Press on

Nicodemus holds the knees of the body of Christ in Carravaggio’s The Entombment.

Source: Caravaggio , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent, Year A (March 5, 2023).

View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day: Second Sunday in Lent (Year A)

Preached at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, NY. A video of our whole 10 am service for the Second Sunday in Lent (March 5, 2023) is available here.

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Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

“…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.” John 3:9-10, 16-17

Edited Transcript

May only truth be spoken here and only truth be heard. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Please be seated.

Today's Gospel tells us about an encounter between a man named Nicodemus and a man named Jesus. There are four Sundays remaining in the season of Lent, before Palm Sunday. And on each of these Sunday's, we're going to hear a story, in the Gospel of John, of somebody or somebodies who are having an encounter with Jesus. This week, Nicodemus. Then Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well; the blind man at the gate; and finally Mary and Martha and Lazarus.

Each of these people will encounter Jesus. They lived on earth at the same time that Jesus lived on earth. They experienced the life and ministry of Jesus before his death and his rising again. They encountered this mystery of God walking on earth as one of us before the fullness of that mystery had been revealed. And each of these people in their encounter with Jesus has things they need, something they want. Each of these people by their encounter with Jesus experiences a change, experiences their lives being transformed by meeting and talking with Jesus. So I want you to keep this frame in mind as we look more closely at this first encounter.

I find Nicodemus so fascinating. He appears only in John's Gospel, not in any of the other Gospel tellings. And he appears not just in this one story today but three times, which makes him really a crucial figure. The first time we encounter him is in this reading we just heard, where he comes to Jesus by night with questions. He asks Jesus, how is it you're doing this things? We know you're of God. He presses Jesus with further questions, and we'll come back to that.

Then we don't see him for a while, but he reappears in the seventh chapter of John when Jesus at the Festival of Booths, Sukkot, and Jesus is getting himself into trouble in the Temple. The temple authorities are talking among themselves and they're asking the guards why they didn't arrest Jesus. And Nicodemus is one of the leaders (so you can imagine what might be for us a kind of Senate or Congress, seventy Temple leaders talking to each other about what is to be done about Jesus). Nicodemus stands up and asks, shouldn't we hear him out before we condemn him? He stands up, and kind of puts himself on the line, and then he goes away again.

We don't hear about him until the 19th chapter of John. Where does Nicodemus reappear? He reappears at the burial of Jesus. It's Nicodemus alongside Joseph of Arimithea who prepares the body for burial. And Nicodemus brings what is the equivalent of like 140 pounds of stuff for the burial. An amount of burial spices that you would only use for a king. He brings this extravagant offering, after Jesus has been tortured and crucified.

The man who came to Jesus first at night, so that nobody would see him talking to this troublemaker, later is willing to stand up in public—albeit weakly—and say, oh guys, shouldn't we listen to what he is saying and and at least see before we make a decision? He moves: from coming to Jesus in the night under the cover of darkness, to standing up and making a tentative defense, to being willing to bring everything he has to care for the body of someone who's been executed as a criminal, as an insurrectionist.

What has happened to Nicodemus from chapter three to chapter seven to chapter 19?

What was it like for Nicodemus to bury this body alongside Joseph and the three Marys ? When he came to bury this body, did he wish that he had stood up more strongly or spoken up sooner? Did he wish that he'd given up his position of power to follow Jesus while he had still had Jesus alive to follow?

Or maybe somewhere after standing up and offering that first defense, maybe he did give up everything and follow Jesus. Perhaps there was a journey with Jesus that ends with Nicodemus being there at the foot of the cross and at the burial.

We don't know for sure, but from coming under cover of night, to being willing to stand up and offer this extravagant gift to the executed Jesus, there's a tremendous change in Nicodemus. He's venerated in some churches, the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church as a saint. He had an encounter with Jesus and it changed his life.

Now, let's look at today's story about Nicodemus. He comes to Jesus and he says, we can see what you're doing and we know that you're coming from God. But Nicodeumus wants to know more about that. He doesn't understand it. So Jesus gives him a first answer. Nicodemus still doesn't understand, but he presses. He joins all of us in saying, what are you talking about, being born again? What does that mean? He says, I know it doesn't mean that you know I'm old. I know you're not telling me to go back into my mother's womb and start life over again, right? You don't mean that. So what do you mean?

There's a translator who notes that Jesus' talk of being "born again" is a pun in Greek. "Born again" can also mean "Born from above." So this translator has Jesus say, "you've got to be born again, taking it from the top." Coming afresh, coming anew, starting over with a new spirit.

But Nicodemus doesn't understand. So he presses Jesus. He says, these things that you're talking about, how can they be? What do you mean? How does this happen? And it's because of his pressing Jesus, Nicodemus' curiosity leads him on until he finally hears from Jesus the good news. He hears the good news that most of us have been hanging onto all our lives. What does Jesus say? Nicodemus presses him: what do you mean? How does this happen? And Jesus says: God so loved this world that God gave everything.

It's because Nicodemus lets his curiosity lead him on, that he discovers the Good News. God so loved the world. God so loved you and me. God so loved Abraham. God loved the prophets. God loved us through history, and finally, God gave God: to be here, to show us what it means to live anew, to take it from the top, so that we would be renewed. So that we would be not condemned, but saved: rescued from our brittle patterns, from our patterns of hatred and violence, of arrogance and wanting to be right.

God so loves the world that God gave everything. And it's Nicodemus' curiosity that leads him finally to press until he hears that good news, which is the good news for all of us. God so loved this world, and still does.

So as we continue through this holy season and we look for Jesus and we encounter Jesus together, let your curiosity lead you on. Let your doubt and your wondering, what does this really mean for me? For us?

Keep pressing until you too know the good news, and until it changes everything. Amen.