Text: Jn 3:1-21. Preached at Werribee Church of Christ 15/2/04, by Rev Lance Lawton

Introduction

About a week ago, GJ sent me an e-mail, which included a line, quote that goes like this: “Come work for the Lord. The work is hard, the hours are long and the pay is low. But the retirement benefits are out of this world!” I had heard it before, G.; but it was good to be reminded of it. Not only a clever piece of humour; it’s also profoundly and beautifully true. But it set me to thinking of something else about GJ .. (and it truly pains me to humiliate you, G.) .. How many know that he’s a member of the Melbourne Cricket Club? Not bad is it? Do you drool with envy? I do. The prestige .. the gentleman’s life .. sipping sherry in the long room while the “hoi poloi” battle flies, sun and yobbos. (Or at least it was like that before the bulldozers came .. but let’s not spoil it.) You almost need to be born into it to enjoy the privileges .. if you sign up now you’ll be in a pine box before you get to the top of the waiting list. They didn’t play cricket in C1st Israel (a backward civilisation). But being in the right club certainly mattered. And on more than one occasion, Jesus was asked about the membership requirements for the Kingdom of God? A few moments ago we read John’s account of Jesus’ response to such a question from a man named Nicodemus. We could spend weeks on this, but I’d like to try to sum it up in 3 parts this morning: There are no free rides If knowledge of the Law was the path to life, then the Pharisees would have been at the head of the queue. They were the ones who had specialised for centuries in studying the Law .. defining .. applying it to the details of daily life .. If you wanted to know what the Law of God said to a particular issue or facet of your life – your business, your marriage, anything, then just ask a Pharisee. Imagine then how startling a thing it was for Jesus to say to Nicodemus in (Jn 3:10ff) Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you [don’t even understand truths about God which are accessible to earthly people]?. By the standards of the time, if anyone should have known the fundamentals of the things of God, this man should. .. But Jesus finds him wanting. And yet Jesus’ words to Nicodemus are rather tactful compared with the commentary from John. (Remember John is our narrator for this encounter between Jesus and one of Israel’s great teachers.)

Last week we noted John’s great relish for painting powerful pictures with words. His gospel account is full of images – often very subtle, so subtle you could read him over and over .. and never see them. There’s one of them in v2 He came to Jesus by night . If you’re wondering what’s so remarkable about that, please listen on… Not only does John love to use word pictures, he also has a real craft for using multiple layers of meaning .. so a single word, phrase, sentence might tell us several things in the same breath – all at different levels. Now when John tells us that Nicodemus came at night, I think there are at least two things we’re being told 1. the plain & obvious meaning – night time, after dark. Nicodemus was a respected religious leader, and Jesus was from the Pharisaic point of view, a troublemaker. So Nicodemus is protecting his own public image, by coming under cover of darkness for a private audience. 2. the meaning we might not notice – by night .. which is John’s way of saying Nicodemus was a man in spiritual darkness. John has told us in his preview (Jn 1:1-18) that Jesus Christ, as the one who reveals God’s glory in the world, is a light shining in the darkness. A world without direct knowledge of God’s glory is a dark place .. spiritually .. and Nicodemus, even though he knows inside-out the Law that came through Moses .. is a man trapped in darkness because he has not seen the glory of God’s lovely character of grace and truth .. which is found only in Christ. John’s assessment of Nicodemus is chilling .. and we should be unsettled by it – it should tell us that no one is guaranteed eternal life by sheer virtue of who they are, or how much they know .. It’s possible to be a teacher of Israel, an expert in God’s law, a scholar of the bible, a leader of God’s people .. and yet lack true personal knowledge of God. Not one among us can afford to ignore what Jesus says about life, and how to find it. Only God can make it possible It doesn’t come when you fill your mind with knowledge; it comes when God takes your heart and recreates it by filling it with his Spirit. Another pattern we see a lot in John is Jesus in conversation with people, who for most or all of the conversation are just not on his wavelength .. shut off to the heavenly/ spiritual/ eternal reality that Jesus is on about. It starts here the moment Nicodemus opens his mouth. 2 He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Now he’s right as far as it goes .. Jesus is certainly a teacher sent by God .. and he performs signs that bear God’s mark. Nicodemus can see that much, so he’s probably closer to the mark than most of his fellow religious bigwigs. But Nicodemus’s mind is rusted to the framework of the Law .. in his view of things, knowledge is just about everything .. the more you know about God & God’s law, the more righteous you can be, and the more you can please God. “This man Jesus obviously has some handy knowledge .. and if I can just download this additional data from Jesus’ server to my HD, then I’ll be closer to the front of the queue.” But Jesus diagnoses Nicodemus’s spiritual state very quickly; and he says “Nicodemus, if you truly want what God wants to give you, then you don’t need data transfer; you need God to recreate your entire personality from the inside. You need to be born all over again spiritually. And when the Holy Spirit of God blows the life of God all the way through you .. then you will be able to grasp spiritual reality.” 8 The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Jesus is harking back to the creation, when (Gen 1) the earth was formless and empty .. and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters. Spirit = ‘wind’ … And Jesus here says “You can’t follow the wind, or control or manipulate it .. you can’t even see it .. all you can do is wait passively and helplessly to see the outcome of what the wind has done.” It was a work of God’s Spirit to bring about life at the start .. and only the same Spirit can bring you to life in God, and make you an heir to eternal life. There are no free rides into the Kingdom of God .. and there is no one who doesn’t need God to decisively reprogram them .. so that they can come to see life and the world and other people and themselves from God’s perspective. .. “Nicodemus, you don’t need knowledge, you need a new birth by the Spirit of God.” .. And, friends, you are no different, whoever you are .. whatever your background, spiritual pedigree, knowledge; you must be born again, and you must ask today “Is that true of me? .. Or am I in fact in spiritual darkness?” It all hangs on Christ Only the Spirit of God can bring you to new spiritual birth. What you must do is shift all of your trust and all of your hope onto Christ .. for this life and for eternity. Nicodemus is a man of the Law .. so Jesus takes him back to the Law. (The portion of the Scriptures that the Jews know as “the Law” is the first 5 books of the Bible: Gen, Exo, Lev, Numb, Deut.) Jesus takes Nicodemus back to a moment in the history of Israel, during the 40 years in the desert, which was where the Law was given. Nb 21: The people grumbled against Moses, as they frequently did: “There’s nothing to eat; there’s nothing to drink; and can’t we have some decent leadership round here.” And the consequence of that rebellion was a plague of poisonous snakes sent by God. And many people died. And the people came to Moses and said “We’ve sinned .. please ask the Lord to take away the snakes.” And did the Lord take the snakes away? No .. instead he appointed a means of escape from death. (Nb 21:8) He instructed Moses to make a bronze snake, and put it on a pole, and set it in the ground. And anyone who was bitten need only look at the bronze snake .. and they’d live. And Jesus now points Nicodemus forward to his own coming death, when he would be lifted up on a cross: 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. It’s the same saving God, who still deals with sin, but far more perfectly. The way to escape eternal death .. the way to enter that new life which God’s Spirit is ready to give .. is to look to the Cross .. to give up any thought of a free ride to heaven on the strength of who you are or what you know .. to admit that without a Saviour you will certainly die eternally .. and so to look to the crucified Christ, which means to trust him for eternal life in the presence of the holy God. “Nicodemus, you don’t need to win eternal life in God’s kingdom; you just need to know yourself to be an object of his love, out of which he gave his only Son to be lifted up in death for you. Don’t look to your religious pedigree, your knowledge of the Law .. look up to the one God has lovingly provided to save the world from perishing forever. ” 16 “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. Conclusion Mel Gibson was asked publicly recently why he spent $25m of his own money to produce a film. And he said this: “A couple of years back, I was looking out of a window wondering why I shouldn’t jump. Life had no meaning for me. It was boring. Purposeless. That’s when I turned to Him. That’s where my relationship with Christ really started growing. You see, I was a bad guy . . . a really horrible guy. My sins were the first to nail Him to the Cross. I wanted to tell His story.” My sins were the first to nail Him to the Cross.. .. And in the film the hand that holds Jesus’ hand in place while the nail was driven in .. was Mel Gibson’s own hand .. his signature.