Genesis 12:1-4a; John 3:1-17
March 5, 2023
- Faith without understanding – following God into the unknown.
You want me to go where? How many of us would be willing to go on a two week trip completely planned by someone else, and you have no idea where you will go or what you will do? Sure, some of you have done mystery tours in which you pack your bags with a busload of others for a trip somewhere that you do not know, but there are plenty of people who are not even willing to do that, even with a crowd traveling with them. How about if it were just you or just you and one other? That might change your choice if there is no tour guide to actually go with you and keep you on the right path.
Flip the script even more. Let’s say someone is planning a new home for you in another land you have never seen and do not know to live the rest of your life. How about I set you up with a new life in Uzbekistan? The military might require something like this for some of its soldiers, but they will at least tell you where you are going to live and help prepare you for the move. I cannot imagine anyone of us would be willing to jump on the plane to go live somewhere completely foreign and unknown for the rest of our lives with simply the promise that “it will be interesting!”
And yet, that is fairly close to what Abram and Sarai did when God called him and his household to a new place, a new life, a new chapter in a story they would have to write together. We have no clue how or why Abram did this. There is no discussion, no question, no negotiation. We have no clue how or why Sarai went along with this plan. She had no problem speaking up at certain other times. Abram also raised questions or “what-ifs” at other times. Here, there is silence, just the sound of feet walking across the page in a direction they never imagined for a reason we will never know. We don’t know why they listened and followed. We don’t know their motivation for following a God they had never met before. They simply trusted God’s promise and left.
You want me to go where? This is Nicodemus’ reservation in this famous conversation about how to be a part of the Kingdom of God. He likes Jesus. He wants to believe Jesus. He is not opposed to Jesus’ ministry as other Pharisees were. All Pharisees were not against Jesus, by the way, but there were certainly a number who were, especially among the ruling Pharisees. Still, Nicodemus is afraid of being seen with Jesus and comes to speak with him in secret under the cover of night.
John’s Gospel is different from all of the other Gospels for a number of reasons, not least because this Gospel does not tell the story of what Jesus did and did and did. Instead, John wants us to know who Jesus is as the Son of God and how he shares oneness with God. Jesus in John’s Gospel spends time talking with people in different situations, showing us aspects to being in God’s heart. Every story in John’s Gospel is meant to teach, and Nicodemus is no different. It is kind of hard to not feel sorry for Nicodemus. You can almost hear him thinking, “Help me in my unbelief!” He wants to understand, but the ideas are just too big and too different from anything he has known before. “Who would NOT want to be in God’s Kingdom? What do you mean I have to be born a second time from above? What does that even mean?” It is easy to understand his confusion. Just reading it today can be confusing. Jesus is not being crystal clear, even for people who should know more today. He uses words that can literally mean multiple things. He is being intentionally ambiguous. There is a birth that is different from the natural, first birth. Somehow it is supposed to be from God. This birth is maybe about baptism because of the water, and it also requires the Holy Spirit which is whichever and wherever. There was a time in the Book of Acts when believers were baptized with water but had not received the Holy Spirit which was odd for that time. The Spirit was hopping in those days. You’d think it would want to share its presence as much as possible, but it blows as it blows.
Nicodemus cannot get past the second birth. He is struggling with this concept and does not know how to proceed, but here is the thing. He does not have to understand it. Just like Abram and Sarai did not have to know the path or where they were going or what was going to really happen in order to follow. You could follow Jesus without understanding the second birth or the finer points of baptism or how the Holy Spirit works. If you want to follow Jesus, if you want to be part of God’s Kingdom, if you want to be in the life of our Lord, just embrace it. The key is to do it with others. When we are searching and working and worshipping and serving and learning together, we stand a much better chance of ending up in a better way.
Yet, Jesus does lay into Nicodemus for claiming to be a teacher and leader in faith who does not grasp this basic idea. If we want to be with God, we have to be from God. If we want to be in God’s Kingdom, we must be new people. Everybody begins in the world and of the world, but the world is not who we are meant to remain. We are born into human families, but we become part of God’s family. Being really good worldly people is not our goal.
I’m right there with Nicodemus. I would be worried about impressing Jesus and trying to get his teaching. I would want to show how I am a good student. The moment the situation began to go sideways, though, I’d get flustered and confused and frustrated. My attempt to show Jesus that I was open to him and cared about what he said just showed him how incompetent I was. That is literally where this story goes. I’m sure NONE of you has had that kind of experience before. It is like meeting your hero, someone you have always wanted to meet, and the moment you finally meet, all you can think to talk about is the weather. Unless your hero is a meteorologist, that is a bust.
I wonder if that’s why John moves right into one of the most important verses in the Bible. With Nicodemus floundering before him, Jesus expresses the heart of God with such magnificent clarity that children memorize this passage. This is it. “For God so loved the world….” is most, most likely the very first Bible passage that you learned. It is the gospel story in the nutshell. God loved us so much that we were given God’s Son so that we might live together forever. Boom. Mic drop. There it is. And the next verse, the last one I read is only slightly less significant. It is especially crucial if you are struggling with feelings of worth and guilt and sin. Jesus did not come into the world to condemn us but to save us. Honestly, once we memorize John 3:16, maybe we spend the rest of our life holding 3:17. It frames our relationship with the Christ. Life is hard, harder than hard. Thinking about being born a second time is actually a fairly appropriate image. Labor is hard. Back then it was much more dangerous, to boot. I found out the other day that my mother’s labor with me was long and difficult with my more-than-9 lbs. self. I was weeks late, and I told my mother that’s what happens when you leave the food in the oven too long, it overcooks. She did not appreciate my insight, but it was my birthday, so she could not fuss too much. The births of Jesus’ day were far more difficult, and many mothers and children did not even survive. It is one picture of the struggle that was their way of life.
None of us would do very well jumping into the life of a first century Jew. Forget Uzbekistan; try moving to first century Judea. Of course, back then they only knew that life, but that did not make it any easier. They were starved for something better, so when Jesus came and began showing them something different and announced God’s Kingdom come, they could not contain their enthusiasm. This was big change for people that needed change. Nicodemus so wanted that change, too.
The easy path would have been for Sarai and Abram to stay home. The easy path would have been for Nicodemus to go back to his life and forget Jesus who was too tough to understand. Without Abram and Sarai, the people of Israel would not have happened. Nicodemus did not give up but was there at Jesus’ death and provided the spices and perfumes to begin his burial. He provided proper care for Jesus’ body. They did not know what following God would mean, but they gave themselves to the harder path. They knew they needed a greater love.
Some people of God want a sign, just some hint of what God wants us to do. We might be open but want that special message from on high. Is it better to wait and do nothing or to work on, doing what you can, seeking the Spirit of God in our daily struggle? When we walk in faith wherever God provides a path, we may not understand it, but if it is loving and redeeming for the people of God, if it shows the goodness of being brothers and sisters in Christ, if it invites the Spirit of God into our midst, then it worth the labor. We are in this as a labor of love, and as people who have been born from above, we will keep working to our last day. To God be the glory. Amen.