This is the first Sunday in my seventeen years of ministry where I really don’t want to preach. I’m a finish-the-sermon-early kind of pastor. With the election on Tuesday, I figured I should wait until Wednesday to get the lay of the land before starting the sermon.
Since Wednesday, I have not had the words to do what God has called me here to do. I’m not even sure I have them today.
To be honest, a week like this puts the preacher in an impossible position. Some of you are sad about the election and are hoping that I’ll stand here on your side and say all the things you’re hoping I’d say. Some of you are just fine with it and wonder what all the fuss is about.
Wherever you are on this I want you to know three things. First, I hold your pain and joy and confusion as best I can, and I offer it all back to God. Second, I am a human being with my own joy and pain and confusion. The pastor is a person, and the weight of this season is incredibly heavy for me too.
Third, my job is to preach the gospel and to keep us anchored to that gospel, no matter what is going on around us. Why? Because God’s plan depends upon Christians who actually live according to what we encounter in Scripture. That’s what’s needed right now.
I cannot possibly know what burdens or questions or fears you are carrying with you in church today. Over the past few days I have borne witness to some of those things in passing conversations, in emails, and online. Some are having what St. John of the Cross called a “dark night of the soul.”
But do you know where Jesus is? Precisely where we need him. Even in the dark of night.
Our passage for today is one of the more familiar ones in all of the Bible. I also find it interesting that Nicodemus seeks Jesus out at night and that Jesus is there to be found at night. Nicodemus has questions. He asks them because they are questions whose answers could revolutionize his life, but he does so under the cover of darkness because he’s unsure whether he can trust Jesus or not.
But here is something I want us to notice: Nicodemus can ask Jesus whatever he wants, and Jesus will answer truthfully, whether or not Nicodemus is ready to receive his answers.
So, Nicodemus ventures into the night with his questions. He begins with an observation. “Jesus, you clearly have a gift that comes from God. There’s no other way you could do what you do.” But implied in his statement is insecurity about what this might mean. Jesus responds, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” The word Jesus uses is anothen, and we can translate that as “born from above” or “born again.”
What ensues is the closest the Bible gets to Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First?” routine. Jesus says anothen, born from above, and Nicodemus responds, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus says anothen and means born from above. Nicodemus hears anothen and starts thinking about the biological impossibility of an adult being literally born a second time. Jesus is speaking about the way God’s reign — the kingdom of God — is launching new life in people. They are learning how to live as those born from above. But Nicodemus cannot wrap his head around this. All he can think is about the impossibility of the whole thing.
The life of the one who truly has encountered Jesus becomes a life that is born from above. It will bear fruit that is noticeable and different and better than what we see all around us in a world that has not been born from above.
Still, there are a couple of things I want us to notice about this Jesus who meets our questions and uncertainty at night. First, Jesus is a good listener. Nicodemus has questions and confusion. Jesus never dismisses those. He listens. He answers. He never forces. He is clear and gentle and kind.
Second, Jesus is a truth-teller. He never bends the truth to win over Nicodemus. Jesus is clear that this is the way it works with God. You must be born from above. That is not something that can be forced, but it is the only way to life. John 3 gives a very clear picture of the gospel message — Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection is making a way for us to be born from above.
Third, John has made it clear that Jesus is the Word made flesh (we read that in chapter 1) and that he is the Light of the Word (we’ll get to that in chapter 8). In the hushed darkness of the night, Jesus’ words speak truth and understanding and his light shines the way through the darkness. He is the one still calling to all who would hear today. Do you want to know fullness of life — the eternal kind of life that is available to you even right now in the dark of night? You must be born from above. And when you are born from above, your life changes. You bear fruit that continues to bring light and life into the world, not just to you but to all who encounter you.
This chapter, of course, gives us those famous words that have adorned signs in end zones through the years. John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
For God so loved the world. Not just a person here or there. Not just certain nations or continents or tropical vacation spots. The world. Every square inch of it. Even the dark alleys. Even the spaces where despair is so deep that people feel God has abandoned them. Even the places called God-forsaken. God loves them. No exception. All the time. With a never-ending, never-giving-up kind of love that loves you the same way, no matter what you’re carrying with you in worship. God loves you. God loves the world so much that God is redeeming it all through Jesus in God’s own time and way…even when the night seems darkest.
So, what does this look like in your life and in communities that are striving to live that God-soaked kingdom life that is born from above? My mind went to two passages penned by the Apostle Paul, a person whose very life went from darkness to light because of his encounter with Jesus. I offer these to you because I think they are lenses through which you can see how your life is doing. They are also lenses through which you can see how events in our community and beyond are or are not aligned with the life that is born from above.
I begin with what Paul calls the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5. Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Generosity. Faithfulness. Gentleness. Self-control. Is this the fruit of your life? Is this how you treat others? Is this how your business works? But this isn’t just about personal behavior. Are these the things that motivate us as a society, community, or nation? Paul contrasts these with what he calls the works of the flesh — enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness. If you feel your life is being taken over by such things, I urge you to invite God’s Spirit to work in those spaces and replace them with a love that can revolutionize your life and beyond.
God also drew me to Romans 12. Paul is writing to churches that are in the belly of the beast, at the very capital of the Roman empire that demanded a very different kind of allegiance than Jesus describes. Just let these words wash over you. They are a challenge and a balm for weary souls.
1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
9-10 Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle.
11-13 Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality.
14-16 Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy; share tears when they’re down. Get along with each other; don’t be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody.
17-19 Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody. Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. “I’ll do the judging,” says God. “I’ll take care of it.”
20-21 Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he’s thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.
Jesus meets us when and where we need him most. He met Nicodemus under the cover of darkness so he could bring all of his questions to Jesus. He’ll come two more times to Jesus in this gospel, still seeking the answers that will lead him to life. Interestingly, in the next chapter, Jesus meets a woman at a well at noon — right in the middle of the day because she was so rejected by her community it was the time she knew she could avoid them. Jesus met her there because she needed him.
So, wherever you are today, I hope that you will cling to this truth. Jesus meets us where we need him most. He is faithful. He will change your life for the better and for eternity.
We’ve asked this question all fall, and so I bring it to us once again: Who are you becoming? As you seek to love and follow Jesus in a broken and fearful world, is your life bearing fruit as one that is born from above?
