Visit of Nicodemus to Christ
oil on canvas, 1880
John La Farge, United States
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Gift of William T. Evans, 1909
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Visit of Nicodemus to Christ |
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews.
He came to Jesus by night and said to him,
“Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who had come from God;
for no one can so these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.”
Jesus answered him,
“Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the realm of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus said to him,
“How can anyone be born after having grown old?
Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”
Jesus answered,
“Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God
without being born of water and Spirit.
What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’
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.”
Nicodemus said to him,
“How can these thing be?”
Jesus answered him,
“Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?”
(John 3:1-10)
Nicodemus
I am not certain why I went to see Jesus that night. Perhaps I was hoping to experience, first-hand, one of the miracles of healing that everyone was talking about, a private showing if you will. Perhaps a part of me thought that, if I met with him, if I looked straight into his mysterious eyes, I could tell whether or not he was for real. To be honest, part of me, the legal eagle in me, wanted him to be a fraud. I was secretly hoping that he was just another would-be Messiah because, quite frankly, he was not at all what I expected in a Messiah. A deeper hungrier part of me, however, knew that this Jesus had something to offer, something I needed, something we all need.
All of me knew Jesus was a threat, a threat to the law as I understood it and a threat, therefore, to almost everything I believed. I knew that if Jesus were right, then my life had been at the very least misguided and at worst, spiritually bankrupt. You see, I was a Pharisee, a ruler of my people. I was considered to be a respected teacher of the faith. Believe me, there was no small amount of study and commitment supporting my position. My primary job as a Pharisee and member of the Sanhedrin was to study the Torah, the law, the rules of my faith, and to explore the implications of those laws. I spent hours debating rules with other people who study rules. My entire religious life was built around the letter of the law. I thought that to be a faithful person was to observe every detail of the law of Moses.
When I look back on it now, it seems a little comical. There was a law, for instance, stating that, on the Sabbath, people could not travel more than a few hundred feet beyond their home. But, if they took a rope and tied one home to the next and so on, a whole village could be considered one home and a person could come and go thousands of yards without breaking the law. You see, we obeyed the law as far as we could expertly stretch it.
Oh, we took the law seriously but we found all sorts of ways to make the law more creatively convenient. It was almost like telling a lie with your fingers crossed behind your back. As if crossing ones fingers justifies the lie. I still follow the law faithfully, don’t misunderstand me, but I have put it in perspective. I have set it in the context of grace. Or, to be more accurate, I have followed the master’s path which sets everything, absolutely everything, in the context of grace. I understand now that loving one’s neighbor carries far more importance in the eyes of God than any law about how far one may travel on the Sabbath.
I tell you, even to speak the way I am speaking to you is to break rules I observed painstakingly most of my life. So you can see why I was afraid of Jesus. He took all of my assumptions about faithfulness and turned them inside out. He took the meaning of my life, which I had imagined to be the size of Mt. Sinai, and knocked it down to the size of a Galilean anthill. I must confess also that I feared what my colleagues and neighbors might think if they discovered I was going to see Jesus. That is why I went in the dark – so that I would not be seen, so that no one would know I was doing this crazy thing. I could not be associated too closely with the one my colleagues had condemned as a heretic, a blasphemer, and, worst of all, a dangerous scoffer of the law. I had to be cautious. My considerable reputation was on the line.
When I arrived at the place where Jesus was staying in Jerusalem, much to my surprise, I felt strongly that I was standing in the presence of a holy man and I said as much. Sitting there in front of him, my doubts about him vanished. “Rabbi,” I said, “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.” Jesus cut right to the heart of my dilemma. His words answered a question which I did not even know how to articulate. He said, “Truly, Nicodemus, unless you are born anew you cannot see the realm of God.” He offered me a spiritual metaphor of extraordinary beauty and strength. But, fool that I was, I did not comprehend its meaning. I did not understand Jesus at first. I was confused by his words.
At that time, I suffered from what can only be called a lack of imagination. When I heard him say, “born anew,” I understood his words in a literal sense only. I pictured being born as I had entered the world the first time, indeed in the very way all of us come into the world. And so, like a child, I asked, “Can it be done? Can I go back into the womb?” I admit to being a little horrified by the prospect of such a peculiar miracle. And I know I sounded like a complete goatherd, especially for such an educated man. Of course, Jesus did not mean that we are to be born over again physically but I did not get it at first.
He was so patient with me that night. He listened to me as no one had ever listened before. What Jesus was talking about, really, is sometimes called a paradigm shift. This was a courageous departure from the very framework of religious thought to which I had adhered so tenaciously. When he said, “born anew,” he meant born from the very spirit of God, an idea that was, from my experience, thoroughly foreign to Pharisees.
I tell you, something happened that night. Believe it or not, something happened to change me. I did not recognize the change at first but I have been, as Jesus suggested, born anew, born of God’s spirit. I do not wear those words like a trophy or a medal. And I do not use those words superficially as if they are silly passwords required to get into the brotherhood of Jesus. To be born anew, to be born of God, does not entail participating in some temporary religious thrill. It is, rather, to live in fearless openness to the spirit and will of God. It is a way of living and being and looking and understanding that enables us to see God in all things, to see what Jesus called the realm of God.
I am born anew. I was offered an opportunity to start life over again in a new way, as if born in a different way, into a different place. Where I had been worshipping the fine points of the law, Jesus taught me to worship God. Where I had been living in relationship to a set of regulations, Jesus offered me a relationship with the living God. Where I had been debating rules, Jesus showed me how to live in the spirit of God. Where I had been trusting in the scrolls, Jesus reminded me that my help comes from God alone, who made heaven and earth and who slumbers not nor sleeps. I am eternally grateful to Jesus for making my life so rich and full where it had been so empty and litigious.
It is a rather extraordinary fact that one never knows for certain how the wind of the spirit will blow through our lives. One never knows how or on whom the Spirit of God will fall afresh. On that life-changing night so long ago, Jesus said to me,
“No one can enter the realm of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh and what is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, you must be born from above. 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.” That night I did not understand. I asked Jesus earnestly, “How can this be?” Jesus answered, “For God so loved the world.”
That night, like a babe newly born into the light of day and seeing for the first time, my eyes were opened. I see now what is real and what is not, what is important and what is not, what is of the world and what is of the spirit of God. I see now the extraordinary possibilities our loving God sets before us and I am born anew to a living hope.
May you be so richly blessed. May you experience rebirth into the Spirit of God, rebirth into the realm of God. May you be so touched by grace.
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Sarah M. Foulger may be contacted at: sarahfoulger@gmail.com