suggesting he might have to return to his mother’s womb. Rather I wonder if Nicodemus is not ready for the kind of transformation being “born again” requires. Likely for him it would mean trading his honourable position in society for a pretty uncertain new status.
Being born again, just like being born is actually really hard work. It takes time and effort, our bodies break to bring forth new life.
The conversation then moves to this even more cryptic, somewhat disturbing analogy between Moses lifting up a serpent in the wilderness and the Son of Man been lifted up.
Nicodemus no doubt understood this is an allusion to Numbers 21. This story is the last of 5 “murmuring” stories in the book of Numbers. Over and over the people complain about the water and the food and over and over God responds by sweetening the water or providing more and better food. But this time he reacts by sending poisonous serpents into their midst. The serpents bite them, and several of them die of the fiery, painful bites.
The people then repent of their sin, and beg Moses to pray on their behalf. When Moses does so, God tells Moses to make a serpent, set it on a pole; and tell everyone who is bitten to look at it and they will live.” Moses does as he is instructed and when the people are bitten, they look up at the serpent, their snakebites are healed, and they live.
It is a very strange rather gruesome story. It seems unlikely that this story is anyone’s go to verse. It is not a particularly comforting message.
But it is an important one I think. Often in life, the path to healing means looking at, confronting the pain we have experienced and the pain we have caused. Like birth, healing too is hard.
In this story, the Israelites have to look at the serpent to see the outworkings of their own failure to trust God, who delivered them from slavery, sustained them in the desert, and was leading them to their new home. They have to understand that their ongoing failure to trust in God and to live as he has instructed matters. To live well in the land they will need to be able to do this.
But what does this have to do with Jesus?
Often the crucifixion is presented in such a way as to make it seem that there is one, clear reason why Jesus died and how exactly it led to our salvation. But there are actually lots of ideas about why and how this happened and what it means for us. These are called atonement theories. All of them I think offer us something, a glimpse into the saving work of God. But they are all ultimately partial and incomplete. None of them fully explain the vast richness and mystery of the cross.
But what this allusion here is pointing to perhaps (and yes I am drawing on Debie Thomas here), is that just as the serpent reveals to the Israelites the outworkings of their failures so does the cross when we look at it reveal what “our human kingdoms, left to themselves, will always become unless God in God’s mercy delivers us. In the cross, we are forced to see what our refusal to love, our indifference to suffering, our craving for violence, our resistance to change, our addiction to judgment, and our fear of the Other must wreak. When the Son of Man is lifted up, we see with chilling and desperate clarity our need for a God who will take our most horrific instruments of death, and transform them, at great cost, for the purposes of resurrection.”
As hard as this is, I think the world needs it for healing.
This is something Germany came to understand. Perhaps slowly and somewhat reluctantly at first, but now there is no doubt they have put in an unparalleled effort to look at the sins of their past. They do this through monuments, memorials, rituals, art, architecture and even public policy. It is impossible to visit Germany and not have to face this history.
In a book titled, “Learning from the Germans: Peace and the Memory of Evil,” Susan Neiman writes, “they got right the idea that a nation has to face its criminal past to become whole and strong and not torn apart by unsaid guilt and resentment.”
Frank Steinmeier at a ceremony to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Berlin puts it this way, “it is not remembrance that is a burden – it is non remembrance that becomes a burden. It is not professing responsibility that is shameful – it is denial that is shameful.”
South Africa’s truth and reconciliation commission also understood this. After the end of Apartheid these commissions invited anybody who had been a victim of violence to come forward and be heard Perpetrators of violence could also give testimony These hearings –were broadcast on television. People were asked to look at the outworking of their sins. This commission is considered to be a crucial component of the transition to full and free democracy in South Africa.
And now here in Australia and across the world in countries we are been asked to look and to tell the truth about our history.
Following on from the “day of healing” on Jan 26th a small group gathered in the hall this week. This group led by Arrenrte Walpiri man Christ Tomlins is calling itself truth telling and healing circles. For them truth is not about division but healing.
John 3:16 follows on from this analogy. Does belief ask us to do this? To look at the snake, to look at Jesus lifted up on the cross, to look at our sins.
Jesus finishes this conversation with “for all who do evil hate the light and do not come into the light so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may clearly be seen that their deeds have been done in God.” It is not easy to come into the light where we are exposed but it is harder to stay in darkness. Steinmeier again, it is not remembrance that is a burden – it is non remembrance that becomes a burden.
It is unclear what Nicodemus makes of all this. It seems that even in the mouth of Jesus, John 3:16 was not enough on its own to convert him immediately. I wonder if this has something to say about certain practises of evangelism.
But Nicodemus shows up again in John chapter 7. The Pharisees are trying to arrest Jesus and Nicodemus appears to be defending him, even if is a little half hearted.
And then he returns in chapter 19 bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes to bury Jesus alongside Joseph of Arimathea, another secret follower of Jesus.
It seems Nicodemus is still coming in secret, in the dark, which in this gospel, is symbolic of a time of unbelief and ignorance. None of these incidents give us a clear and unambiguous picture of what Nicodemus comes to believe about Jesus.
But he keeps wrestling with it. And perhaps this is enough.
Perhaps belief is not something that one gets, it is something that one does, one practises. Perhaps in this burial ritual Nicodemus is expressing belief.
Perhaps belief is not something one has or doesn’t have but something one is always wrestling with, growing into, learning about. Some days it is clear and easy and some days it is not but it is always transforming us anew.
There have been times when I have read John 3:16 and have been left worrying. Do I believe enough? I believe lots of things about Jesus but do I believe the right things. My life has been transformed by my faith in Him but I still battle with greed, jealousy, anxiety all the time. Like Nicodemus I still find it hard to let go of all the things needed to truly see the Kingdom of God. To truly be born again into eternal life, that reality in heaven and on earth in which life is lived entirely in and shaped by the love and grace of God.
But Jesus meets Nicodemus in the dark. And in the dark Nicodemus also offers Jesus a generous gift of love, a beautiful act of faith. Their relationship makes me think that we can come to Jesus with our questions, our doubts. We can come with our sin and the sins of the world. We can come finding it hard to look at them.
We too can meet Jeus in the dark. He will help us find the light again and again. As it says in the prologue, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.”
We are now going to sing beautiful things. As God brings light to the dark, so he makes beauty out of dust.
