John, chapter 3, verse 16, from our Gospel today: “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.” We hear these words a lot, and very often they are the first words spoken by the minister as he or she leads a funeral procession into the Church. They’re words we’ll often see on church notice boards, bookmarks, badges, bumper stickers. Martin Luther called this verse “the Gospel in a nutshell” - and he was right, I think.
It’s such a well-known quote that maybe we forget the story that surrounds it, and that those words were spoken in the course of a conversation, to a particular person, Nicodemus. It’s worth reflecting for a moment on who Nicodemus was, and why he and Jesus were speaking together.
Nicodemus was a leading scholar within the Jewish hierarchy of his day. In public, he was a loyal member of the Jewish establishment, who looked with suspicion and concern on the ministry of Jesus, which seemed to challenge much of what they stood for. In private, though, it would seem that Nicodemus had his doubts. He needed to speak to Jesus, but he didn’t dare to do so until after dark.
And right at the beginning of his visit to Jesus, we see the dilemma that faced Nicodemus. Those around him were condemning Jesus as a disruptive influence, but Nicodemus realises, as he says to Jesus, “We know that no-one could do what you are doing unless God were with him.” I imagine, by the way, that Nicodemus was therefore coming on behalf of maybe a small group within the Pharisees who just wanted to know more about Jesus, and were impressed by what he was doing. That “we” surely can’t be all the Pharisees - many of them were appalled by Jesus - but it suggests that there were others who shared a more positive approach.
Jesus responds to that with a very challenging statement: “You cannot see the kingdom of God without being born again.” Or you could translate it as born anew, or as the Greek words “genethe anothen” literally mean, “born from above”.
I say that because the phrase “born again” has a particular resonance these days, and comes across as the possession of a particular part of the Christian Church, whereas a phrase like “born anew” or “born from above” perhaps get closer to what Jesus was actually saying to Nicodemus, which is essentially this - that believing certain things or worshipping in a particular way, even being zealous and careful in your keeping of God’s Law: these aren’t enough on their own - to be part of God’s kingdom requires a movement of the soul, such a complete change or heart and mindset that it’s like completely starting over.
Now John’s Gospel is full of instances where Jesus says something spiritually challenging, which is then misunderstood by the person he’s speaking to. And so it is here. Nicodemus isn’t thinking in spiritual terms at all when he says, “How can someone be born after they’ve grown old? Can they enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”
That’s the cue for Jesus to tell Nicodemus, and to tell us too, that this isn’t about literally being born again, it’s about a change of heart and a fresh start, as God’s person. Elsewhere Paul talks about our being adopted as God’s children. To comprehend the kingdom of God, we have to be part of his family, giving our whole selves over to an entirely different way of being. To be “born from above” means to be in a new relationship with the God we can dare to call “Our Father”.
We don’t exactly learn how Nicodemus responded to all this. “How can this be?” he says again. But Jesus is saying there can be no half measures where the kingdom is concerned. Those born from above must begin a new life, a new way of being. But we like there to be limits. We don’t want to have to help and serve everyone, just those we feel deserve it, or might be properly grateful. We don’t want to have to forgive everyone, only those we believe to be properly sorry. We don’t want to have to give everything, just a measured amount that leaves us in control of the rest of it.
I suppose, though, that Jesus is saying: to be in the kingdom, you must strive to be as I am. Just as elsewhere he says to the disciples, “You must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” - I guess he means by that, don’t set your sights anywhere less than that. And of course, he also says “The greatest among you must be the servant of all.”
Maybe it’s no surprise that Nicodemus returns to his position within the Jewish establishment. We don’t hear much more of him. In John chapter 7, he briefly intervenes to defend Jesus at a meeting of the Pharisees, but he’s quickly talked down. “Prophets don’t come from Galilee,” he’s told. But had something taken root in him, even if it was slow growing? In John’s account of the crucifixion Nicodemus appears again, helping Joseph of Arimathea to claim the body of Jesus, and prepare it to be laid in the tomb. He may still not have been convinced, especially now Jesus had died, but he could still see that this was a good and godly man.
Jesus said, “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.” I wonder how Nicodemus considered those words as he left the company of Jesus? I wonder how those words resonated in him as he stood - we may assume - somewhere near the cross and watched this man die? Some among his fellows were jeering at Jesus and making fun of him; but I imagine Nicodemus standing silently and sadly; he may even have been wondering whether his own lack of involvement had contributed to the tragedy of a good man who spoke the words of God hanging there to die.
The last verse of our Gospel has Jesus saying, “God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” And maybe Nicodemus was thinking, “How can that happen now?” as he watched Jesus die. It’s frustrating not to know the end of the story. There’s no mention of Nicodemus in the accounts of Easter and of the beginnings of the Church. Was he part of it? Or did he never break away from his past?
My hope is that somewhere within him the forever change Jesus had wanted for him had happened, that change we may call being born again, born anew, born from above. By which I mean, I hope that little by little his heart was broken open, and a new light came to his eyes, so that he could begin to find his way through the doubt and the darkness to the cross, to see it not as a sign of defeat and death but the triumphant throne of love, the place where all that separates us from God is cast aside. For, as Jesus went on to say to Nicodemus when he came to him by night, “the one who does what is true will come to the light.”
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