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Invariably, it happens in the middle of the night. We cannot sleep. The chatter in our heads is filled with questions, doubts, wonderings and wanderings. We may even shed a tear or two. We are having a Nicodemus moment… We can only imagine what might have propelled that first-century Jewish scholar and religious leader out of his comfortable bed, leaving his well-apportioned home, and diving into the cold, dark shadows of night to find that itinerant teacher and healer. Nicodemus’ behavior in seeking out Jesus is inconsistent with and even questionable for a man of his stature.
We are accustomed in the Christian gospels to hearing about Jesus being approached by the poor, the lost, the least of society. Story after story features characters who temporarily flee their otherwise invisible place in society to ask Jesus courageously for healing or to beg for mercy or to dare to demand of him the strong legs necessary to walk again. These people are not like us, though we vainly try to put ourselves in their needy sandals. But this man, this Nicodemus whose story we hear today, he is one of us. He has a home, a prominent position in the community; he wears impressive academic letters after his name. When Nicodemus walks down
State Street
, or goes shopping at the donut-hole plaza, he is stopped not once, but many times by people who want his opinion, who seek a moment of his recognition, and who then can say to their friends, “Do you know who I talked with today?” Contrary to the so-called “losers” of society with whom Jesus hangs out in the daytime, this nighttime visitor is a man to whom we can relate. His demons, like ours, appear in the middle of the night.
Sleepless, restless, Nicodemus arises and puts on a heavy hooded cloak, hoping thereby to avoid recognition. He cannot risk being seen by his other respected colleagues, for they would rightly wonder if his faith needed a little fine-tuning. If seen, the other prominent teachers would most certainly judge him for his misguided faith, and so Nicodemus goes looking for Jesus under cover of night, taking with him his questions and his doubts.
Unlike others we read about in scripture that approach Jesus in tremendous and urgent need of healing, or food, or forgiveness, who are vulnerable and open, Nicodemus, for all his power and prestige, comes to Jesus with openness but in another kind of need. In the middle of that dark night of the soul, Nicodemus brings his need for answers, and for help in understanding the answers he gets.
Who of us cannot relate to Nicodemus? Our similarities to him reach far beyond the comforts of home and hearth. We, too, seek answers to our questions of faith. We, too, seek understanding when those answers are received, but appear indecipherable. We, too, like Nicodemus, may be tempted to keep these questions covered, cloaked, shrouded by the dark of night, afraid of embarrassing ourselves. Like this prominent teacher of the first century world, we may seek Jesus and the answers he can provide, only at night, when those demons simply will not allow us to get a decent night’s sleep.
The story Nicodemus embodies is a story rich in symbolism and subtle shades of meaning. It is a story designed to address cultural questions of faith in late first-century Christianity. To understand the story in our century, it is helpful for us to recall that, until just a few years prior to its writing, the early Christians had been protected by the presence of the temple in
Jerusalem
. Perceived as merely a cultural addendum to Judaism, early Christians had freedoms that this late first-century community could only long for. As with the rest of John’s gospel, the story of Nicodemus was written to comfort those early Christians who were undergoing painful separation from the protected Jewish society to which its members had belonged, and who, with the recent destruction of the temple, now were forced to face life in the harsh daylight of Roman imperial theology. When the author of John speaks of “the Jews,” for example, as he or she repeatedly does, it is not the entire Jewish people being described, but rather these are references to the synagogue authorities of a particular time and place, authorities whose judgmental faith was an increasing deterrent to those seeking to follow Jesus outside the protection of Jewish religious structures.
Look at this cultural and religious context of survival. Nicodemus, leader of the synagogue, Pharisee who knows Jewish law as well as anyone in the town, is much more than a seeker. He embodies the subtle belief that Jesus’ work was about transforming Judaism. Within this cultural and religious context of survival, even the so-called “cover of night” becomes metaphor aptly describing the new ways in which these Christians must now live and move. Their freedoms gone, their lives at risk, they, like the Pharisee they sometimes despise, must seek answers from Jesus in the darkest hours of night.
Like the entire gospel of John from which it is drawn, the dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus also contains irony and paradox opening up new levels of meaning. At issue for Nicodemus is the question of faith. And, as he approaches Jesus, Nicodemus also approaches that question of faith boldly and directly. These two men speak of the birth of flesh and the birth of spirit as though they were women discussing these matters at their Lamaze class. Surely one must be born from above—or of Spirit—just as one is born below, on the earth and of the earth. Jesus speaks of the soft blowing of Spirit’s wind, poetically realizing that wind is breath of God and breath of God blows wherever it wishes. We humans cannot see it, but by its effect. Though we can hear it, even the sound of it belies direction. So it is, says poet Jesus, with everyone who is born of Spirit.
Nicodemus, it must be said, does not share Jesus’ love of poetry, nor does he share Jesus’ appreciation of metaphor. Nicodemus is a scholar, a thinker more than a feeler; he is one who speaks the language of the academy, a man at home with his stacks of scrolls and evening pipe. Nicodemus loves an engaging discussion about jots and tittles—those tiny markings in the Hebrew language upon which whole translations rise and fall. And that, it must be said, was what he was hoping for in seeking out Jesus by night.
But this Jesus, he is nothing like Nicodemus had imagined. Flustered by the poetry, weary of the metaphor, Nicodemus responds like any of us would have responded, “Huh? How can these things be?” Jesus lovingly mocks Nicodemus suggesting that as a lofty teacher of
Israel
, he most certainly was capable of understanding these most basic concepts of human birth. As they sit discussing easy things, things they have both witnessed, Jesus muses that if such earthly things are confounding Nicodemus, certainly heavenly matters will do him in.
It is then that the now famous quote appears—a quote we see broadcast in our century at football games and other sporting events. “John 3:16” on a banner is nothing like Jesus originally intended, at least not in the context of this
midnight
conversation. The lead-in Jesus provided has not been about the multiple choice test of believing in him or being condemned to hell, as these ballpark evangelists would have us believe. Jesus has not set the stage for his own ascendancy, but is paving the way for this teacher of Israel to know and experience and be open and vulnerable to the Spirit’s movement, blowing as it does like the wind, birthing new possibilities as it does like a mother. Jesus seems not at all concerned with the text of Nicodemus’ creed, with what he believes and why. Rather, step by step, Jesus is building a case for belief that is based solely in the love of God. Reference after biblical reference, metaphor following metaphor—from birth itself to the wind of the Spirit to Moses raising the serpent in the wilderness as a sign that God would not abandon the desert wanderers to death—Jesus skillfully argues in the presence of one of Judaism’s finest lawyers the case that God still is love…God still is in love with humanity. That love, argues Jesus, is the only basis upon which his own life and ministry have meaning. And that meaning Jesus seems to be trying to communicate to Nicodemus is about assuring him that God will not abandon him to death, but once again provides a pathway through the wilderness of the lonely and dark night of the soul.
The question of faith for us, some 20 centuries later, is of course, can God be counted on to do the same on nights when we cannot sleep…when the chatter in our heads is filled with questions, doubts, wonderings and wanderings…when we shed a tear or two…when we are having a Nicodemus moment…can the love of God reach past that chaotic first century to embrace us as it did Nicodemus? Are we daring enough as was Nicodemus to venture out into the unknown shadows to grasp that, ultimately and foundationally, God is not at all interested in our beliefs, our creeds, our crutches of institutional religion upon which we lean for support? God simply and purely wants to love us and wants desperately for us to love God in return. Through love, declares Jesus to Nicodemus…(and to us as we stand with them in the dark night of our souls)…through love and only through love, are we led to our own salvation.
Several years ago, theologian and retired professor of religion from the University of Redlands, Doug Bowman was leading a series of adult classes here for us. He told a story about faith that has remained as ingrained in many of our souls as the familiar words of John 3:16. It is a story that bears repeating. Doug told about receiving a phone call one day while he was in his study at the university. The caller was from Reader’s Digest, and was asking if he would be willing to be interviewed on matters of faith. Doug agreed and the interviewer proceeded with question #1. Now, those of you who have been interviewed by a newspaper or journal, know that they usually begin with the easy stuff, lull you into believing that all will be safe, and then, as if from left field, throw a curve ball late in the interview designed to derail even the most thoughtful and focused of speakers. So Doug prepared to field the easy stuff.
First question: “Do you believe in God?” to which Doug replied, “No.” Silence from the other end of the line. In all fairness to the interviewer, this question was a logical one—a simple one—to be asking of a leading Christian religion professor. It was the easy stuff, from which more complicated questions were meant to emanate. But this easy question, as Doug reported, stopped the interview instantly. The caller fumbled with words, and there was more embarrassing silence. “What do you mean…you don’t believe in God? How can you, a Christian, say you don’t believe in God?” We can almost hear echoes of Nicodemus, wondering aloud, how these simple things could become so complicated. Considerately, Doug redeemed the conversation, saying quietly to the befuddled caller, “I don’t believe in God…I know God…”
In much the same way, the early Christian community, confused, frightened, unprotected as they were, heard Jesus speak these words of comfort to Nicodemus in the middle of his darkest night: God loves the world so much that God gave the world a child, and provided a pathway for all to live through the shadows as did that grown-up child of God…a pathway of compassion and grace, a pathway devoid of creedal rigidity, a pathway paved with love, by love, and through love, so that condemnation is transformed into salvation, and death changed forever into life. Come, friends, the pathway awaits through any dark night our soul can imagine or will ever experience, and at its darkest point with its most penetrating shadows and its most painful questions, stand Nicodemus and Jesus to welcome us home.
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