The Church of the Advent - Sermon by Fr Gray, February 17, 2008, The Second Sunday in Lent

There are many things that set St. John’s Gospel apart from the other three Gospels, being Matthew, Mark, Luke, called the synoptic Gospels because those three are the most similar. Similar in chronology, in the way the story unfolds, the story of God’s salvation in and through Jesus Christ. Of course, they each have slight variations on the theme, but those three are more or less similar. Now it’s not to say, because John’s Gospel is different, that he’s trying to tell a different story, that he’s got a different theme, a different Gospel, that his good news differs from the other three. But he does tell the story differently. And he tells it in such a way, that many scholars can’t help but wonder if John’s intention was not just to tell you the story, but to invite you into the story, so that you place yourself in the story through the characters that appear “on stage,” as it were. In other words, John’s Gospel is a story of faith that provides insight for us from the lenses provided by certain characters in the drama, insights into our faith in Jesus Christ through them.

So therefore we have in John’s Gospel the Marian dimension of faith, the insight we gain from Mary as we identify with her, and her story; the Petrine dimension of faith from St. Peter, and the Johannine dimension of faith from John himself, just to name three of the most obvious characters in the Gospels. But there are others, as well. Some, perhaps, more minor, characters that don’t appear on stage as often, but still nonetheless are worth paying attention to. One such character was Nicodemus. It’s easy for us to forget Jesus’ audience for what is arguably the most famous verse in all of scripture – John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” It’s a wonderful verse. Even if you didn’t grow up in an evangelical home like I did, chances are, besides the Lord’s Prayer, this is the verse you knew. And this is the verse that many Christians think people should know if they don’t know it, even to the point that you’d see “John 3:16” written on large placards at sporting events, perhaps in hopes that during half-time, you’d go find your bible, dust it off, and take a look. That if you’d read anything, you’d read that. If you might believe anything, you might believe that. A short phrase that captures the gigantic scope of the Gospel. It’s one of the best statements about God’s salvific plan, and the world needs to know it. But it was said to Nicodemus. Why?

Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrin, a scribe, and a very wealthy individual. In other words, just like us. Or at least close enough. Although we may not like to think of ourselves as Pharisees, most of us here this morning are the insiders, we’re the ones others see and talk about when they see and talk about Christians. So that makes us insiders, like the Pharisees. We may not be a member of the Sanhedrin, the Sanhedrin being the supreme judicial and legislative court in Jerusalem presided over by the high priest. We may not be a member of anything remotely like the Sanhedrin, but we all wield what power we do have, whether publicly or privately. We cultivate our power, we’re not quick to give it up, and probably, if we’re honest, we’d like a little more. We may not think of ourselves as scribes, but I would wager most of us have a college degree, and that a surprising number of us have graduate level degrees. A scribe if there ever was one. But perhaps the greatest dissimilarity comes around wealth. I know many of us barely make it, that we couldn’t possibly be wealthy, and then I remember that for $25, the cost of going out to lunch at a not-so-fancy restaurant, that $25 is what it takes to sponsor a child in Haiti, providing not only her food, but also her education, for an entire month. So we’re the wealthy. Or at least, close enough.

Now you’d think with all that, a Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrin, a scribe, lots of money, that Nicodemus would be alright. But nonetheless, Nicodemus sought out this Jesus. Maybe Nicodemus didn’t have it all together after all. Maybe his life was a mess. Or maybe it wasn’t like that at all. Maybe everything, for all intents and purposes, was just fine. Maybe everything was going very well. And yet, despite all his power and prestige, something may have been missing, so he went looking for it. And perhaps he had heard and seen this Jesus, and thought he could help, that he could help put the pieces of his life back together, fill the whole in his heart, assuage his guilt, whatever it was, and so he went to Jesus at night.

And Nicodemus said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. Nobody can do these signs that you are doing, unless God is with him.” And Jesus responded by talking about, of all things, family. The text we heard this morning doesn’t translate it this way, but as you are well aware, being “born again” has become a problematic expression in our culture for a number of reasons, but by saying “born anew” or “born from above” doesn’t solve the dilemma that Jesus puts before Nicodemus. Because Jesus was basically saying that you needed to be born into the right family. That pedigree matters. Now Nicodemus obviously had the proper pedigree; he was a child of Abraham in the fullest and most enviable sense. But he needed to be born all over again. God was starting a new family, and this new family, according to Jesus, had to do with water and Spirit, the Spirit blowing where it wills, opening up this family to anyone and everyone. It was a new place to find yourself. New brothers and sisters. People you didn’t expect.

And then Jesus started talking about God’s love, about snakes in the desert, about the Son of Man being lifted up, about judgment, about light. Nicodemus had come at night, in darkness, to Jesus. But had he seen the light? What would he have to give up to be a part of God’s new family? Who was this Son of Man that had to be lifted up? And what did it all have to do with God’s love? Perhaps what light Jesus shed only opened up more questions for Nicodemus. Who am I? Where do I truly belong? Who are the ones in my family? Where do I need God’s love in my life, and where can I find it?

You need water in the desert. If you don’t have water, you die. Towns and cities know this, particularly in the Middle East, in the land of the Bible. If you have a good water supply from a stream or spring or well, a town can thrive; if not, it can’t. And so the towns of the Bible did their best to cultivate “living water,” that is, water that runs, water that might pour from the sky in a freak storm, the towns gathered that “living water” through aqueducts, stored it in cisterns, whatever they could do to survive, for where there was water, there was life.

And this Jesus was threatening the water system. Or at least that’s what the Pharisees thought. In terms of God’s “living water,” the Pharisees were the arbiters of it; they were the ones who fashioned the system; they were the ones who doled it out to the people. This is what insiders do. But the people were starting to find life elsewhere. They were starting to look for the abundant life that this Jesus talked so much about. So the Pharisees sent servants to arrest Jesus, because he wasn’t working with the system, he wasn’t working with their system.

St. John doesn’t say this happened, but I like to think it did. I like to think that the Pharisees picked Nicodemus to go along with the servants to arrest Jesus. The Pharisees didn’t know about his night visit, they didn’t know that he had seen Jesus, they didn’t know that Nicodemus had in his heart what could only be described as a yearning, a thirst. So imagine his embarrassment, to go to Jesus. First he came to Jesus under cover of darkness, now he comes to Jesus publicly, but with those who wished to do him harm rather than good. And I like to think that Jesus saw Nicodemus, even when Nicodemus was probably doing his best to hide behind the others, Jesus saw Nicodemus, stood up, and shouted out, “If anybody is thirsty, they should come to me and drink! Anyone who believes in me will have rivers of living water flowing out of their heart!”

Nicodemus probably felt like he had been caught, that he had been found out. But then he might have realized that Jesus, although he had indeed looked at him, looked at others, too. That Jesus had said if anybody is thirsty, if anyone believes. Maybe Nicodemus realized that he was not the only one who was thirsty. There were others, others right around him, others who also looked to this Jesus because of their thirst. Could these others be the family Jesus had spoken about? Could this thirst actually be a sign, a mark, of God’s new family?

But there was no time for that now, because Nicodemus had to return with those who were to report back to the Pharisees as to why Jesus had not been arrested. And St. John tells us that the servants said to the Pharisees, “No one ever spoke like this!” “You don’t mean to say you’ve been taken in too?” answered the Pharisees. “None of the other rulers or the Pharisees believed in him, have they? But this rabble that doesn’t know the law – a curse on them!”

And then something happened, according to St. John. In his second appearance here in John’s Gospel, Nicodemus found his voice. He who had gone to Jesus at night, he who had been silent during this exchange, he spoke up, because the Pharisees were disparaging those who thirsted, they were talking about those who might be the members of God’s new family. And maybe that was Nicodemus, too. So he said, “Our law does not condemn a man, does it, unless first you hear his side of the story and find out what he’s doing?” And they said to him, “Oh, so you’re from Galilee too, are you?” “Oh, so you’re one of them?” “Check it out and see! No prophet ever rises up from Galilee!”

Now this was apparently enough to shut Nicodemus up. He doesn’t say anything else to them after that. But I bet he took up their challenge. I bet you he did go and search the scriptures, to verify their statement that no prophet had ever arisen from Galilee. And he would have found out that they were wrong, the Pharisees were wrong, the insiders got it wrong. Both Jonah and Hosea came from Galilee. Jonah who was three days in the belly of the whale; Hosea who prophesied that God will “raise us up on the third day.” (6:2) What did that mean? And why did he still thirst? Again, he was confronted with the questions: Who am I? Where do I belong? Who are the ones in my family? Where do I need God’s love in my life, and where can I find it?

The third and last time that Nicodemus appears in John’s Gospel, Nicodemus is very much alive, but Jesus was dead. He might have been there to see it, John doesn’t tell us for sure. But if you’re thirsty, you go where you think the water is. And he thought he had found “living water.” Nicodemus thought he found it. But Jesus was dead. And it was rather ironic, Nicodemus might have thought. Jesus had said that the Son of Man needed to be lifted up, and there he was, Jesus lifted up dead on a cross. Jesus said he had streams of living water, and there the water was flowing from his side, along with his blood. Now his thirst should stop. There wouldn’t be any “living water” anymore. So why should Nicodemus thirst anymore?

And yet it didn’t go away. And maybe that’s why Nicodemus did what he did, according to John. He bought some spice, about eighty pounds of it, the amount you would use for the burial of a king. And along with Joseph from Arimathea, they buried Jesus. They performed the last service they could for their strange dead king.

And as they walked from the tomb, did they continue to thirst? They ached, there is no doubt about that, but did they thirst, did their hearts still burn with what had been revealed by Jesus, what had been revealed in Jesus. And surely Nicodemus again asked himself these questions, as he thirsted, as his heart burned and ached: Who am I? Where do I belong? Who are the ones in my family? Where do I need God’s love in my life, and where can I find it?

Did Nicodemus put it all together? Did he believe it when he most likely heard reports of Jesus risen from the dead? We don’t know for sure, the evidence about Nicodemus is non-existent after Jesus’ death. But maybe he did. Maybe he was able to see that it had to happen this way. Maybe Nicodemus realized that in Christ’s death was God’s great victory, that the lifting up of Jesus on the cross was needed for the salvation of the world.

And maybe he realized it didn’t end at the cross. Maybe he believed with his burning heart that Jesus had risen from the dead, that the resurrection of the crucified one began to answer the many questions that he had. And maybe that’s what St. John wants us to do, as well. We, all of us Nicodemuses here this morning. We who come to Jesus in our varied ways. To take the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as our lens into what John 3:16 is all about. And then take the lens of Nicodemus as the means of how we understand the questions - Who are we? Children of God worth dying for. Where did we belong? With God in the power of His Spirit. Who are the ones in our family? The ones whose hearts burn with love of God, the ones from whom streams of living water pour forth in Jesus’ name, but also the ones that God wants to see with burning hearts, the ones who may yet have living water pouring forth from them. Where do we need the love of God? We need God’s love all over us, we need to be bathed in the abundance of God’s love, we need to be baptized in God’s love. And where do we find it? We find it in Jesus Christ; Jesus in the hearing of the word, Jesus in the breaking of the bread, Jesus in the hearts and lives of God’s faithful people. God’s love for the world looks like Jesus Christ, and we, like Nicodemus, need to learn this, we need to live this. We need to not just write it on signs at football games, but it needs to be written over everything we say and do – “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.”

Amen.