Message 02-17-08

Series:            Lectionary [traditional]

Scripture:            John 3:1-17

Title:                                        In the Chill of the Night

The author of the Gospel of John had a purpose in writing his book about Jesus. He tells it to us explicitly. At the end of chapter 20 we read: …these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. John was quite particular in what he shared about Jesus. He tells us of only 7 miracles or “signs” as he called them. He quotes Jesus as calling attention to himself and explaining himself with 7 different statements that begin “I Am”, like I am the good shepherd, I am the vine and you are the branches, I am the way, the truth and the life… John used specific themes like light and dark, legal expressions like testimony and witness and day and night.

John was trying to tell us something about Jesus and he didn’t want us to miss it. He carefully chose his words because he wanted us to hear the right things so that as we heard who Jesus was we would come to believe in Jesus and find life, the life that John himself felt he found. So John lifts up for us a handful of conversations that Jesus had with different people of that time. We see Jesus talking with people he healed. We see Jesus speaking with a gentile woman. We see Jesus talking with a woman of low reputation at a well. But the first of the conversations John brings to us is this one.  This is the story of the Pharisee, Nicodemus, who comes to Jesus in the dark. This is the story of Nick at night.

It is a curious thing, a Pharisee coming to Jesus to talk with him and to talk with him, it appears, secretly. You wonder what is going on. Why is Nicodemus there?

I have a friend, a woman in her 60’s who just had knee replacement surgery. As many of you may know, this is a significant surgery that can require a good deal of rehab. And that’s where my friend is right now. She’s just finished her first few days of rehab. Her husband has been keeping us up on the developments and shared the story of how an orderly came into our friend’s room and found her standing near the bureau that was in the room. “Can I help you,” he asked. “Oh, no,” she said, “I think I’ve got it okay now.” The orderly stood there for a moment taking in what she said and looking around and then said, “Ma’am, is it my imagination or have you rearranged the furniture in this room?” Her husband commented that after 47 years of marriage he wouldn’t have had to ask.

And as I received that story I was in the midst of my study of this passage and it made me wonder if maybe that’s sort of what Nicodemus was doing. I wondered if Nicodemus was coming to see Jesus because he wanted to see if he could rearrange his theological furniture. Pharisees were notoriously picky people. They had a real issue with getting things just right, making sure that everything was in place. And you have to think that Jesus just messed with them seriously.

And so Nicodemus, has been hearing the stories about Jesus, he’s been hearing some of the teaching of Jesus and he’s been hearing about the “signs” that Jesus is doing. We’re told that Jesus rattled the cages of the Pharisees. He started them talking. He started them worrying. They began to “prowl” and so one night, in the darkness, when other people might not notice him, Nicodemus shows up.

Maybe he had the feeling that Jesus didn’t have his theological furniture in place and he needed to help him. I offer the opposite kind of help to my friends. We just had a couple we’ve known for over 25 years come to visit us from Oregon, just a couple of weeks ago. When we lived in Oregon Beckie and I would have dinner at these people’s home and I always noticed the neat display of magazines on the coffee table. They were set out in that little spray where the corners stuck out in a sweep. And I would sit on the couch and nudge them with my foot. And the hostess, our friend, would be chatting with me and just nudge them back into place.   And I’d pick one up from the middle as I talked with her and then I pull another about half way out and then leave it and toss the first one on top. And our friend would not miss a beat. She’d continue to talk and slip one magazine back into the pile and then straighten out the rest until the spray was back in place. And I’d nudge it again as we talked.

I’m wondering if that kind of interaction was going on with Jesus and Nicodemus. I wonder if Nicodemus comes to tidy up Jesus’ theology. Maybe Nicodemus could see that things were not in a good theological place in Jesus’ life, not the way they should be and maybe Nicodemus came because he began to hear the first murmurings against Jesus from his fellow Pharisees. Maybe he had some sympathy for Jesus and he just wants to help this young guy get it straight, just give him a hand. So he opens the conversation with pleasantry, but Jesus comes back at him and tells him he has to start over. “You have to start from the beginning all over again.”

Nicodemus is confused and perhaps a little put off. Did you ever have to start something all over? Talk about something that will just wear you right down to having no energy. Someone telling you, you have to start all over and do it again. That can just break you in weariness.

There was a day, back when I was in college, where I decided I was going to make a chair. Now, I’d never made a chair before. I’d never made a large piece of furniture of any kind. I’d worked with wood and I enjoyed working with wood, but I was never taught anything much more than the basics. I just always figured you get into it and figure it out from inside. So, when I decided to make a chair, I decided to make a rocking chair. I mean, how hard can that be?

And I went at it. I bought the wood that looked like it would work to me and I shaped all the pieces with the tools I had on hand, just making the wood look the way I thought that part of a rocking chair would look. And I hammered and glued and tied together all the pieces. Then I stitched together the seat from old blue jeans. I just did it by hand because I never sewed before, except by hand. I wove a base of straps and got a piece of foam as a cushion and wrapped the jeans around the bars and stitched it all into place.

It was a ladder-back rocking chair and when I finished it, stained and oiled, it looked pretty good. And then came the moment. I sat in it… and it rocked. It rocked smoothly and evenly. It worked. And then, after rocking a bit I leaned my full weight back into it and you could feel every joint in the base ease out of its connection. It didn’t work.

I tried everything. I added glue. I put in nails, trying to add them discretely so they wouldn’t be noticed. It still didn’t work. The joints wouldn’t hold. So I took it to a place that did major refinishing of antiques and I showed it to the owner. He thought it looked great too, but when I showed him the joints he suggested some ways to fix them. The trouble was everything he suggested I’d tried. As I went over that with him, at the end, he said, “Well, the only other thing you can do is take it all apart and start over, redo the joints,” and he gave me some idea of how that would work.

I want you to know that was an excruciating evening. It took everything out of me to loosen, gently pull apart and separate every thing I’d done in putting that chair together. Putting it together the first time was pretty hard. Taking it all apart, redoing all the work and then putting it all back together again was some of the hardest work I’ve ever done, emotionally, in my life.

And so here’s Nicodemus listening as Jesus tells him – “You know, I’m telling you the truth, you need to start over completely. Bring it all the way back.” I don’t think Nicodemus showed up looking for that. If anything my bet is that he wanted to just fit Jesus into the theological tidiness of his life. But Jesus says, “Oh no, it’s not me we’re talking about here. We’re talking about you and we’re talking about a total make over.”

“How can you do that?” Nicodemus asks.

Jesus says, “How can it be that you don’t understand it? You’re a teacher in Israel. You already know how God works. God doesn’t work in just tidying things up. God clears the decks. God washes out everything with a flood. God has the people wander in the desert for 40 years. God sends the people into exile. God cleanses, clears, and starts brand new. This is not something you control. It’s like the wind. It just comes through, does its job and keeps going. You see the effect, but you don’t control it. We know what we’re talking about and you people won’t even listen. But a time is coming when the people aching for help will look toward me, just like when those who were dying around Moses looked at the symbol of God’s help that he held up. People will find that kind of help in me.”

Whenever I read this story I have to admit that at first I hear Jesus’ words as sort of arrogant. I’m not afraid of Jesus appearing arrogant, but I know that the bottom line for Jesus was good news.  And that makes me wonder how Nicodemus heard these words of Jesus. Good news?  I wonder if maybe, just maybe, this was the Good News of God to Nicodemus. Maybe, just maybe, Nicodemus had lived his tidy life, had always had all his “I’s” dotted and his “t’s” crossed and had worked his hardest to make sure his room was clean, his desk was clear at the end of the day, that he wore the right clothes, received the right recognition and did his job better than those around him. Maybe, just maybe, Nicodemus had lived the life of the tidy yard and the beautiful home and the 2.3 children and then when Jesus says “you have to start all over” this was like a refreshing wave of great news. “Really… this isn’t all that life’s about?” Maybe these words just opened his heart up. Maybe Nicodemus thought how great it would that be to just clear it all away, all the requirements, all the efforts, all the tidiness and get back down to what matters. How does that sound to you? Sometimes clearing out all the old clothes, clearing out the old files, clearing out the garage, clearing out the attic can just feel so liberating. Starting from the beginning, you have to start all over. That’s the way God works. Maybe, just like when Jesus was speaking to the woman at the well, Jesus was speaking directly into the life and heart of Nicodemus.

We know two or three more things about Nicodemus, other than his coming to Jesus at night. We know that he know that he helped in taking Jesus down from the cross, that he identified himself as a follower of Jesus and we know that for some reason he was the man who, for the first time in history, heard the words, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

Maybe Nicodemus heard those words and found that the stuff that was killing him in his life wasn’t important anymore. Maybe, in the chill of that night, Nicodemus found life.  Maybe he found out there was another way to live than the tidy life. Maybe he discovered that in God’s scheme there was no condemnation, no separation of us and them, no break down of relationships. Maybe Nicodemus found life. May it be so and may it be so for us and our friends and our families as Jesus is lifted up and may we lift him up as well.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”