Genesis 12:1-4a

Psalm 121

John 3:1-17

NUCC

Lent 1

February 20, 2005

 Sleep my child and peace attend thee,

All through the night.

Guardian angels God will send thee,

All through the night.

            Mothers have sung this lullaby for many years as they have calmed their children during the night and prepared them for rest.  “All through the night.”  The night ---- a time of danger, uncertainty, and even mystery.  A time when we seek protection.

            One night, a long time ago, a man came to Jesus in the night.  Nicodemus, one of the religious leaders in Jerusalem, had heard about Jesus.  But Nicodemus was really “in the dark” about Jesus, and he wanted to talk with him.  But he came to Jesus “by night.”  Perhaps Nicodemus was fearful of what his fellow Pharisees would think if they knew that he was conferring with this young heretic.  Perhaps Nicodemus just needed to have a long talk and didn’t want interruption.  We don’t know for sure.

            For our Gospel writer John night or darkness was a metaphor ---- a symbolic way of speaking about separation from the presence of God.  Let us use this symbol of night and darkness to arrive at some understandings about Nicodemus, Jesus, and ourselves on this Second Sunday in Lent:

1.         First we recognize that Nicodemus was “in the dark” just as many of us today are “in the dark” about matters spiritual.  Like others of his day Nicodemus was impressed with Jesus as a “miracle worker.”  But Jesus was not impressed with those who needed miracles to be impressed.  He more or less told Nicodemus that.

            Today some of us come to Jesus telling him to “save me.”  We’re mainly concerned about how to get to heaven.  We’re mainly concerned about ourselves.  I suspect that Jesus isn’t too impressed with this “darkness” either.

            At one time or another each of us has a “dark night of the soul.”  Sometimes we can’t sleep at night because of a nagging question or a deep-seated concern.  I’m talking about more than drinking too much caffeine.  Rather I’m talking about the deep emotional trauma that we may experience from the death of a loved one or the falling apart of our lives.  We are hurting and in such a situation we are overcome by darkness.  This is the kind of situation which I believe Jesus is more amenable to addressing.

2.         If we accept the reality of these different kinds of “darknesses,” we also know that it is difficult to get out the dark and into the light.   In fact we learn to “love the darkness.”  This is the insight which John shares with us as he reports Jesus’ words:  “…and people loved darkness rather than light….” in verse 19 of chapter 3.  We are more comfortable in our old ways of living, with our old habits, with our dysfunctional lifestyles ----- simply because we are not willing to take the risk of Christ’s new way of living “from above.”  I will still bicker with my spouse.  I’ll still delight in gossip.   I’ll still go along with those shoddy practices at work ----- because to do differently would demand too much of a change.  I’m more comfortable with things as they are even if they aren’t so good.

            Among these darknesses is our tendency in this day to become used to Jesus.  We turn Jesus’ life and teachings into slogans ----- which either delight us or frighten us.

            Take John 3:3. 

Jesus says in the New Revised Standard Version:

“Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” 

The New International Version reports Jesus as saying:

"I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."

Which translation is right?  Which translation is wrong? 

Actually each translation is right, because the Bible scholars were trying to translate a Greek word, “anothen,” which means both “born from above” and “born again.”  Born in a spatial sense (above) and born in a linear sense (again).  In English we have to choose.

In our North American culture we are so used to hearing the phrase “born again” that we are almost immune to it  “Born again” has simply become part of the culture.  To some of us it evokes negative images of a revival tent.  To others it is the obligatory story we have to tell to give us spiritual legitimacy.  To none of us is it the thankful response to God’s gracious love.

Here is the problem with translating and with understanding Jesus.  When Nicodemus heard Jesus tell him he needed a new birth, Nicodemus could only understand Jesus in a literal way.  Literally being born again.  Jesus had to say:  “Nicodemus, lighten up.  Let your playful spirit go to work.  Swing with me.  Let God’s spirit move you.  Don’t be such a stick in the mud.  You need to go back and wonder like a baby.  You need a fresh sense of God’s wonderful world.”

Jesus might say the same to us and challenge us to take him out the box ---- and let Jesus be Jesus ----- not bound by our categories of spirit and flesh, personal and social, rational and emotional, active and passive.  Jesus would challenge us to open ourselves up and be born over each day and to be born in God’s spirit ----- both “again” and “from above.”

Have you seen the movie “Fifty First Dates?”  Karen and I watched it on the plane to South Africa last summer.  In the film Lucy Whitemore, played by Drew Barrymore, is an attractive young woman who lost her short-term memory in a car accident and wakes up every morning to believe it is Sunday, October 13.  You can imagine some of the comedic possibilities.  One thing about this young woman is that she has a charming openness to life.

This would not be a bad attitude for each of us to take.  Then “born again” would not become a hackneyed slogan and we might actually be able to “lighten up” and trust this Jesus fellow.

3.         If we can walk out of the dark and open ourselves to God’s holy, mysterious, awesome spirit we might actually be able to sing that favorite song of yesteryear:  “I’m beginning to see the light.”

            We will be able to “think biblically” and accept God on more than one level and in more than one sense.  We will be able to trust in Jesus and his wonderful gift of salvation.  We will, yes, be able to live in the costly grace to which Jesus invites us.  This is the grace given to us “from above” when Jesus is “lifted up” on the cross.  The is the grace given to us through the mind-blowing resurrection event.  This is the grace given to us by the God of Love.

            Even in darkness we can receive this grace to live as God’s spiritual people called to witness in God’s very physical world of principalities and powers.

            There are various paintings of Nicodemus and Jesus.  One of these is on display in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  It is by the only African American painter to also be displayed in the White House.  Henry Ossawa Tanner.  As it turns out Americans of African decent have had a special appreciation for Nicodemus.  There is even a predominantly black town in Kansas named Nicodemus, which was settled in the 1870s by newly freed slaves.

African American slaves grasped the significance of Nicodemus’s nightime visit to Jesus.  It set a precedent for their worship gatherings.  Slaves were allowed to participate in formal Christian worship only at their masters’ discretion; they were not allowed to have their own worship and rarely were allowed access to the Bible.  Therefore, they held clandestine religious gatherings at night, a practice that continued after emancipation.  The slaves saw in Nicodemus’s night visit proof that it was possible to come to Jesus even when those in power forbade it.  Nicodemus was a model ---someone who was willing to act on his own against the will of the authorities.  The slaves’ faith surpassed that of Nicodemus.  Nicodemus’s night visit was only exploratory, and in this story in John 3, he does not understand the invitation Jesus extends to him.  The slaves, by contrast, understood and embraced what Jesus had to offer.  They were willing to risk their safety and their very lives to come to Jesus.  They were indeed “beginning to see the light” even as they worshiped in the darkness of night.

This morning we are worshiping in the light, but we give thanks that Jesus can be approached even in the darkest night.  This Jesus invites us to “lighten up.”  He offers us his generous gift of honest love, just as he welcomed and challenged Nicodemus of old.  Praise God for this unspeakable gift!

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, we come to you on this bright Sunday, confident that you are here to meet us, sure that you have summoned us to this place of worship, praise and prayer.

Yet we are also confident that you come to us, that you call us, that you stand beside us in less inviting, in less beloved locations.  At the bedside, during times of suffering and sickness, in the middle of difficult tragedy, when we have lost our way and life’s journey has become unbearably confusing, when we feel very much alone, and the sky is very dark --- you come to us.  You are Lord of the night as well as the day.  You come to us, speak to us, show us the way, even in the night.

Because of you, we walk with confidence, sure that no matter how dark the night, you are there, especially there.  Amen.