Baffled About God

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night… John 3:1

Nicodemus is presented as a learned man with impressive credentials, he is described him not only as a Pharisee but as “a ruler of the Jews.” Jesus refers to him as “the teacher of Israel”. Nicodemus is therefore a representative of the religious leaders.

Nicodemus has seen something in Jesus that looks to him like God. But he is not sure what to make of it.

On the one hand he can’t but acknowledge that God’s power is at work in Jesus, doing things only God can do.

But on the other hand, he is confused because Jesus doesn’t fit into the Jewish categories for ministry. Jesus is not a priest. He doesn’t have any place within the religious hierarchy. How is Jesus to be understood?

So Nicodemus goes to Jesus to try and get some answers. But he goes at night…under the cover of darkness…so that no one would know. Which shows us a few things.

• That it was costly and potentially dangerous or at least embarrassing for Nicodemus to do this.
• That Nicodemus wasn’t yet committed to Jesus.
• That Nicodemus had the spiritual integrity to want to get to the truth about Jesus.

Nicodemus’ confusion about Jesus is a good subject for Trinity Sunday. We too are often baffled about God, and that’s OK. If we are not baffled about God, then we really haven’t thought hard enough about Him.

We will never get to a complete understanding of God, but what is important is that we respond to what we do know. Nicodemus had seen something of God in Jesus, and he wanted to explore and respond to that. He was willing to acknowledge that Jesus was a teacher who had come from God – but was that all Jesus was? Nicodemus wanted to explore and to know more.

Whatever is revealed to us about God, we need likewise to embrace that truth and respond to it. Like Nicodemus, we should also do whatever we can to explore more deeply.
There is some features of this dialogue that we are meant to notice.

Jesus comes from God, with full insight and knowledge, He brings God’s light. Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night, in the darkness. Nicodemus is still in the dark, both literally, and figuratively.

Throughout the Gospel of John there are two groups of people, those who understand and those who do not. Those who have the Holy Spirit, Jesus states are ‘born from above’, this is what enables them to understand the gospel and to recognize who Jesus really is. Those who do not have the Holy Spirit cannot understand.

Nicodemus is trying to understand, he probably wants to understand, but without being born from above this is impossible.

Jesus highlights Nicodemus’ problem. It is not a failure of intellect, or even a refusal to accept the truth, Nicodemus’ problem is the fact that, “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” You can only see it once you are part of it. You have to commit in faith, in order to have the proof you need.

The Greek word ‘above’ can equally be translated ‘again’. So, whilst Jesus is referring to being born ‘from above’, i.e. being born of the Holy Spirit, having God’s life imparted to you from heaven. Nicodemus misunderstands, he thinks Jesus is talking about being ‘born again’, a second physical rebirth. So, he talks about the impossibility of re-entering your mother’s womb.

So, Jesus clarifies his statement, making it clear that this rebirth is a divine rebirth, Nicodemus’ response is to ask Jesus, “How can these things be?”

That’s a good question. How can this happen? How does God effectuate re-birth in the soul of a human being? How are we re-born from above, re-generated, given spiritual life? How does that happen?

These are good questions to ask ourselves on Trinity Sunday. Nicodemus had the integrity to be honest with Jesus. He was honest enough to say, “Jesus, I just don’t get it. What you are saying seems contrary to reason and logic. I cannot reconcile what you are saying with everything else I have come to know about God.”

When we come to try and understand the Trinity, we need to be honest too. We need to accept that the question “How can these things be?” is unanswerable. No theological sermon is going to explain it all for you. No simple analogy will help you properly understand it. When we talk about the trinity as an egg – the yolk, the white and the shell, but just one egg, or as water with its solid, liquid, and gas state, all of those analogies break down into heresy. You cannot reduce the Trinity to anything less than a mystery.

It is the same with spiritual rebirth. It is a mystery, a divine mystery. You can experience it, but you can’t explain it. If you commit yourself to Jesus. If you say, “Yes” to God, and live as Jesus commands you, you will soon find the truth of it. You can experience the love of the Father, the truth of the Son, and the empowering of the Holy Spirit. But only once you have committed yourself.

Kenneth HAGIN famously said, “The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it.” And that is good in one sense, but no-one should underestimate the difficulty and challenge of seeking to live with intellectual integrity, and also being required to walk by faith.

Jesus goes on to say that those who place their trust in Jesus will have eternal life, being reborn from above out by water and the Spirit (Greek pneuma). The Greek word ‘pneuma’ can mean “spirit,” “breath,” and “wind,” and Jesus plays with this ambiguity. In Genesis 2, we are told that God breathed into Adam’s lifeless body and gave him life. That is what Jesus does with the Spirit, the Spirit gives life to believers.

Developing the word-play about wind, Jesus states that, like the wind, God’s Spirit blows wherever it wishes, and though observers may perceive its presence, they neither comprehend it nor control it.

Interestingly, Jesus says that those who are born of the Spirit share in this same mysterious flow. God’s power will move in us and through us in the same mysterious, uncontrolled way. God will use us to impact others without us being able to comprehend it or control it.

I’ve told you the story before of when Sharon and I were asked to look after the children on a church weekend. We took the children through some very simple material that presented the message of Jesus in a fun way.

Two weeks later, the person who had been hired to cook for the weekend, was invited by the vicar to come up and share something of his faith story. He said that the Christian faith had never made sense to him, but that as he had overheard Sharon and I sharing the message of Jesus in a simple way with the children, finally it made sense and he had become a Christian there and then.

Sharon and I thought we were ministering to the children in front of us, but the mysterious Spirit decided to minster in 360 degrees. That weekend we weren’t there to minister to the children, but to help a cook come to faith.

This story about Nicodemus also reminds us that rebirth into God’s kingdom comes not by knowledge or doctrine, but by faith. If religious knowledge were enough, Nicodemus, as a religious teacher and expert, would have had all that he needed. But he is baffled, unable to enter into new life through his intellect. He needs an encounter with the life-imparting Spirit.
So what? What do we take away from today’s Scripture?

Firstly, that it often requires an honest struggle to come to faith. Being born from above is not always an easy or cost-free process. For Nicodemus it was a painful intellectual and spiritual struggle. It would also no doubt cost him in terms of his reputation and role within the Jewish religious hierarchy. It is not surprising that it took several years for him to come through to a commitment to Jesus.

We hear about Nicodemus twice more in John’s gospel. In chapter 7, against the advice of “the chief priests and the Pharisees,” Nicodemus defends Jesus, advising his colleagues to hear and investigate before making a final judgment against Jesus. In chapter 19 when Jesus is buried, Nicodemus brings an extraordinary amount of myrrh and aloes for the embalming of Jesus’ body according to Jewish custom (Jn. 19:39). It is an extravagant amount.

We might feel that Nicodemus’ defence of Jesus and the extraordinary quantity of burial spices were too little, too late. But don’t underestimate the cost of that for Nicodemus. Faith is a journey often walked in steps and by stages. What is important is that we receive and respond to whatever revelation we are given, and we seek to build on that, seek to go further.

So, the process of being born from above is something like this – God brings some revelation into our lives – like Nicodemus we see something in Jesus that grabs our attention. But we then have to respond to this. We have to seek further insight. We have to come to Jesus – in Church, in Holy Communion, in prayer, and in Scripture.

Like Nicodemus, we come knowing that we are in the dark but seeking God’s light. As we respond to God’s revelation, in His grace, and in His timing, God will cause us to be born by His Spirit, born from above. It is an uncontrollable, incomprehensible mystery. You can experience it, but you can’t explain it.

Secondly, we need to learn to live with mystery. In Isaiah 6, the prophet has a vision of heaven. He gives us an amazing word-picture of the heavenly throne-room. Incredible angels flying around, the whole place filled with worship, so that it shakes and the smoke of incense fills the entire place. And Isaiah is overwhelmed, overcome by awe and the power and majesty of it all and he exclaims,

‘Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips’

I imagine Isaiah had thought he had a pretty good idea of who God was. Maybe he had thought that his theology was quite good, quite sound. Yet, when he encounters the reality of God, he is stunned and realises that He knew so little, only a tiny fraction of the immense reality of God.

Also, in the presence of God’s incredible majesty and holiness, Isaiah is convicted of his sin and short-comings, “Woe is me!” Isaiah state’s his main failing is the same as his people, they have unclean lips.

What does that mean? I don’t think he is simply speaking about obscene talk and swearing. I think it is more to do with the fact that he has just had this revelation of God and realises that all his previous talk about God was so far off the mark, as to be sinful. He regrets every word he has spoken about God.

God sends an angel to sear Isaiah’s lips with a red-hot coal. God’s holy fire cleanses and purifies lips that have spoken error about God. Now Isaiah’s lips are purified, he is given a chance to speak about God and for God. But he is not forced, he is invited to volunteer.

Similarly, if we are to be in God’s service, we will also need purification. Amen.