"Nicodemus at Night"

John 3:1-17 

Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC, Manhattan, KS

January 23, 2022

Nicodemus came to Jesus at night. 

It seems to be their first meeting. Nicodemus was a prominent leader in the Jewish community and seems to have heard about what Jesus has been up to – you know: disrupting the lives of everyday people by inviting them to “come and see” the new thing God is doing in their midst, turning water into wine at a wedding, turning over tables in the temple. 

Nicodemus knows a few things about who Jesus is and what he’s come to do. Or at least he thinks he does. And so he goes to Jesus – at night, John is careful to tell us that he goes at night – and makes a statement, “Teacher,” he says, “The things you’ve been doing….those are only things that can be done by a person who is filled with God’s presence.”

And so, the implied questions that I hear as they hang in the silence there between these two strangers as they sit in the stillness of the night, “Teacher, how do you do these incredible things?” “Teacher, why are you here?” 

“Teacher, who are you?”

Jesus, of course, answers none of these implied questions. Instead, he does what Jesus so often does. He changes the subject a little. “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the Reign of God without being born from above.”

Nicodemus, a bit confused but intent on learning, presses on. “How can a person be born again after they’ve already grown old? What do you mean, Jesus?” And so Jesus gives him a bit more, “Well, it has to do with water and the Spirit.” But Nicodemus is still caught up in the details and wants specifics. Jesus’s answer is essentially a non-answer – at least to the specific questions Nicodemus is asking – he says, “The wind blows as it chooses, and you hear it, but you don’t fully understand how or why it is blowing. That’s kind of how it is, being born in the Spirit.”

Poor Nicodemus. I don’t think he’s getting what he came for exactly, do you? There are all kinds of theories about why Nicodemus came to Jesus and why, in particular, he came at night. Some say he came at night because he was embarrassed to be seen with Jesus, others because he didn’t want Jesus to get in trouble for talking with him. I tend to have another theory, though, and it’s this: maybe Nicodemus came at night because that’s when it’s hardest to be alone with your own thoughts. 

It’s funny how you can have a perfectly fine day – not thinking too much about the big stuff. But then at night, everything feels different. In our family, we call this “the nighttime worries.” At night, the silence is louder, the stillness is downright oppressive, and the voices inside your head won’t quiet down and let you rest. The big questions come. The sense of emptiness can feel immense. If you’re lucky, you can drift off to sleep, but if you’ve ever laid awake in bed, you know that time is also strange at night. Hours and hours can pass, but then you roll over and look at your clock to discover it’s only been 15 minutes. 

And so I imagine Nicodemus, tossing and turning in bed. Dealing with the big stuff – whatever his big stuff was, we don’t know. Maybe he was worried about his kids, or feeling guilty about something he should have done but didn’t, or remembering his parents and wishing he could see them again one more time, or counting his pennies in the bank and wondering how he would pay his bills. Maybe he had an inexplicable pain that couldn’t be fixed, maybe he felt sad for no reason at all, maybe he felt remorse about some long-ago act that he couldn’t undo, maybe he simply noticed, as all of us do from time to time, that he wasn’t getting any younger, that the days were flying by at warp speed. 

We don't know exactly what was ailing Nicodemus on this particular night. Gosh, he might not have even known what was bothering him. Do you ever get like that? Just generally uneasy or anxious or miserable….and you’re not sure why? We just know that he was drawn to Jesus. Seeking something.  

And Jesus delivers. Whatever it was that ailed him, Jesus offered the salve. “Let’s not have a philosophical debate about who I am or where my authority comes from,” says Jesus. “Let’s get right to it. Let’s get right down to what I can offer you. Salvation. It’s easy. All you have to do is be born again.”

Of course, being born again is not exactly that simple, right? Nicodemus cracks me up a little as he struggles with the concept, “What, am I supposed to crawl back into my mother’s womb and be born again?” No, no, that’s not it, of course. So what is it, exactly? Well, Jesus never does give us a 1, 2, 3 step process to follow. Instead, he speaks in generalities. Something about water and the Spirit. 

As Christians, of course, we start to think about baptism when we hear “water and the spirit” but I think it’s also important to remember that God’s movement through water and the Spirit existed long before the practice of baptism. Biblical scholar Robert Williamson, Jr. reminded me that way, way back the prophet Ezekiel said something very similar. [1] He said that God would come to the people in a sprinkle of cleansing water and that God would put a new heart into them and a new spirit, too. God has always been holding out this offer to humans - this offer of love, this opportunity to begin again, this invitation to ground ourselves firmly in our identity as children of God, our spiritual Mother. 

Turning towards the Spirit is how we keep going in a world that too-often defaults towards hate and fear and violence. We root ourselves in water and the spirit and God’s ways to love and justice and peace. Baptism is an outward and visible sign of this inward and invisible truth: we belong to God. 

I have the fortune of remembering my baptism because I was about 5 years old when I was baptized by immersion. I remember feeling a little vulnerable when it happened. I held my breath and I went under and for a split second I thought, “Is everything going to be okay? Am I coming right back up?” I did, of course, and everything was just fine. But I’ve never forgotten the feeling of vulnerability in that moment. 

That vulnerability makes me think a little of Nicodemus, coming to Jesus as night. Most of us aren’t willing to be born anew if everything in our lives is going just peachy. Most of us don’t realize just how much we need the loving care of the Spirit when things are fine. No, it’s often in the night when we realize we need the Spirit. And it’s when we’re dunked into that tomb of water for just a split second that we realize how much we need the air around us that we take for granted. 

This is what Jesus offers Nicodemus. Air. Oxygen. Release from fear. The opportunity to be born anew. A chance to be saved from what ails him and the gift of being a witness - sharing his story with others and inviting them to be rooted in God, too. 

Nicodemus took that leap of faith into the wild and wonderful and terrifying world of water and the Spirit. He was willing to radically reorient himself and begin the journey of being born again and again and again. After all, being born anew is not about doing something one time and checking it off on a list. 

And it isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s for the desperate, actually. It’s for those who, like Nicodemus, lay awake at night. It’s for those who feel trapped underwater, unable to find the air they need to survive. And so, it might not be for you – not right now. And that’s okay. But the promise remains. The invitation is always there. 

God loved the world in this way: God sent Jesus to show us how to live and to transform and heal us. God sent Jesus to be our light, our air, our healing balm. And as this particular story reminds us, we - the world - don’t quite know what to do with that kind of love. And so our ancestors did what humans too often do, they leaned instead into hate, fear, violence. Just like we often do now. We do ourselves no favors if we look away from the awful things humans have done and are doing to each other. The crucifixion reminds us of that. As much as we might want to look away, Jesus tells us it's important to be willing to look at the fullness of our brokenness and sin as humans. 

Because it is to us - needy, messed up, lying awake at night, unsure, falling-apart human beings - it is to us that God keeps coming again and again in love. In water. In the Spirit. In Christ - sent to us over and over and over again, even now, even to us, speaking of hope – abundant life – new possibilities – redemption – salvation. 

For all who are needy, hear the good news: the promise of new life abides. The invitation abides. Salvation abides. Still. 

Thanks be to God. Amen.

NOTES:

[1] With gratitude to Robert Williamson, Jr.’s thoughts on this in this week’s episode of the Bible Worm podcast.