Sermon for Lent 2 Year A
By Rev Charles Royden
The Gospel of John was written with a real purpose in mind. John said
that he wrote it to cause the reader to believe
John 20:31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
Perhaps one of the major discourses in the Gospel which serves to bring this
about is found in this dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus, in John Chapter
3.
If you look at the crowds in events such as the Olympic Games, just
occasionally you will see somebody with a banner on which is written ‘John
3:16’. the same verse is sometimes found written on motorway bridges or
other places where Christians have decided that the message is more
important than the obvious crime of criminal damage! It is one of the most
favourite passages of all the Bible, because it answers the most basic human
question which has occupied people of every civilisation in human history
‘how can we live forever?’
We are in Lent, that time of the year when we are all engaged in seeking to
live our lives in closer obedience. Lent is a time when some forgo the after
dinner mints or the pre dinner sherry, our equivalent of sackcloth and
ashes. It is a time of repentance and mourning over what we might be, if
only we could try harder.
Yet we are reminded in this verse that the way of the cross is not about
what we have done or left undone but about what God has done. God loves the
world, loves it so much that he gave of his life. Jesus comes not to scold
but to save. It was out of love that he came among us and stood beside us
and died with us, for us, and saved us. It is all about love and because of
God’s love we are not here as the lost but as the found.
For God so loved the world, that he sent his only son, that whosoever
believed in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent
the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might
be saved through him [John 3:16-17].
This is a wonderful passage and note that God loves the world (KOSMOS), not
just people, but all that he has made. O that Christians had grasped this
message sooner. For example, we would have been in the vanguard of debate
about the care for our environment, instead of once again being late to the
party. Why is it that on so many issues of such great importance Christians
are seen to be dragged along kicking and screaming, instead of setting the
agenda? This is as true for animals welfare, recycling, the environment as
it is for human rights, racial justice etc.
So Nicodemus comes to Jesus, he is a religious leader, he had much
understanding, yet he is told that he must start over. He must start looking
at things differently. Nicodemus, is wealthy, important, religious, and yet
he is also deeply unfilled and searching.
This is to become a major success story. So often Jesus seems to fail in his
teachings. People ignore Jesus, take oppositions against Jesus, even his
closest disciples go on to deny that they know him. Yet we are told that
Nicodemus was a man of considerable courage
In 7:50-52, Nicodemus appeals to the Law of Moses to defend Jesus to his
fellows in the Sanhedrin:
Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own
number, asked,
"Does our law condemn anyone without first hearing him to find out what he
is doing?"
In 19:38-40 Nicodemus aligns himself publicly with Jesus in his "lifting up"
by joining Joseph of Arimathea in removing Jesus' body from the cross and
burying him with an enormous outlay of spices
Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph
was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jews. With
Pilate's permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by
Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought
a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus' body,
the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in
accordance with Jewish burial customs.
Nicodemus clearly changed. Not in the sense of factual knowledge, but in
terms of his allegiance to Jesus. This is what being born again means. It is
not a phrase used very often in the Bible, three times I think, but it means
that we are enlivened into a new way of seeing God through Jesus.
What Jesus says about the difference between water and spirit makes the
point that we can be physically alive but there is another level of life -
spiritual life. We know this to be true.
As we look around at our society today perhaps now as importantly as ever
before we need to know the truth of these words in which Jesus make a
promise to Nicodemus
For so many people, in spite of the presence of so many things, life is
still very empty. I have always wondered why it is so often the case that
people who have a great deal seem the least satisfied. I wonder whether it
is to do with some kind of motivation. Those who aspire to wealth, fame and
riches have something to keep them motivated, - the hope that one day they
will possess something which will give them fulfilment. However those who
have got fame and wealth realise that these things are truly are illusory.
For so many people life is empty. Obviously we know that materialism is
fundamentally unfulfilling. yet religion can just as empty as anything else.
It can just be going through the motions but the inner heart is not quite
alive. Nicodemus was a man who had religion but not one which was giving him
fulfilment.
Jesus told Nicodemus that the only way to find fulfilment was to have a new
kind of faith which grew out of the love of God.
To be born of the Spirit is not about religious high, religious champagne
which makes us bubbly inside, only to go flat after 24 hrs To be born of the
Spirit means to fundamentally change our perspectives so that we put our
faith in Jesus.
Nicodemus was from the right background. he was a Jewish leader and teacher,
a member of the Sanhedrin. He came from the right family and the right race.
He was a prominent and respected Jew. But he came to Jesus and it is clear
that this was not enough for him. He knew he was missing something which his
Jewish religion didn't have but which Jesus clearly did.
The message which Jesus gave to Nicodemus was clear. It doesn't matter into
whose family you are born. You get no credit from God on account of your
family. For somebody who would have been proud of his family tree, this was
a blow. He suddenly was told that he was no better of than the lowest of the
low.
In the Magnificat, the Song of Mary, the mother of Jesus, we are told that
Jesus will bring down the mighty from their seat and exhalt the humble and
the meek. Today in the Gospel reading, Nicodemus is one of the mighty when
he comes to Jesus. He is told that it counts for nothing, he discovers what
Mary meant. With Jesus birth, social status, wealth, all count for nothing,
it was like you had to be born again, and we were all equal.
We are told that it was dark when Nicodemus came to Jesus, but there was a
light switched on in his life when he went away, Jesus had illuminated his
spiritual vision through this encounter and Nicodemus was changed. He was
changed so much so that he was able to become brave enough to care for the
body of the dead Jesus.
There are many people like Nicodemus, they have questions and they are not
sure about Christianity, or who Jesus really is. Jesus taught Nicodemus
something which changed his life.
Jesus speaks to Nicodemus of wind. The wind blows where it will. You can
hear it, feel it, but you can’t predict or control it. How do some people
come to faith and others don’t ? Are we able to give explain the work of the
Holy Spirit ? The answer must be no. We all want to know answers which help
people to believe, but they are not there. We want God in a box, but God
won’t fit. Perhaps this is what W.H. Auden meant when he said it’s hard to
be a Christian if you’re not something of a poet.
Our part is very simple, one of faith and trust, and all are equal, there
are no special places for the talented and gifted.
Jesus reminded Nicodemus that in the desert Moses told the people of Israel
to look at a bronze snake and they would survive snake bites. Those people
in the desert didn’t understand how the bronze snake worked. It just worked
and it became the source of life for them. All they had to turn was to focus
on the snake.
The cross of Christ is the same. I do not even begin to understand the
atonement of God, or how the cross brings salvation to the world. Nobody
knows how in the cross the enduring and overpowering love of God is at work
to bring salvation to the world. Fortunately, we are not saved by
explanations or understandings, we are saved by God.
Medieval map makers located the spot on which the cross stood as the centre
of the earth and then they arranged the rest of the world around it. That
may not be great cartography but it is excellent theology. The cross of
Christ is our theology, its what it is all about.
Faith begins when we turn to Jesus and see in his death a vision of who God
is. The death of Jesus on that cross assures us of his God’s good intentions
towards us. We might not understand it but, because of the cross we trust
that such a God has our best interests at heart.
Jesus confronts Nicodemus with the need for a totally new beginning,
radically portrayed as starting life all over again: ‘Unless you are born
from above you cannot see the kingdom of God’ (3:3).
Nicodemus was confused because the Greek word ‘anothen’, used in this
context, has a double meaning. It can mean ‘again’ or ‘anew’-but it can also
mean, ‘from above.’ So the word can be translated either as being ‘born
again’ or ‘born from above’.
Nicodemus took it literally by focusing on the concept of human birth,
instead Jesus tells him that he will need faith of a deeper level. The
miracles are signposts which should point to the reality of who Jesus is. He
is not a great teacher or wise leader, he is not a prophet or specially
appointed person by God, Jesus is nothing less than God himself.
How the salvation of Christ will extend to the ‘Cosmos’ which is subject to
the love of God - we do not know. How every knee shall bow and every tongue
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord—again we do not know. However it is for
certain that it is in Christ and through Christ—and in him alone, that the
searching of human kind for eternal life finds its fulfilment.
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that
is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in
heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:9