What Does This Mean?
Posted on Mar 16, 2014 by David Whetter
Grace and peace to you from God our Creator, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, who abides in which of us. Amen
One week ago yesterday, Malaysian Airlines flight 370 disappeared. Since then, experts from all over the world have been trying to help find the flight and all 239 people on board. They, and all of us, have been asking questions, trying to discover what happened. All kinds of theories as to what happened are being explored. Could it have been a catastrophic failure of some kind? Is there a major flaw in the design of the 777 plane, such as could some of the fuselage have been faulty and peeled away? Why does it appear that the plane was flying off course? Could this be an act of terrorism? The list of questions is endless at this point. But, with each question raised, and with the intent to discover the answers to these questions, we hope and pray that answers will be found. Curiosity is a healthy and helpful characteristic that humans have been using since time began to help us grow.
As I have shared with you many times, once a month, many of the pastors in our area get together to study the texts for the following month. At these text study gatherings we share our thoughts and scholarship that we have learned about the texts and it is a great way to not only share ideas but for us to ask each other questions. I always walk away with having learned so much and I gain new insights. For example, one pastor noted after we read our Gospel text for today, that this is the ancient version of “Nick at Night.”
In all seriousness, our Gospel text is filled with questions that all of us really want answered, don’t we? But before we get to the questions, lets start with the one who raises the questions, Nicodemus. We are told that Nicodemus was a Pharisee. Now, if you remember, Pharisees are usually portrayed in the Scripture as the ones who think they have all the answers. They are the ones who seem to like asking questions of Jesus to which they already have the answers, or so they think. They like to do this we are told in hope of catching him in blasphemy, or wrong teaching. But in this story, Nicodemus doesn’t seem to have come to try and trap Jesus, or find in guilty of some bad teaching. Now I say this because he comes to Jesus under the cover of night. He apparently does not want others to know he is there. He begins by acknowledging that he knows that Jesus is teacher from God. He even addresses Jesus as “Rabbi,” which means teacher. But, whatever else he intended to tell, or ask Jesus, stopped there because Jesus interrupted him at that point. Under the cover of night, Nicodemus comes to Jesus and instead of beginning with the questions he came to ask, he begins by making sure Jesus knows what he knows. Your are teacher, you are from God… It apparently was important for “ole Nick” to make sure Jesus knows that he knows stuff. I think I am like “ole Nick.” I like to make sure people know what I know. It makes me feel good about myself. But, as is also evident in this text, Jesus has no interest in what Nicodemus knows, or thinks he knows, so he stops Nicodemus and although Nicodemus has not asked anything, yet, the writer says, “Jesus answered him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above’” (John 3:3). What is Jesus answering? Nicodemus has only made a statement at this point, but Jesus does what Jesus seems to always do, he responds with something that creates more questions and challenges the listener to think differently. My take on this statement is that Nicodemus comes believing that he knows the law and follows it to the letter. But, based on what he has seen and heard about Jesus, he is beginning to question what he has been so sure about and he comes to seek some answers. But Jesus, knowing the questions Nicodemus has on his heart, doesn’t wait. He just goes ahead and answers Nicodemus. Nicodemus, it is not about what you know, it is about who and whose you are. Nicodemus, you may think you know a lot, and you very well might be very knowledgeable, but to see and be part of God’s kingdom, one must be willing to start over. It is not about the law, but the willingness of one to be “born from above,” or “born again.” Like you and I do so often, Nicodemus seems to only hear the literal words of Jesus and so he immediately wants to know how it is possible for a person to go back in their mother’s womb and be born again. Now, let’s be honest, even today, with all our technology, none of us believes that we can go back into our mother’s womb and start over, do we? As one who was 10 pounds 11 ounces at birth, my mother will guarantee you that is not going to happen again; not in this life time, or the one to come.
And so with this confusing statement, Nicodemus asks, “how?” How can one be born after they have grown old? How can one enter the womb again? How can this be? These are great questions. But, I wonder, why do we so often read the words of scripture and not ask questions. Or, when we do ask questions and we don’t seem to get quick answers, why do we stop asking the questions? And even when our questions are answered, many times they are not the answers we want so then we ask different questions.
Now, Nicodemus asked how one was born again, or from above and from there, Jesus seems to go on a rant that has nothing to do with the “how” questions. He challenges Nicodemus, the one who professes to know so much when he says "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? The answer is simple according to Jesus, our salvation will not come from our knowledge of the law, but by believing in the Son, whom God hass sent into this world, “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” (3:17).
We do not know if Nicodemus understood the answer that night, but apparently he wrestled with it after this night, for he will be the one Pharisee who will quietly speak to protect Jesus at the end of Chapter 7 and he will one of the two men who will take Jesus’ body to his tomb (Chapter 19).
As we continue our journey to the cross this Lenten season, we are challenged to ask questions of God and God’s word. Last week I challenged each of you to find time to read the bible and this week I am adding to that challenge the discipline of asking questions. Martin Luther once said, “You should diligently learn the Word of God and by no means imagine that you know it” (LW 54:165). This comes from a man who read the entire bible through twice each year and in doing so, he said each time he read it he would “shake the branches and leaves of scripture so he could discover what it meant (WA 32, 64f).
Just to begin to understand God’s word, we are challenged to not just read it, but to ask questions of it. Scripture itself is filled with questions. "Did God really say you should not eat from the tree?” “Who told you that you were naked?” “Who should I say has sent me?” “How long will you forget me, O Lord? Will you hide your face from me forever?” “What is truth?” or that how about that terrifying questions we will hear on Good Friday, “Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabachthani? - My God, My God. Why have you forsaken me?”
Although there are those in the church who try to tell us that it is wrong to question scripture, truth be told it is the very thing we are challenged to do, so that we might mature in our faith and actually come to believe the ultimate truth. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 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” (3:16-17). Praise be to God! Amen