The Night Visitor

March 10, 1996

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Scripture: John 3:1-17

Allow me, please, to start with a confession. The passage I have just read is an assignment. It is the lectionary reading for today, the Gospel reading for the 2nd Sunday in Lent. Left to my own devices, I probably would NOT have selected this passage to preach on this morning....in fact, I’m pretty sure I would not have. It came anyway, which is how it often happens. I didn’t choose it, it chose ME...I HOPE for a purpose that will prove to be worthwhile.

That’s not the confession, that’s just a report, leading up to the confession. The confession is that to be ruthlessly honest, I have never been entirely comfortable with this passage.... It makes me nervous.

There’s an old story, a venerable older story, about a psychiatrist, who was asked one day what he thought about schizophrenia. “Well”, he answered cautiously, “to tell you the truth, about schizophrenia, I am of two minds.”

That’s exactly the way I feel about this passage. My ambiguity, I realize, probably tells a lot more about me than it does about the story, but I can’t help it. IT DOES MAKE ME NERVOUS... not the story in itself, but the way it’s been used.

Here is one of those passages of Scripture to which repeated exposition, unfortunately, has not been entirely kind.

ON THE ONE HAND, it contains a verse which almost certainly would have to be called the premier verse of the New Testament. Ask 100 people to name the best known, and most important single verse of the Bible, and 75, at least, would name John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son.....”

It’s a brilliant, succinct summary of the Gospel message.

ON THE OTHER HAND, this same passage contains a verse which through the way it has sometimes been interpreted and preached, has caused an unfortunate amount of misunderstanding and division. IT HAS BEEN USED IN GREAT POWER FOR GREAT GOOD....

It has also been used, I’m afraid, in great detriment to the Christian cause. That’s what makes me nervous.

I suppose no text has been preached on more than John 3:3... “Ye must be born again.” Go to a football game and you’ll probably see it placarded by somebody holding up a sign in the end zone..... John 3:3

Maybe no text in the history of preaching has been the basis for more sermons than that text, yet how often, I think I want to say TRAGICALLY..... How often the preaching of that text has not resulted in bestowing of good news, but just the opposite---the actual restricting of it. It can be preached so divisively.

It’s a great text, an important text, a true text, properly understood, set in the heat of an important story, but it’s a text which taken alone and out of context not only HAS been, but frequently IS twisted and made to become the touchstone of all Christian orthodoxy. IT WASN’T DESIGNED TO CARRY THAT MUCH WEIGHT.

What is most unfortunate about the whole Nicodemus episode to me is that it has become associated and virtually identified in the popular mind with just one particular type of evangelistic approach....one particular style of gospel presentation.

The very term “born again” for many connotes only a highly emotional conversion experience, a sudden emotional conversion experience. It connotes, for many, beating pulses, and flashing lights, flames and fireworks....connotes a once and for all, dramatic, cataclysmic, religious turnaround which leaves the recipient gasping and floating, never again to come back to earth from that moment on to the end of life.

NOW THAT HAPPENS TO SOME PEOPLE. I believe it does, and I don’t denigrate it. It happened to my Grandfather, if the record he left of the experience is accurate. The outcome of what happened to him one night in a little country revival meeting continues to be written. It’s not over yet, I hope.

It happened to Paul, outdoors one afternoon, on a highway. I think it must have happened to John Newton, who after recovering his composure a bit, found he had to write a hymn about it---he couldn’t help himself---- “I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see.”

Of course it happens like that to people sometimes. Maybe it’s happened to you. If it has, I congratulate you, in all sincerity. You’ve had a rare and wonderful blessing. BUT THE NICODEMUS STORY DOESN’T HAVE TO BE POURED INTO THAT PARTICULAR MOLD. There is room within it for more than one kind of Christian experience....

What John is talking about is bigger than any single type of experience. He’s not primarily talking about experience at all. He’s talking about LIFE itself.

I say it carefully, and I hope with the reticence of unpretentiousness, but I believe it---THE POPULARIZATION OF THE EXPRESSION “BORN AGAIN” and its use in the limited sense of meaning an emotional, dramatic religious experience, really is closer to Nicodemus’s misunderstanding than it is to what Jesus really said.

This is a more inclusive story than we usually realize, I’m convinced, and the interchange between the 2 protagonists, one of the great dialogues of all time, is a lot closer to where most of us live every day, than maybe we’re usually aware of.

May we examine it this morning with fresh eyes? Go back with me in your imagination....Can you picture it?

The sun has fallen in Jerusalem, and with its setting has come a cessation of activity. The little shops and bazaars which all day have been buzzing and teeming with people have fallen silent.

Pharisees with phylacteries on their foreheads, and Sadducees in their bright robes can no longer be seen on street corners....Beggars and alms seekers have called it a day and slipped off or crawled off to their hovels.

Even the shrill bleating of sheep and camels, which incessantly filled the air all day, has mercifully subsided. Night has come.

All over the city quiet descends, as people from every walk and station bring their day to a close and prepare for rest.

But down a side street, and through the shadows there comes the figure of a man. He is not a young man, by any means. His movements reveal age and maybe a touch of heaviness, but he moves resolutely, even stealthily, furtively, as if he doesn’t want anyone to see who he is, or where he is going.

He comes at last to a door, the door of a house whose identification we are not able to make---maybe the house where the family of John Mark lived---we don’t know. Looking around to make sure he’s not being observed, he knocks and is admitted. Once inside, he politely inquires if he might be allowed to speak a few moments with this Stranger from Nazareth.

And so begins a remarkable conversation, one of the most fascinating ever recorded.

How much is historical and how much the inspired creation of John we have no way of determining from this distance. I’m not sure it matters, anyway. What we do have is the moving account, now forever a part of the tradition, of the meeting of 2 men. They come together at night, apparently strangers to each other before their encounter, to discuss with candor and obvious sincerity, the deep questions of the human soul.

Look at the contrast between them---There is Nicodemus, the night visitor, wealthy, respected, prestigious, pillar of the community, a Pharisee, a highly regarded teacher of the Jewish Law.

And there is Jesus—in the eyes of the average Pharisee a Galilean country boy, without education, without connections, without background, and certainly without the necessary credentials to be regarded as a bona fide prophet.

Nicodemus, though, could hardly be called an average Pharisee. This is important. Part of the punch of the whole story hinges on this. Nicodemus was a lot more than just an average Pharisee. Pharisees in general, ALL pharisees, were upright persons, moral, scrupulous in their religious observance. They took their religion seriously. We make a big mistake when we use the terms “pharisaical” and “hypocritical” interchangeably. Pharisees were right at the top of Jewish society morally and spiritually. The reason Jesus was so notoriously hard on them in the Gospels was precisely because they had so much promise. THEY WERE SO CLOSE.

And among the cream, Nicodemus was the creamiest. Not only a man of impeccable moral standards, not only a paragon of ethical virtue, he further had the sensitivity to recognize something real and vital in somebody else when he saw it.

AND HE SAW IT HERE....He saw it loud and clear in this strange young Man who had come to town from upstate Galilee.....

THERE’S SOMETHING SPECIAL GOING ON HERE....

Maybe he had heard him preach. Maybe he had heard him tell those incomparable parables he used to illuminate a point. Maybe he had seen the compassion in his eyes when he stopped to focus attention on a single, needy individual.... even in the midst of a crowd. Maybe he had stood watching on the edge of the crowd.... and admired.

THIS IS NOT FAKE STUFF..... THIS IS REAL.

So he went to him, admittedly by night.... that may indicate a note of caution. He did, after all, have to think about his reputation... He did have to be careful. What would the boys back at the club think.

BUT HE WENT, clearly indicating that there was something there he wanted for himself---a purity, maybe...cleansing, more knowledge, a sense of peace, a sense of PURPOSE, maybe, something to hold his life together more securely, so that it had greater meaning and coherence and zest. I don’t know anybody who can’t identify with Nicodemus in that quest, do you?

In the conversation that follows, as it has come down to us, it’s not easy to tell where the dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus ends and where the commentary of John the preacher picks up again. The one merges into the other.

John uses the dialogue to preach a sermon, of course. He always does that. That’s why he tells the story. John is interested in Nicodemus, but he’s interested in more than Nicodemus. He’s interested in YOU...and in ME. He’s interested in sharing something with us about this Jesus fellow, and about the LIFE He came to impart.

In that broad setting, then, in that context.... really, in a way, a very modern context, the context of a sensitive human being, looking for more in life, how do we most meaningfully read this story?

Is there something here, too, for those who may have been put off by the extremes of the “born again” slogans, as well as for those for whom they are very meaningful?

Does one group’s seizing on it mean others have to abandon it? Is there a way we can salvage a great text by seeing the truth it stands for, and points to, without having vision blocked by the blinders of misuse?

THERE HAS TO BE. I don’t claim this as the final word. I don’t impose it on you as dogma, nor will I be upset if you see it somewhat differently. It represents my best and most honest thinking at this point in my own spiritual development. THREE THINGS.

1) NO. ONE. When Jesus said to Nicodemus, “You must be born again”, I think he was saying, in part, EVEN THE BEST PEOPLE NEED RADICAL SPIRITUAL RENEWAL.

 John, of course, was saying, EVEN THE BEST PEOPLE NEED CHRIST.

The “born again” people are saying that, too, I think, when you really get behind the wording and the bluster. The way they SAY it repels people, often, but they’re essentially right. EVERYBODY NEEDS A FOCAL POINT THAT CENTERS AROUND SOMETHING OTHER THAN SELF. It doesn’t apply just to BAD people, it applies to ALL people.

Christianity isn’t a way of life designed only for a certain class, an ethic to be imposed only on certain ones to hold them in their place.

Edward Gibbon wrote a magnificent line in his “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”. In that famous history, he describes at one point how people in Rome tended to look at religion in the days of Empire... how they thought about all the religious that abounded.

Says Gibbon: “the various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true, by the philosophers as equally false, and by the magistrates as equally useful.” WHAT A DEVASTATING INSIGHT.

Religion was USEFUL, for those in charge, beneficial, helpful, because it maintained order, maintained the status quo, kept people who might otherwise be unruly from stepping out of line.

Well, it still prevails, in some manner, that attitude....“Teach them the right way, so they’ll show respect....Give them religion, so they’ll remain docile....”

BUT IT’S NOT FOR OUR BENEFIT....IT BECOMES A TOOL TO HELP US MANIPULATE.

John is saying, NO...NO..... That’s far too superficial, and much too limited. The point of Christianity is not to paint a veneer over the external conduct of people. It’s not to make people DECENT. It’s to make people NEW.

Not only bad people need regeneration...... the BEST people need it. Nicodemus is the symbol here..... outstanding character, intelligence, culture.... trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind.... He was the epitome of all that. If he had been a member of this church, he could have been elected Chairman of the Board.

But his life still swirled around the old ego....I....ME...Self...Pride...the ultimate idolatry.

I think this story is saying to us that conversion...a radical reorientation is needed because SIN is real.... and it’s present in us all.

I’m very conscious of who I’m speaking to now. Sometimes we use the expression, “preaching to the choir.” Well, that’s exactly what I hope I’m doing, and I’m in the middle of it. Growing up in Church, believing in the 10 commandments, trying to live by what are called “Christian principles” doesn’t keep you from being a sinner. This is basic, bottom-line stuff.

Remember the Old Testament story of Adam? The name “Adam” in Hebrew means “man”....in the generic sense.... “the human”. The story of Adam is really the story of everybody. WE ALL REBEL, just like he did. We all put ourselves at the center of the universe. We all seek our own will first.... That’s what sin means. We cut ourselves off from God. And it’s something that can’t be educated out of us, or psychoanalyzed out of us.

We can work, we can strive, we can knock our heads against the wall, as Luther and Paul and Wesley and thousands have tried to do, in order to prove themselves, but by the perfect standards of God, we are STILL unprofitable servants.

Conversion, for which the term “born again” is dramatic symbol, is the admission that God alone is God, and the willingness to let that reality be true for me. It’s the event by which He changes me, and leads me from the old life of self-centeredness to the new life of forgiven fellowship with Him....

Coming into that life is sort of like a new birth. It’s the moment, whether experienced emotionally or not, when I recognize consciously the inadequacy of my own meager personal resources, and throw myself without reservation of God’s inexhaustible ones......AND FIND THAT THEY ARE ADEQUATE.

TO LIVE... really to LIVE, everyone needs to come to that point, even the best people, from Nicodemus on down.... and this is what John wants so much to share.

2) Now, I’m in danger of not finishing. Oh, of course I’m not going to finish. You’ll never finish dealing with a topic this big. 2 more things, but more quickly. Another implication in this story of the NIGHT VISITOR. Not only is Jesus saying that even the best people need radical spiritual reorientation. He’s also saying that the mature spiritual life has to have a beginning.

Misuse, or careless use of the born again phrase may obscure it, but the hard fact is that there can’t be any kind of Christian growth until there is first some kind of Christian BIRTH.

There has to be a beginning, there has to be a starting point, somewhere...when a person consciously and voluntarily makes a commitment to the role of discipleship. If you don’t have that, you may have something, but you don’t have Christianity.

At the Institute of Preaching last week, Dennis, the dean of the Duke Divinity School, quoted Flannery O’Connor, the well-known author from Georgia, who happens to be a Roman Catholic. In one of her books, Miss O’Connor has a character to say, “I just don’t understand Protestants. For the life of me, I can’t understand them. Their churches don’t seem like churches at all. They seem more like holy Rotary Clubs.”

Now, I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry about that. I know it bothers me, because it comes pretty close to home. The truth is, I’m afraid, that our churches contain lots of people who are not growing in grace because they’ve never been born in grace.

Again, it doesn’t mean you have to have a certain stereotyped kind of experience...it doesn’t mean there’s only one door into the Christian room. Your experience doesn’t have to fit somebody else’s.

THERE COMES A TIME, THOUGH, TAKING ALL THAT INTO ACCOUNT, AND MAKING ALLOWANCE FOR ALL THAT DIVERSITY....there comes a time, somehow, somewhere along the line, when you, as a mature, self-conscious, adult person need to make a mature, self-conscious, adult commitment to Jesus Christ. THIS IS WHY WE HAVE CHURCH.

I suspect that on our church rolls and maybe even here today, there are people who have never done that.

Let me share with you a quote from Dr. Elton Trueblood, the great Quaker teacher and writer: “There are 2 insights which can illuminate our understanding of the Christian cause. The first is that the conversion which is important is NOT conversion from sheer paganism to minimal Christianity, NOT conversion from cold to warm, but conversion from lukewarm to hot, from a mild religion to one in which a person’s whole life is taken and filled and controlled and compelled. The second insight is that the most common situation in which that kind of conversion can occur is the situation of middle age.”

I don’t know if anyone here has yet reached middle age, or not, but I invite your prayerful consideration of the main thrust of the thesis. Even if the distortions of the “born again” phrase put you off, remember the mature spiritual life has to have a beginning.

3) AND FINALLY THIS---Even the best people need renewal; The spiritual life has to start before it can grow.....and THIRDLY, the LIFE John is talking about, the Life in Christ, the quality of life Nicodemus was looking for even without knowing at that point exactly what it was all about, IS A LIFE THAT IS NOT ACHIEVED AT ALL, BUT IS GIVEN BY GOD. Isn’t that the main point, after all?

It’s not something you forge, something you make, something you climb to, it’s something you RECEIVE. You must accept it, of course, you must claim it, you must be open to it, but it’s God’s life to give, as free from our control as the whence and whither of the wind. Jesus says that right in the passage. The spiritual birth, just like the physical birth, is essentially a passive experience. It isn’t something you do, it’s something done to you.

The Greek word usually translated “again” in the phrase “ye must be born again”, is ANOTHEN. And while one translation of ANOTHEN is again, an equally valid translation is “from above”. “Ye must be born FROM ABOVE.”

To me, that gets to the heart of what Jesus was saying.

AND CLOSE TO THE HEART OF WHAT WE MEAN WHEN WE TALK ABOUT GOD’S INITIATING REDEMPTION. It also turns the tone of his words from what may sound like a threat into a glorious promise.

You can’t be good enough to qualify for God’s approbation. That’s true. You can’t fulfill the “oughts” that complete discipleship demands. Not even Nicodemus could, and neither can you. The sooner you admit it, the better.

But what you can’t do, God can, and will, and does. HE DOES IT THROUGH CHRIST, WHO THROUGH HIS DEATH AND RESURRECTION HAS FLUNG OPEN THE DOORS OF HEAVEN TO LET THE FATHER’S MERCY AND ACCEPTANCE COME TUMBLING DOWN. More than anything in the world, He wants it to come tumbling down all over you.

Have you claimed it? Will you claim it? In the name of John, and in the name of Jesus, I invite you. “You must be born ANOTHEN.” And if you must, surely you will.