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“Now there was a man of the
Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said
to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one
can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.’ Jesus answered him, ‘Truly, truly, I say
to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God’”
(John 3:1-3).
I was twenty two at the time
and nearly in a state of panic. I
hadn’t yet found a wife. In a short
while, I would be heading for Concordia Seminary, and knew there would be
far fewer opportunities to find a date on that campus than there would be
on the campus of the University
of Wisconsin. And so I was on a mission, but not the
kind of mission we usually talk about in this place.
I first met Gail, my wife, at Calvary Lutheran
Chapel in Madison.
Our first date was to an Al Jarreau concert, and afterward we came back to
where I was living, one of those old, dingy houses right off of Park
Street. We sat in the kitchen on either
side of a cheap table with a gray, Formica top resting on wobbly aluminum
legs, and we talked and talked and talked.
It surprised us both.
The next date was a Packer
game at County
Stadium. We were with friends from Calvary. I’m
not sure how it happened but Gail ended up sitting behind me. That wasn’t good at all, and needed to be
fixed? Fortunately it was cold. Fortunately, Gail was cold and I had a
blanket. It wasn’t subtle, and I
wasn’t subtle, but I exchanged seats with the stranger sitting next to her,
and we talked and talked. It was so
easy . . . so wonderful.
Later that evening, I wasn’t
ready to part ways, with Gail that is.
The other friends . . . it was time for them to go. So we went to Gino’s, a small restaurant
on State Street. We talked some more. Mind you, this was our second date, and I
had all the subtlety and refinement of a freight train. I’m not sure what we were talking about
at that moment. To me, it didn’t
matter. I had an agenda. Perhaps Gail was telling me about her
family. I interrupted, and with all
the delicateness and restraint and nuance I could muster, I said, “Gail. Let’s cut the bull. I’m not interested in dating. I’m going to the seminary in half a year,
and I’m looking for a wife.” There
was a slight gasp from the other side of the table. Maybe, in retrospect I should have eased
into that topic, but at least I got it on the table. After two dates, finally we were getting
down to business.
Something like that happens
in our Gospel lesson. It’s the story
of Nicodemus. I’ve always liked
him. He is successful and
influential. He is a member of the
Sanhedrin, a select group of seventy men who served essentially as the
government of Israel
under Roman occupation. He is a part
of the elite, upper crust society. He
is on top of his game. But something
is going on in Nicodemus’s life.
Something is eating away at him, keeping him up at night. There’s a certain emptiness and
meaninglessness that disturbs him. And
so one night, after dark, when the city is quiet and he will not be seen,
he goes to the house where there is staying a man whose ideas and character
and growing reputation intrigue him.
I like this best about Nicodemus.
He takes a chance. He risks
reputation and influence, he risks familial relationships, he risks even
his high-powered job, and he goes to see the young and controversial
teacher named Jesus.
Nicodemus introduces himself
with some smooth flattery. “Rabbi”
he says. “We know that you are a
teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God
is with him.” Jesus doesn’t appear
interested in what Nicodemus has just said.
Immediately, he gets down to business. His answer to the flattery of
Nicodemus? “Truly, I say to you,
unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Jesus himself is about a subtle as a
freight train. I wonder if Nicodemus
gasped at the jolt. Obviously Jesus has an agenda, and has no time to lose. It’s as if Jesus said, “Let’s cut to the
chase, Nicodemus. Let’s dispense
with the social niceties, shall we?
You don’t have time for all that and I certainly don’t have time for
all that. You’ve come here to talk
about matters of the faith, about things spiritual. So let’s talk.” It would be like a stranger coming into my
office and speaking well of a picture on the wall, and me, responding to
the compliment by saying, “I hope you’re baptized, because if you’re not, I
worry about whether or not you’ll make it into heaven.”
Now of course it’s possible
that there was more of a conversational bridge, and that the Bible simply
doesn’t record it because it’s not all that important. I don’t see the Bible taking pains to record
Jesus asking about how Nicodemus’ family is doing. Yet in the Gospels of
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, I do see Jesus being very focused on the
mission at hand, with no time to lose. There’s a sense of urgency in Jesus, a
resolve to keep moving toward the goal, a determination to make it all
count. He does not let teaching
opportunities slip by him, and we never see him just passing the time,
shooting the breeze with his disciples.
Every chance he has, he seizes the moment and forces the people
around him to think about important matters of life and death, of sin and
forgiveness, of heaven and hell.
For
instance, in the very next chapter, he asks a Samaritan woman at a well for
a drink of water. The woman is
startled, because Jews usually don’t associate with Samaritans. She is even more startled, however, when
this particular Jew says, “If you knew . . . who it is that asks you for a
drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water”
(Jn. 4:10). What kind of hit-the
wall transition is that? Obviously,
he’s thrown out the bait with a big heavy splash. Most fish would dart away, but he hopes
she takes the bait and she does.
Later, in chapter 6, the crowd is surprised to
find him on the other side of the lake.
They asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” As in: “Nice to see you! How long can you stay?” Again, Jesus isn’t interested in social
niceties: “Do not work for food that
spoils” he responds, “but for food that endures to eternal life, which [I]
will give you” (Jn. 6:26).
I suspect Jesus caught many people unawares,
unprepared to talk seriously. I suspect
he startled many, taking their breath away . . . causing gasps of surprise
wherever he went. I suspect many even
concluded Jesus was not very polished or refined or graceful or skilled at
easy and casual conversation. And I
suspect that you and I are so concerned about being polished and refined
and polite that we let all kinds of opportunities go, and fail to witness
to our Savior. Because we don’t
seize them, those opportunities slip from our hands. You and I are so fixated on our
reputations that we fail to take chances for Christ. And I suspect you and I are so concerned
about causing offense that we are even reluctant to talk of the Christian
faith with those we love, with our siblings, friends, even our adult
children. Years pass, and all that
people get from us is politeness, when what they need is to be startled by
our Christian witness. That is, we
can become so polite and polished that we’re useless to the Lord. C.S. Lewis wrote, “The safest road to hell
is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden
turning, without milestones, without signposts” and I would add without
interruption.
Friends, there is a sense of urgency. None of us has the time we think we
have. The Bible says our days “are swifter than
a weaver’s shuttle” (Job 7:6). (Can
you hear the shuttling clicking back and forth?) The time for Christian witness is now,
because those without Christian faith also do not have the time they thing
they have.
I received a letter last week from a new pastor
in our district, fresh out of the seminary.
He was placed at a small country parish, a very old church, and yet
a church whose very survival today is in question. It’s not that there are no longer enough
people in that part of Wisconsin. It’s that a good portion of the
population has nothing to do with the church. (This is no longer the Wisconsin that you and I grew up
in.) In any event, my friend writes,
“On a side note . . . as you know, I’ve been beating the evangelism drum
hard now for about three months. We
have a small town and rural evangelism workshop coming up in Wautoma the
end of February. I have been
advertising that heavily in the bulletins, within sermons, in announcements
after the services and in every other more casual venue possible. In short, I’m putting a lot of capital on
this (and losing it, it seems).
“Yesterday, I went out on a
limb a little. After the service,
during that short space of time I reserve for announcements, I had the
people close their eyes (about two thirds of them complied) and imagine all
the people within their direct circle of acquaintance who were not
receiving the gifts of Jesus this morning.
I pointed out that these are high-risk people whom we love and whom
we don’t want to see slipping off to Hell.
Therefore, we all need increased evangelism skills, and our district
is providing help for us. There is a
sign-up sheet on the cork board [he continues] out there in the narthex
(which, by the way, has been out there for four weeks). My wife and I and two faithful men are
the only names on that list. Hmm . .
. (he writes) The field is white but the laborers are asleep. Yours. . . (and then he signed his name.)
There is a sense of urgency today. There was a sense of urgency in Jesus’
life as well. It drove him to ignore
eating and sleeping. It drove him to
startle people with hit the wall transitions. It drove him to take risks, and get down
to business, such as with Nicodemus.
This sense of urgency drove him all the way to the cross. One of the things Jesus said to Nicodemus
(because he wasn’t going to allow this opportunity to slip from his hands),
has become a favorite passage for us all.
John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have
eternal life.” “God so loved the world”. That means he loves all of it . . . the
people of China and of Japan, of Iraq
and Afghanistan, of Russia and America . . . all of it he
loves. There is not one person on
this earth that God does not love.
And his love for us is so great that he sent his Son to rescue us in
an unlikely place and in an unlikely way.
Jesus, the Son of God, died for you on a cross, for the forgiveness
of your sins. You need that
forgiveness more than you need shelter on a cold winter’s night. For without that forgiveness there is no
way we can get to heaven. And so we
are not saved by our works. We are
not saved by being good people, polite people, polished people. We are saved by God’s work in Jesus
Christ. We are saved by his
grace. We are saved by his love and
his death. And we receive this
salvation by faith. Unbelief turns
it away. Faith receives it.
That’s what Nicodemus needed to hear that night
more than any small talk, and that’s what Jesus made sure he heard. That’s what you and I need to hear this
day. God loves you. He sent Jesus to die for you. In him there is eternal life. We receive it by faith. And that’s the urgent message you and I
have been given to share with the world, even if it’s at the cost of being
abrupt and unpolished, even if makes you feel about as subtle as a freight
train. Amen.
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