2 Lent A John 3:1-17 24 February 2002
Rev. Roger Haugen
Remember the last time you had a question and someone answered it with another question? The conversation takes a whole new direction. Peter Gzowski, the CBC host who died this past month, was said to be such a good interviewer because his questions were always such that people found themselves revealing more than they had intended. A good question can get to the very heart of the matter, or get to the real question that may not be so obvious.
Nicodemus
comes to Jesus in the dark with questions.
Is this Jesus to be taken seriously?
Those of us who were at the Lenten service this past week saw Nicodemus
with a puzzled and questioning look, but an interested look, on his face as
Jesus taught. So Nicodemus comes to
Jesus and says, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from
God. And he begins to look for proof
to confirm his ideas. Jesus turns the
tables and speaks about that which defies logic, You must be born from above,
or born again, were not sure which Jesus meant, or was he simply playing with
words with a master of words like Nicodemus?
Nicodemus
asks a question, How can anyone be born after having grown old? The conversation continues with one question
answering another. The questions of
Jesus push Nicodemus further than he could handle and you have to think he went
away, shaking his head, with more questions than answers. Miracles and great signs were easier to
comprehend than this being born from above.
Or are they?
One
of the greatest tensions between mainline churches and the evangelicals has
been the conversion experience. Growing
up, I would have to admit that I suffered from conversion envy. I would hear great stories of conversion,
the slave trader who wrote Amazing Grace, the axe-murdered who turns his
life over to Jesus and becomes a great preacher, and I would look at my life
and it would seem pale in comparison.
Saul is much more exciting than Nicodemus.
A
group of theological students watched the movie, The Apostle in which Robert
Duvall playing the role of the shady evangelist, Sonny, realizes the errors
of his ways and drives his Lincoln into a river. When he comes up, he immerses
himself in the river in a re-baptism and goes about to care for the poor. The theological students didnt get it, but
an evangelical would know so very well what was going on. Nicodemus comes secretly to Jesus with
questions, goes away confused but keeps listening to Jesus, asking questions in
his mind and comes to faith. It is
Nicodemus who help Joseph of Arimathea bury Jesus. An evangelical wouldnt get it, but we get it.
Nicodemus
could be an honorary Lutheran! We are
more comfortable with a growing faith than a miraculous change, although both
happen and everything in between. We
speak of baptism and the beginning of our faith journey during which we
discover what this gift from God means for our lives. We speak in terms of nurturing faith, growing in our baptism.
My
experience has been less than dramatic.
I was baptized when I was about a month old. I grew up in a Christian home where there was the picture of the
old man saying grace over our kitchen table and the painting of Jesus on the
Road to Emmaus over the couch. I
continually found myself among people who lived their Christian faith. I attended worship where I heard of Gods
love for me, and seldom experienced any else but Gods love through the adults
I knew. I lived in a Christian
sub-culture that touched every aspect of my life.
Through
the churchs youth group I met Pastor Jerry Ebbinga who continually asked me
difficult questions that sent me off with more questions than answers, but I
kept coming back for more. I had
Elsworth Pederson as one of my teachers who, on the last day of my Grade 12
exams, wished me well and said I had the ability to do anything I should
choose. Many others were a part of my
faith journey. I wandered off to find
where demons dwell, as we sing in Borning Cry, but even that was not
too dramatic. Through it all, I have
had a sense of the presence and love of God being with me. My story has its
share of pain, ups and downs, successes and failures, like everyone else. I tell you my story because it is my story
of faith. It is not dramatic, I would
have to say that I am more like Nicodemus than Paul. As Jesus said, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify
to what we have seen. This is part of
my story of God working in my life. How
would you story be told? Your story is
yours and no one elses.
The
problem comes when we get stuck in our own particular way of coming to faith,
and expect it to be everyones experience.
The evangelicals do it, God working only through dramatic conversion and
if you cant give a powerful testimony there is something wrong. We mainliners do it, thinking that faith is
a rational and logical process that has little room for emotion. Nicodemus did it, thinking that faith was
being true to the Torah.
God
does not work only in the ways that make us comfortable. We are told that the Spirit moves where it
wills. Gods predisposition is that all
will come to know Gods love, that all will be saved, and that all will live
out this love in our daily lives. God
is not some judgemental ogre caught up in the silly little acts that we call
sins looking for ways to punish us.
Yes, to John 3:16 but yes also to John 3:17, Indeed, God did not
send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world
might be saved through him.
St.
Augustine wrote a prayer that cuts across all theological lines, it speaks to
the deep question that all human beings have.
He prays, My soul is restless until I find my rest in you. This restlessness takes many forms, comes
out in many questions. The Spirit moves
amongst us, helping us all to ask the questions that will help our soul rest.
The
Spirit also moves amongst us inviting us to help others ask their
questions. We do not need to have the
answers, in fact my answer is likely of little use to your question. But I can tell you of what I have
experienced, what I know. Sometimes the
best we can do is to answer, Come and see.
The
Spirit also moves amongst us to give us the courage to open ourselves up to the
possibility of asking questions.
Sometimes it is easier to lock in on certainties, which are seldom
certain, and not allow for any other options.
There is a commercial running during the Olympics that says something to
the effect, Life is short. No one ever
gets to the end and says, I wish I had played it safe. I think many do get to the end and
regret having played it safe. We need
to be vulnerable to the questions and see them as ways in which God opens us up
to the possibilities he has created for us.
To be open to the love of God which can make us all that God created us
to be.
We
may be like Nicodemus, slowly growing in faith, or we may be like Paul, blinded
on the road to Damascus. Gods hope for
each one of us is that we might experience the love of God and the relationship
with God through Jesus so that this love flows in all directions. This is the love that Paul speaks of in 1
Corinthians 13, a love that grew out of his relationship with God beginning
that day of the Road to Damascus. This
is the love that helped significant people in my life to ask tough
questions. This is the love that led
Nicodemus to supply the spices for the burial of Jesus.
Today
we remember Nicodemus, the pre-Christian who came to Jesus, in the protection
of night, and asked some questions.
Those questions, and the questions that Jesus asked in response made all
the difference in his life.
So
what questions do you have today? Dare
to ask them, and see what God has in store for you.