He Came to Jesus by Night

As preached for God's beloved at Ascension, Towson, 3/8/2020.

I suspect we all know what it’s like to live in the closet. Gay and Lesbian folks aren’t the only ones who struggle with it. You’re looking at someone who’s in the closet and I’m going to come out to you today. You’re about to hear the truth about my secret life.

I am a T.V. junkie. It’s not just that I watch a lot of T.V., but I watch a lot of stuff on T.V. that some people would find objectionable. I know this is going to shock some of you who think I must spend all my time reading, or when I turn on the TV, it's to watch PBS. Here's the cold, hard truth... For over 40 years, I watched the soap opera Guiding Light. When it went off the air I cried. In fact, I was in mourning for months. These days, I enjoy watching Dr. Pimple Popper.  And here’s the one that may really shock you. I am a part of Bachelor Nation. I know the Bachelor shows are horrible. And I love to watch the horror. Now that you know that, I hope you won’t think less of me.

We hide in the closet when we want to keep who we really are from public view because we’re afraid of being judged, ostracized, or maybe even hurt if people knew the truth we’re hiding.

Today’s gospel lesson (John 3:1-17), a story that we only find in John’s gospel, is about a guy who was living in the closet. His name was Nicodemus.

John is the most theological of all the gospels. You only have to read the first few words and you get that. There’s no birth story of Jesus, but instead, “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God.”

      

John isn’t all that concerned about things like the chronology of the events because what he’s doing is laying out a theology for the church. So he rearranges things and uses the stories of Jesus to present what we would call a narrative theology. John dishes out some heavy theology by putting Jesus into a private conversation with someone. The woman at the well in the fourth chapter of John, which we’ll hear next week, is an example of that. And so is this conversation that Jesus has with Nicodemus here in chapter 3.

In the early church there were Christians who were open and public about their faith and there were Christians who were hiding in the closet. Nicodemus plays a symbolic role in John’s gospel and may represent the very group of people that John wrote the gospel for. You see, John’s community had been expelled from the synagogue because of the claims they made about Jesus, so followers of Jesus were faced with a crisis. Either they openly acknowledge their faith in Jesus as crucified and risen Lord, God made flesh, and face total rejection by their own community. Or, they choose to live in the closet, to be admirers of Jesus in secret and still remain within the Jewish community. Nicodemus, a leader in the Jewish community, who comes to Jesus in secrecy, under the cloak of darkness, seems to represent all those closeted believers.

Jesus has a conversation with Nicodemus in which he explains to him what it means to be a part of the kingdom of God. But then, in the middle of the conversation, all of a sudden, it seems that Jesus is speaking to more than Nicodemus because the pronouns change, and Jesus is speaking to you plural. He is speaking to a group here. That group, as it turns out, eventually includes billions of people who will hear and treasure his words.

Now, all the gospels have Jesus giving a prediction of his passion, but nowhere does it appear like it does in John. In verses 14 and 15 we hear Jesus speaking for the first time about his death on the cross. It references a passage in Numbers where the children of Israel are bitten by poisonous snakes and Moses takes a snake and puts it on a pole so that whenever a person who has been bitten looks up at the snake on the pole, they will live. Jesus’ first passion prediction in John is right here, where he compares Moses’ snake on a pole that’s lifted up with the Christ’s body lifted up on the cross.

And that’s the lead-in to this most familiar of verses, John 3:16. It’s so familiar to us that I want us to take some time to unpack it. “God so loved the world.” Now, what does he mean by the world here? Well, it doesn’t mean all creation. In fact, it doesn’t even mean all people. The Greek word that’s used here is cosmos. And every time that word’s used in John’s gospel, he’s referring to those who are hostile to God. That’s how John uses the word. For God so loved people who are hostile to him that he gave his only Son. Changes the meaning a bit, doesn’t it?

“So that everyone who believes in him…”  We tend to think of believing as an intellectual exercise. If I can just get my head around this Jesus stuff, then I believe it. But in John’s gospel, believing is always about doing. It’s not a conceptual thing, it’s a relationship thing. The Christian life is not about adhering to a specific set of beliefs. It’s about God loving us and us loving God enough to love what God loves.

      

“So that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” So often this verse is interpreted to mean that we believe now for salvation later. But that’s not what it’s saying. Jesus is speaking about eternal life. This is not the same thing as an after-life, or what we call heaven. Eternal life isn’t something that begins after we die. And if you know anything about Jesus, you know that he wasn’t all that concerned about the after-life. His main concern was with the present life. Eternal life begins now. God calls us to be in relationship with him, not someday, but today.

      

This leads us to the next verse, “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.” Now we’re talking salvation. Being saved. What does the word saved mean in this context?

It does not mean to be freed from our sins. That’s reading something into the text that we assume it says but it was never intended to say. The word save is an interesting one because the Greek is translating a Hebrew word meaning “bring into a large open space.” This is a unique concept of salvation.

Jean Paul Sartre, the great French existential philosopher once wrote a play called No Exit. In it, he claimed that the human condition is like being trapped in a room from which there is no escape.

Our text wants to assure us that God loved us so much that he takes us, one by one, into a wide and emancipating space. A space with alternatives to our dead ends, and a boundless future. In the Hebrew meaning of salvation, to be saved through the love of Jesus, is to be freed from the narrow strictures, the confined attitudes, and all the entrapments we’ve created for ourselves (something a teacher of the law like Nicodemus would understand).We’re free to be open about who we are, what we’ve done, and what we’re afraid to do. God doesn’t limit our lives and possibilities, rather God opens doors and tears down walls. To live like that is to be saved. It’s to have eternal life. That sounds like salvation for a person who feels like they have to hide in the closet as a follower of Jesus, doesn’t it?  

The plight of Nicodemus reappears during the time of the Reformation. There were people who were called “Nicodemites”, named after Nicodemus. Have you heard of them? Well, Nicodemites were closeted Protestants. They lived among the Catholics and pretended to be Catholic as a way to protect themselves from persecution (or maybe even) death. So they pretended to be Catholic, but secretly, they were Protestants. To call someone a Nicodemite wasn’t a compliment.

Nicodemus was interested in Jesus. But he wasn’t ready to publicly commit. This seems to be a recurring problem for God’s people. It was true for Nicodemus. It was true for the worshiping community John was a part of. It was true during the reformation. Is it still true today?

Nicodemus lived all curled up in fetal position much like a child in the womb. The child grows from a speck into a human being. And as it grows, its living space becomes cramped. It reaches the point where the only place it can continue to grow is on the other side of the birth canal. That’s where the child is at last able to be free and grow.

And that’s why Nicodemus is invited to be born again. He doesn’t need to enter his mother’s womb again. In a metaphoric way, he’s already there. He needs to be born again. To experience the kind of freeing salvation Jesus offers.

Now, unlike those who pronounced judgement on the Nicodemites in the 16^th century, Jesus doesn’t judge Nicodemus. He extends an invitation. And eventually, we learn later in John’s gospel, Nicodemus emerges from the confinement of fear, he openly becomes a follower of Jesus, and he’s born into a new life.

Why do we so often keep ourselves hidden in small, cramped spaces when God offers us an open field to dance in with outstretched arms, the wind at our backs and the sun in our faces? Along with Nicodemus, we’re all invited to be born again. And again. And again. And as many times as it takes.