Sermon 3-1-26

Sermon 3-1-26 2nd Sunday in Lent Jn. 3:1-17

I got in the sheep business in 1995. I didn't need any more livestock or pets, I needed some self-propelled lawn mowers for my junk yard. I started with four. Only two of them were females, the other two were castrated males, they're called wethers. I've raised hundreds since then. Being in the sheep business is like being in the rabbit business, when you're in, you're in.

Lots of young people with a few acres ask me about raising sheep. I tell them all the same thing, you don't need a male to be the father. All you need is for the temperature to be zero with a lot of snow on the ground and the ewes will have a lamb.

Our Gospel reading for today has a lot to say about fathers and birth. In John's Gospel there is a pattern to all of Jesus' conversations with other people, it's interesting. There are five steps.

An inquirer asks or says something to Jesus.

Jesus answers with something that is hard to understand.

That saying is misunderstood by the inquirer.

Jesus then responds with something even harder to understand.

Then Jesus follows up with a long discourse and an explanation.

The section we have here is a textbook example. Nicodemus comes to see Jesus at night. The name Nicodemus only appears in John's Gospel. Here and twice at the end. Once during the trial and when His body is placed in the cave.

There are a couple of reasons bible scholars agree about a night visit. Probably the most common is that a man in Nicodemus' position didn't want to be seen talking one-on-one with Jesus. Nicodemus was an important and wealthy man. We're told he was a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin, both of those groups were Jesus' enemies. Unlike other conversations with Pharisees, this one was cordial.

Step one. Nicodemus calls Jesus Rabbi and says, “we know that you are a teacher who has come from God”. Nicodemus wasn't alone in his thinking.

Then Jesus starts the second step in the conversation. He tells Nicodemus something he cannot understand.

Our reading says, “Very truly, I tell you”. The people of the Mediterranean region feel it necessary to tell a lie in order to keep from losing honor, losing face. They do it all the time. You never know if what they are telling you is fact or fiction. Unless, unless they start a sentence with “very truly” like we have here, or “verily, verily” or “amen, amen”.

Amen is a Hebrew word. It means steady, trustworthy or “so be it” when it comes at the end of a sentence or passage. The Greeks used four of their letters to make the same sound.

Nicodemus didn't get to ask a question before Jesus gives him an answer. And Nicodemus didn't understand this either. Jesus tells him you have to be born from above in order to see the kingdom of God. The Greek word for the English term “from above” is anothen, which has more than one meaning. It can mean “from above”, as we have here, or it can mean “again” or “anew”.

Jesus means “born from above” but, Nicodemus thinks He means “again”. Step three of the pattern, Nicodemus still doesn't understand. He wants to know how an old man can return to his mother's womb. The Greek word he uses is stomach.

Jesus immediately goes to step four. He gives Nicodemus something even harder for him to comprehend. Jesus again says, “very truly I tell you” and He starts telling Nicodemus about being born of water and Spirit.

There are three possible meanings associated with “water” here. Purification, birth and baptism. Birth is probably what is meant but, we don't have to exclude the other two to get the point. Wind and Spirit are also a single Hebrew word and, a single Greek word. Jesus uses both definitions. We can't see the wind or the Spirit but, we can see the results.

The Greek term for our English word born involves the father's role in producing a child. Jesus is saying we need two fathers, an earthly one and a heavenly one. We need to be reborn, this time by God. Human beings by themselves are flesh, limited to what flesh can do. Spirit is the symbol of power, the power to be what, by ourselves, we could never do.

Feeling sorry for Nicodemus yet?

He didn't even get to ask Jesus a question and he gets bombarded with all this information. Then John's Jesus goes into step five.

He follows up with the long discourse.

But the grammar changes in verse eleven. The singular “you” Jesus uses when he is talking to Nicodemus becomes the plural form. He is talking to a wider audience. He is talking to us. Again He starts with “very truly, I tell you”. We can take it to the bank.

“We speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen.” When Nicodemus came to see Jesus he said, “we know”. He thought they knew, they had seen signs. Turning the water into wine, casting out demons, healing the sick. Jesus really did know of heavenly things. He was an eye witness. That was His home, that's where He came from.

Jesus adds another earthly analogy. The bronze serpent.

While the Israelites were wandering around in the desert they were....... they would not quit complaining. They were grumbling against God for taking them out into the desert. God punished them with poisonous snakes. It didn't take long for them to confess their sins and beg for mercy.

God had Moses make a bronze serpent on a pole. When they looked up at the bronze serpent and believed, they were saved and given a new life, from God. You might say they were reborn from above. When we look at Jesus on the cross and believe, we also are reborn from above, with a heavenly Father.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him shall have eternal life.” This is the first of 17 times John and Jesus use the term eternal life. It does not mean living forever, it means the quality of life lived in the presence of God. Jesus is using the present tense, it begins now, for those who believe.

Amen, Amen.