Get A Life

This familiar chapter from John’s Gospel is the lectionary text for today, the 2nd Sunday in Lent. It’s a good text, a familiar text, so familiar that when I first wrote it I expected it to be relatively smooth sailing. But it wasn’t. It was a difficult sermon for me to write, partly because it’s usually used as an evangelistic text, to introduce non-believers to the Gospel of Christ. It’s a terrific introductory text. But what does it have to say to those of us who are already Christian?

The idea of needing to be born again isn’t new to us. And John 3:16 is probably one of the best known and most repeated verses in contemporary Christianity. I’ll bet most of us know it by heart. Try saying it with me: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” See? We know this piece.

I remember meditating on the passage, worrying at it, picking apart the Greek, reading the commentaries, and the more I wrestled with the text the more questions I had.

Why did Nicodemus come to see Jesus?

Why did Jesus answer the way he did? It wasn’t what Nicodemus asked.

Why should Nicodemus have known what Jesus meant by “born again?” Isn’t that a NT idea?

What does Jesus really mean by “eternal life?” Is it the same thing as “the Kingdom of God?”

And what I came up with was a sort of extended metaphor, a picture that draws all the different pieces of this passage together, at least for me, and helps me to make sense of how Jesus’ words really do answer Nicodemus’ real question, and really do apply to everyone’s life, whether at the beginning of a relationship with Jesus, or in the middle, or at the end. So I’m going to ask you to use your imaginations a little.

Imagine, if you will, that you’re all sitting in a darkened movie theater. You’ve been there as long as you can remember, and what you see on the screen is all there is in your life. The stories flow by, and you weep, and laugh, love or hate the characters, feel anger and hope and triumph and despair, and time goes by. Suddenly, one of the characters in the movie turns to the audience and says, “How are you going to get home? And what are you going to do when you get there?” The first time he does it, people shift in their seats and look uneasily at one another, wondering what he means. Pretty soon, the same character turns back to the audience and says, “Well, have you thought about what I said? Are you ready for real life?” This time, some people get really mad, and start throwing things at the screen. But some people start nodding, thinking to themselves, “I’ve always wondered about that. Maybe this isn’t all there is to life after all.” And the next time the character appears, he steps right out into the audience and asks everyone who’s interested in real life to meet him at the back of the theater and he’ll show them how to get home. Once again, some shout angrily at the character and start figuring out how to keep him from messing up their story. But some people get up, and start moving toward the exit. And a few in the middle sit still, wondering what to do, wondering who’s right, scared either to go or to stay.

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.” [v.1, 2].

Nicodemus is one of the people in the middle; he didn’t know whether to yell at the intruder or follow him. He could tell from what Jesus was doing that he knew something ordinary people didn’t know. Jesus had some kind of connection - or insight - or something - into the story of God’s people. But what Jesus was saying didn’t fit with what Nicodemus thought he knew about God, about reality. So he wanted to check out Jesus’ credentials before he acted. Furthermore, Nicodemus had a position to protect. If it turned out that Jesus didn’t know what he was talking about, Nicodemus wanted to keep his rear covered so that he wouldn’t lose his protected, privileged status. He wanted a “reserved” sign left on his comfortable, front row center seat. So he starts by asking Jesus to confirm his identity.

But Jesus knew that Nicodemus didn’t really have a problem with his credentials. Jesus knew that Nicodemus’ problem was with his message. Nicodemus had committed his life to the images on the screen. If Jesus had said something like, “OK, all you true believers, come up and join me on the silver screen, and we’ll all ride off into the sunset together,” Nicodemus wouldn’t have hesitated. He knew that the Messiah was due; he undoubtedly believed in the Messiah and prayed with the best of them for liberation from Rome. And he would also expect that as a member in good standing of the religious establishment he would get a front row seat for that event, too. He’d been waiting on line for years, just to be one of the first through the doors. He was ready for the prize. The problem was that Nicodemus believed that the Messiah was behind door number 1. It had never occurred to Nicodemus that there was another door, a door to a completely new world. It had never occurred to Nicodemus that there was any reality more important than Jerusalem and the Temple.