Sermon for Lent 2: "Jesus and Nicodemus"

+ Lent 2 – March 8^th, 2020 +

Series A: Genesis 12:1-9; Romans 4:1-8; John 3:1-17

Beautiful Savior Lutheran

Milton, WA

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

John 3 is probably one of the more well-known, familiar chapters in the New Testament. There’s a lot going on here: Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus, Baptism as a new birth from above by water and the Spirit, and of course, the famous John 3:16 passage that many of us, no doubt, have memorized. When a section of Scripture is as familiar as John 3 is, it’s good to let ourselves be carried along, like a kayak paddling down river to the sound, and let Jesus’ Word lead us where he would have us go – to his death and resurrection for us.  

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night 

Already at the beginning, this story is different. Nicodemus, the pharisee, comes to Jesus alone, at night, John tells us. It’s a subtle, but important detail. It’s not a time-stamp as much as it is a spiritual diagnosis of Nicodemus, and of our own sin. Apart from Christ we’re all in the dark, like Nicodemus, blinded and alone in the night of sin. If there is to be any faith or life in Jesus, it will have to be Jesus who calls us out of darkness into his marvelous light.

What’s interesting, at the start of this whole conversation, is that Jesus answers a question that Nicodemus hasn’t asked yet. But like a good Rabbi, he’s leading us to the right question and the right answer.

Nicodemus is drawn to Jesus by his signs, like a moth drawn to a porchlight at night. That’s what all of Jesus’ miracles are, signs that point to Jesus identity as the Son of God in human flesh and his greatest sign of salvation on the cross for us. By the end of their conversation, Jesus will point us all to his greatest sign yet to come, his being lifted up on the cross. Jesus wants to open Nicodemus’ eyes – and heart, mind, and soul – to see him as the kingdom of God in human flesh.

“Truly, truly, I say to you - Whenever Jesus says those two words together, “Amen. Amen.” it’s a good reminder that whatever comes next is important. “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 

Now, we might hear Jesus’ words and think – like many have thought – that what Jesus means is that to be born again is to be really Christian or some kind of super-Christian. But that’s not what he’s saying at all. The better translation is this: Unless one is born from above. 

Nicodemus, who is in the dark about these things, hears it as “born again.” “How can a man be born when he is old? How can he enter again into his mother’s womb?” That’s outrageously silly nonsense!

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. ⁶ That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 

To be born of flesh is to be born “from below,” as we all are born “from below” as children of Adam, born in sin. If you are “flesh” then you are born from below, of the flesh. To be born of the Spirit is to be born spiritually, “from above.” 

St. Augustine had this to say about Jesus and Nicodemus: “Nicodemus knew only one birth from Adam and Eve. He did not yet know the birth from God and the church. He knew only the parents who beget death. He did not yet know the parents who beget life…Though there are two births, he only knew one. One is from the flesh, the other from the Spirit. One is from mortality, the other from eternity. One of from male and female, the other from God and the church”

How can this be? He asks Jesus. Are you a teacher of Israel, Jesus says, and you do not understand these things.  If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

These things a “spiritually discerned,” as the apostle Paul put it. In the dark, in our natural man, born of flesh of Adam, we’re like Nicodemus; we cannot comprehend these things, cannot come to know God, cannot believe in Jesus Christ or come to Him. These are heavenly things, and we are earthly creatures. We cannot reach up to God. God must reach down to us. No one has gone up into heaven but One has come down from heaven, the Son of Man, the Son of God, the Son of Israel, Jesus our Lord. He is the Word become Flesh, the only-begotten Son enfleshed in our humanity. He is God reaching down to us, all the way down, to save us.

Jesus comes from above to rescue us who are below. Jesus is born below with us, as one of us, to bring us a new birth from above by his dying and rising. 

as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵ that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “For God loved the world in this manner, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 

This is where Jesus has been leading Nicodemus, and us, all along. To himself. To see the kingdom of God in Jesus enthroned on the cross for you. This is the way God loves you, by giving himself for you. Giving his Son to die for you on the cross. Giving his Word full of the breath of life and his Spirit in your ears to work faith in your hearts. Giving you a new birth from above by water and the Spirit. Giving you his own flesh and blood for your forgiveness.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 

After Jesus speaks, we don’t hear how Nicodemus responded to Jesus’ words. He drops out of the story until he reminds the pharisees that Jesus should receive a fair trial in John 7, and then again in John 19 where Nicodemus shows up in broad daylight with Joseph of Arimathea and brings a royal amount of burial spices for Jesus’ burial. It would seem that Jesus’ words in John 3 have done what he intended to do for Nicodemus, to bring him and carry him along to see the kingdom of God revealed on the cross, and the King crucified for him, and for all. 

John 3 does a similar thing for us as well. We are Nicodemus, come to Jesus by night, and changed by his words, by his life, by his promises. Jesus carries us all the way downstream to see in Him our suffering, sacrificial king who gives us a new birth from above and brings us into his kingdom through his cross.

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.