The kids (my niece and nephew) were still pretty little when Nickelodeon started their Nick at Nite programing in the early 1980s. And it was fun to watch Joseph and Emily get such enjoyment out of some of the same TV shows we used to watch when we were kids (The Donna Reed Show, Leave it to Beaver, Dennis the Mennis, Andy Griffith, The Munsters).
Because Nick at Nite’s programming was somewhat limited in those early days, my sister would tape some of their favorite episodes, and they’d watch them over and over again. You’d know when it was live or Memorex if the kids knew all the lines.
So, here comes Nicodemus, a Pharisee, a member of the highest Jewish council permitted by the Roman government: the Sanhedin. This was a man well versed in matters of faith and tradition; a man of religious letters; a man filled with the self-assurance and confidence and sense of personal eminence which comes from absolutely `knowing’ what was right.
And yet – in spite of all that self-assurance and `knowing’ – something compels Nicodemus to seek Jesus out under the cloak of darkness.
Some speculate that the Pharisees sent Nicodemus to trap Jesus in an unguarded moment of heresy and didn’t want to alert his followers to their plan.
Others suggest that Nicodemus came to Jesus because he was genuinely intrigued by all the things – the signs and teachings – he had been hearing about, but didn’t want his own colleagues to see him meeting with this renegade Rabbi.
John’s Gospel makes a really big deal out of the analogy of darkness and light. In fact, he starts his Gospel with a parallel to the Creation Story in Genesis: out of the darkness of the formless void God brings forth the Light of world.
Turns out, old Nicodemus is a literalist; has no imagination.
I read a story some time ago about a young homeless man who was discovered, by a maintenance person, to be hiding in one of our denominations’ large prestigious churches. Apparently he had been lurking in the church for quite some time; living in the attic, spending his day in darkness, only venturing forth during the night to prowl about the church, feeding on the leftovers from church suppers, moving about in the building only at night, listening in on the daily activities of the congregation from his secret hideaway up in the attic somewhere.
Someone who’s been moving about in the midst of the congregation; present, but not really here; wandering around the margins, living in the shadows, afraid of being found out?
Do you know someone who is physically – bodily – here, but won’t allow themselves to be fully here; here with the rest of us; here with Jesus Christ?
Someone, perhaps, concealing their darkness by personality façade; or secreting deep insecurities behind a mask of bravado; or veiling nagging uncertainty behind a know-it-all attitude? Someone who mouths the words of the prayers and hymn, who goes through the motions of worship, but for some reason the meaning of it all never pierces the depths of the heart.
It’s not enough that you know the rules and regulations, the doctrine and polity, the prayers and liturgy. “You have to be born again,” Jesus told Nicodemus.
At one point, I’d signed up for a course called, “Early Childhood Education.” It turned out not to be what I thought it was going to be.
Two nights a week I found myself, with 15 or so women of various ages, reading dozens of children’s books, and making Halloween ghosts from ping pong balls and Kleenex, and Christmas angels from tongue depressors and construction paper. And, frankly, I was having a hard time engaging in the course work.
Now, few other questions can strike such fear into the heart of a Presbyterian. “It is a rallying cry, a code word, for a brand of evangelicalism,” as John Buchanan puts it, “that is not only outside our comfort zone, but with which we do not always agree.
I would agree with my esteemed colleague, that that is the wrong interpretation of the phrase “born again.” Jesus was not suggesting that you had to be absolutely sure of yourself or certain of all the answers to life’s tough questions. He was not saying that you had to graduate from seminary or Moody Bible Institute, or have at your fingertips a Bible verse suitable for every occasion. Instead, Jesus was saying something far more remarkable than that: You must be born anew – born like a baby (ibid. 2010).
Brought out of the hidden darkness of the womb into the Light of New Life.
Innocent of all presumed knowledge; naked and vulnerable; exposed to the light. Instinctively imprinting on the One whom you trust to meet all your needs.
And, though she may or may not have meant for this to happen, I did a lot of thinking about that question as I drove home; a lot of thinking about this class I was taking and what – or rather who – it was really for; and my attitude about it all.
Interestingly enough, from that moment on, I found the remainder of that course to be a lot more enjoyable, and informative. God works in mysterious ways. The Spirit, indeed, moves where it wills.
I’ve been in ministry a long time now; dare I say it, maybe even as long as old Nicodemus. But I still don’t have all the answers to life’s tough questions. What I am fairly certain of, however, is that we all come to this place as people who are seeking Light because, to one degree or another, we are still living in the dark.
But take heart, for, in this place, we discover that those who come to Jesus in the midst of darkness – whatever that darkness happens to be – will find themselves being born anew into the Life of the one who is the Light of all people.