Second Sunday in Lent

Sermon on John 3:1-17, by Paul Bieber |

John 3:1-17 Revised Standard Version

 

3 Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do, unless God is with him.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born anew.’ 8 The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit.” 9 Nicodemus said to him, “How can this be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand this? 11 Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen; but you do not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man. 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

 

also

Genesis 12:1-4a

Psalm 121

Romans 4:1-5, 13-17

 

So Must the Son of Man Be Lifted Up

 

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

 

God calls, sends, gives. Abram goes, as the LORD told him. Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night and apparently leaves incredulous. St. Paul tells us that all depends on faith. How do these texts help us to situate ourselves as our Lenten pilgrimage moves into its second full week? The Ash Wednesday sermon was entitled “Not Our Righteousness,” from the Sermon on the Mount; the Lent I sermon “God’s Righteousness,” from Romans. This one might be “The Righteousness of Faith,” from Romans again.

 

Then again, this Sunday is when we leave St. Matthew’s gospel to sojourn with St. John until Palm Sunday. Nicodemus, the woman at the well, the man born blind, and Lazarus and his sisters will be our guides to the cross and the font as our pilgrimage continues for the next four weeks of Lent.

 

But how can we not dwell on the beginning of the story of Abram/Abraham, the father of us all in faith? And do we dare ignore John 3:16, perhaps the best-known verse in the Bible, “God so loved the world”? And isn’t every preacher in the world supposed to say something today about the Coronavirus, COVID-19, which is apparently the contemporary equivalent of the plague, the 1919 Influenza epidemic, AIDS, Ebola, and SARS, all wrapped up in one giant pulsating ball of fear?

 

Let’s begin there, shall we, and get it out of the way. Take commonsense precautions and remember these words from the Psalm we just chanted, Psalm 121: “The LORD shall watch over your going out and your coming in, from this time forth forevermore.” We are called to faith, not fear.

 

God called Abram to go, to leave country, kindred, and home to go to a land of promise that God would show him, where God would bless him such that in him all the families of the earth would be blessed. This was a journey through perils unknown, but Abram went, on the strength of God’s promise alone: that is a response of faith, faith put into action. St. Paul tells us that God reckoned this faith to Abram as righteousness.

 

We know that righteousness is not something we possess to boast about, but amounts to a right relationship with God and with our fellow creatures, the working relationships that God intended for us. God gives us the free gift of his righteousness so that we might discard our own pretensions to righteousness, along with our fears of what might befall us in a life of constant recourse to God’s promise to us in Holy Baptism, a life of daily turning from our pretentious and fearful selves to the needs of our neighbors.

 

We do not know whether Nicodemus was pretentious or fearful or both or neither. We know that he was a Pharisee and a prominent one: a ruler, a member of the Sanhedrin, a teacher of Israel. And we know that he came to visit Jesus personally, but under cover of darkness. Out of concern for his reputation? We cannot know. He compliments Jesus, but he does not understand him: “How can this be?” is his final incredulous word.

 

To be fair, he is the victim of one of Jesus’ many double meanings in John’s gospel. The word anōthen means not only “again,” as in “born again,” but also “from above.” Nicodemus takes “born again” literally and recognizes the impossibility of literally repeating one’s life all over again. But Jesus is speaking of a new birth not of the flesh but of water and the Spirit, that is, Holy Baptism. This is how the Spirit, who blows where he will, gives faith, the faith that is righteousness, the faith that is response to God’s call to live in this world, in relationship with him and with our neighbors.

 

Having lived for a few years in this benighted world, we may be incredulous if we really listen to that familiar verse, “God so loved the world. . . .” We would be more comfortable with a statement that God so loved those who are persecuted or downtrodden or homeless in this world, or the good people in this world, or (let’s be honest,) the people like us in this world. But God still loves this world, the whole world, the world he made to be good, very good. And, yes, the world so broken by secret and presumptuous sin, by wanton and idle sin, by serious and deliberate sin, that his creatures have broken his heart again and again.

 

Even so, out of love the Father sends the Son not to condemn but to save—to save not by elucidating God’s ways but by being lifted up on the cross, drawing all to himself, and calling us to take up our own crosses in this world and follow him in faith, not incredulity in this baptismal pilgrimage we call Lent, this baptismal pilgrimage we call life. Our understanding of God’s ways may be no better than Nicodemus’s—don’t feel bad; he was a very knowledgeable religious guy—but the God who called Abram and you is the God who created the world out of nothing and still loves it, the God who raised Jesus from the dead, lifting him up in exaltation, who gives life to the dead, courage to the fearful, and light to those who walk in darkness.

 

God the Father gives the Son as light in our darkness, light the darkness does not overcome. The Son gives himself for us both on the cross and in the Holy Communion. The Spirit of their relationship calls and gathers us with Abraham, Nicodemus, and a multitude from both East and West into relationship. This God brings new possibilities into our lives as the power of sin and death is overthrown in our lives by the resurrection life, eternal life we have been promised as Abraham’s children in faith, as those who look in faith, not fear, on the Son of man lifted up on his cross and in his rising, and so in this world already see and enter the promised kingdom.

 

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.