We like to get the low-down on people. It is characteristic of human nature. Whether it is the scandal mongering of the Sunday papers, the society columns in the respectable papers or what they now call celeb gossip in the trendy women’s magazines, people like to know what our famous people are really like.

That’s why we have chat shows like Parkinson or Jonathan Ross. We want to get to know what people are like in a personal way. And that can be a good and positive thing. You may have heard of Willow Creek, the famous mega-church in the US which has been very successful at attracting people who would not come to traditional churches. One principal that Willow Creek works on is the principle that for all of us as individuals it is important to know and be known.

It is important for me as a minister that I spend time getting to know you, as members of our church, although I don’t want to pry in any way. One of the vital things that I believe John, who gave us this gospel really understood was that Jesus ministry was one of encountering people, getting to know them, but more importantly, them getting to know him. It comes out in the way he tells us of how in ch1 the disciples spent time with Jesus. Here in ch3 and the following chapters John shows us Jesus in intimate, personal conversations with individuals. Those conversations give us insights into the lives and beliefs of individuals who are not so different to us, and the people we encounter today. But most of all they give us insights into the one whose life reveals God to us. They teach us of Jesus.

Lets look then at the encounter of Nicodemus and Jesus.

Nicodemus was a Pharisee. Just as we have groupings within the church today, the Jewish religion in Jesus day had its divisions. The two main ones were the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Sadducees were more like the liberal contingent in the church today, they didn’t believe in angels or miracles, or even life after death, and they were powerful and influential. They tended to dominate the ruling council to which Nicodemus belonged.
But Nicodemus was a Pharisee. Pharisees were more like the evangelicals. The believed in a living God who could do miracles, they believed in the resurrection, they treasured the scriptures and lived by a strict discipline based on the scriptures and their traditions.

Nicodemus had seen or heard of the signs, the miracles that Jesus had been doing, he recognised that God was with Jesus, and he wanted to get to know Jesus. He came by night, maybe he didn’t want other members on the ruling council to know he was meeting Jesus, after all Jesus had just challenged their authority by driving the sheep and cattle out of the temple. Or it could be that he came at night so that he could have time to talk to Jesus in depth. He comes and he compliments Jesus; ‘ we know you are a teacher who has come from God.’

Jesus doesn’t beat about the bush in his reply, he gets to the heart of the matter. ‘No-one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.’ Jesus has come to proclaim the kingdom of God. But it was so radical and different from the religion of the Sadducees and the religion of the Pharisees; that Jesus has to talk in ways that come as a complete shock to Nicodemus. ‘Born again! That’s impossible; how can you be born again when you are an old man?’ he says to Jesus.

That’s the question that we need to know the answer to, because being born again is what our faith is all about. Like Nicodemus many people are drawn to Jesus by the evidence, by the attractiveness of him as a teacher, or a healer. But that is not enough. Jesus came, not to gain popularity, but to reconcile men and women to God. He came so that ordinary people might be reconciled to their heavenly father. It’s not enough for us to admire him, its not enough for people to give him their vote or their approval. Jesus says you must be born again. It’s a phrase some Christians don’t like. It is also a phrase that some believers over-use. But it is a reality that we all need to experience and to understand.

John has set out the idea of being born again already in his gospel. In ch1v 12&13 John says this: Read 1v12-13. Everyone who receives Jesus, everyone who believes experiences this second birth. They are born of God.

Nicodemus had seen the signs Jesus had done, and become what we might call a tentative believer, but true, mature belief involves believing not just his miracles, but what Jesus taught, accepting Jesus as the way, the truth and the life; allowing that belief to change us, to direct the way we live.

We will look at what Jesus says to Nicodemus as we endeavour to understand, or remind ourselves afresh what it means to be born again.

No one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Nicodemus would have had no doubt about what Jesus meant when he spoke about being born of water and neither need we. Jesus was speaking about baptism. John the Baptist, his preaching of repentance and baptism had gripped the nation. Thousands had gone to be baptised, confessing their sins in preparation for the coming messiah.

A group of people, however who had been reluctant to accept or acknowledge John’s ministry had been the religious leaders. Not many of them had been baptized. They were the ones who had said of John, that he had a demon. Jesus was saying to Nicodemus, ‘If you really want to see the kingdom of God you need that baptism of repentance.’ It is still true today, Jesus left his clear instructions that if we are be his disciples, then baptism is part of our obedience to him. The way of the Pharisee was to confess other people’s sins rather than his own sins to God. There are plenty of people like the Pharisees around today. Being born again starts with repentance, coming to the light and facing the truth about us.

Jesus talks about being born of water and the Spirit. We know of course that Jesus was speaking here of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit of God who comes to dwell in every believer. Nicodemus who would have known the scriptures would have known how the Holy Spirit was sent upon those appointed by God for special tasks, the prophets and kings for example.

Nicodemus would also probably have recollected that God had promised a time when he would pour out his Spirit upon all flesh. In Jesus, that time, that hour was coming. The Holy Spirit is like the wind. Ruach was the Hebrew word for both wind and Spirit. The wind is mysterious, there is much we don’t know about it; we don’t know where it comes from or where it goes to. But we can see its powerful effects.

The words of Jesus help us to understand more of the significance of this. Jesus contrasts our human birth, our first birth to our second birth. He reminds Nicodemus flesh gives birth to flesh. We are born of human parents, and as a result we are human. Sometimes these days you hear about the glass ceiling. It usually means that for women, there is a certain level they can rise to in their career, and beyond that they cannot go.

For the human race there is also a ceiling. Because of our sinful human nature we are restricted. There is a barrier between our selves and God. We’re human, we can’t see or gain access to God. Yet the wonder of the Gospel is that when we are born of the Spirit, when we are born from above the restricting barrier is removed. We are given the right to be children of God. Born of his Spirit.

Then Jesus goes on to talk to Nicodemus about heavenly things. Remember that Nicodemus was a Pharisee, one of that group that believed in heaven. But Jesus was the true authority on heaven. Jesus was the one who had come down from heaven. But Jesus says to him first, you still don’t believe me when I tell you about earthly things, you haven’t accepted the baptism of repentance.

Nicodemus had come to Jesus as a representative of others ‘We know you are a teacher who has come from God’. Who the ‘we’ he was referring to is not clear. It could have been the ruling council. It could have been the Pharisees. It could have been a group of his friends.

Jesus replies to him in similar terms. ‘We speak of what we know, and testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.’ Jesus could speak with the authority of heaven, he was God’s only begotten Son, sent by God in his love so that whoever believes should not perish but have eternal life. Jesus also came into the world to clarify God’s judgement. The judgement we are told is this, light has come into the world, but men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.

We do not know what Nicodemus said to Jesus after that. Be he was faced with the choice all are faced with when they encounter Jesus. To stay in the company of those who refuse to believe, or to come across into the company of Jesus. May we understand that, and may we continue to abide in him; the one who was given to open the gates of heaven for all.

Amen.
 

Acknowledgement.

I lay no claim to originality in my sermons. They are an attempt to pass on the gospel message in a contemporary way and depend on the bible as well as others who have studied and written on the passages in question. In preaching from John’s Gospel, I acknowledge my debt to Roy Clements for his book Introducing Jesus and I have also used material from Readings in John’s Gospel by William Temple. PN Jan 04

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