Seeking to Understand

A Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent (Year A)
March 5, 2023

Text: John 3:1-17

Now, O Lord, take my lips, and speak through them. Take our minds, and think through them. Take our hearts, and set them on fire. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

There are a lot of important figures found throughout the Gospels. If you think back to the stories of Jesus, you can remember a lot of these important figures. Some of them show up more than others. Some of them tend to be minor characters. Some of them tend to be major figures.

But, one of my absolute favorites is Nicodemus.

Now, we don’t really know a lot about Nicodemus. We don’t know about his past, and he only shows up three times in the Scriptures—all from the Gospel of John.

But, I really like Nicodemus, and the reason why I like him so much is because he’s a seeker.

He comes to Jesus not to criticize him or tell him he’s wrong. He doesn’t come to try to convince him to stop performing miracles or to stop preaching and teaching.

Nicodemus comes to Jesus because he’s genuinely curious about what he has to say. He comes to Jesus, seeking to understand.

I also like Nicodemus because he’s not afraid to take risks. Yes, he comes to Jesus by night—probably to avoid any unwanted attention from others—but he takes a risk by stepping out of his circle—out of his comfort zone. If he was seen with him, it could possibly ruin his credibility as a religious leader. But, he goes anyway. He takes a leap of faith and goes to Jesus to learn from him.

When Nicodemus approaches Jesus, he says, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher sent by God. There’s no other way you could perform these signs if you weren’t sent by God.”

Jesus responds, “Very truly, I tell you, no none can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Another way you could translate it is, “No one can see the kingdom of God without being born again.”

Nicodemus doesn’t understand. So, he presses Jesus to explain what he means by asking some clarifying questions. He asks him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old?”

Jesus then says, “No one can see 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. The wind blows where it chooses.”

Nicodemus still doesn’t understand. This teaching of Jesus doesn’t line up with what he’s always been taught and what he’s always known to be true about God. So he says to Jesus, “How can these things be?”

In their interaction together, Nicodemus brings with him questions and curiosities about God, and in return, Jesus challenges Nicodemus to believe—not only with the mind and not  only with what he’s always been taught to believe—but with his heart, what he knows in his heart to be true about God.

I feel like now is a good time to share with you that one of the things I love most about being an Episcopalian is that we encourage seekers. We encourage those who don’t pretend to have all the answers figured out and who are genuinely curious about God and God’s relationship with us.

And, I think the reason why we encourage seekers is because we recognize the fact that—in one way or another—we’re all seekers. It doesn’t matter if you’re brand new to our church or you’ve been a life-long Episcopalian. We’re all pilgrims on a journey together to better understand who God is and what God is calling us to do with these lives we’ve been given.

We’re not afraid to ask hard questions, and we’re perfectly comfortable letting some things remain a holy mystery.

That—by the way—is the actual definition of theology. It means “faith seeking understanding.” It doesn’t mean “faith seeking to find all the answers.”

In my office at my previous parish, I had a Peanuts comic strip stuck to the side of my filing cabinet. In the comic, Charlie Brown walks up to his pal, Snoopy, who’s sitting on top of his dog house, typing. He says to Snoopy, “I hear you’re writing a book on theology.” “I hope you have a good title.” Snoopy stops typing, looks up from his typewriter and says, “I have the perfect title.” “Has It Ever Occurred to You that You Might Be Wrong?”

There are some things we’ll never know. And that’s okay. Because God is God, and we aren’t. And somehow, there’s great freedom in knowing that we don’t have to have all the answers figured out.

Not only that, but when we come to Jesus with our questions and curiosities, seeking to better understand, something happens to us in the process.

This was certainly true of Nicodemus.

Something happens to Nicodemus in his encounter with Jesus because later in John’s Gospel, in chapter seven, we learn that Nicodemus tries to protect Jesus from being arrested by reminding his fellow Pharisees that it’s against the law to judge someone without a proper trial.

And then much later in John, in chapter nineteen, after Jesus is crucified, Nicodemus—along with Joseph of Arimathea—brings a hundred pounds of spices in order to anoint Jesus’ body for burial. Nicodemus no longer comes by night. He comes in broad daylight—unafraid of what others might say—in order to show his love for Jesus.

Something happens to us—new and abundant life with God happens to us—when we seek to know Jesus, when we come, not pretending to have all the answers figured out—completely open to new possibilities and stirrings of the Spirit.

But, in order to do that, in order to come to Jesus, we have to be willing to take a leap of faith, and we have to be willing to take risks—just like Nicodemus did when he came to Jesus.

God is a mystery, one that will never fully be understood, at least not on this side of heaven. There will always come a point in our journeys with Christ where our ability to understand and reason will fail us, and all we’re left with is what we believe to be true in our hearts—that God really did send his only Son to us—to live and die as one of us, to give us the perfect example of what it means to love as God would have us love—to bring healing and restoration to the whole world. That’s John 3:16, by the way. That’s the central message of the Gospel.

It’s not a message of fear or hate.

It’s not a message of shame.

It’s a message of love—the perfect, unreserved love that God has for all of God’s creation.

When we think we have all the answers figured out—or worse—when we think that we’re the ones with all the right answers and everyone else is wrong—we tend to put God in a box of our own design rather than allowing God to live and move in our lives and to bring transformation and renewal.

Be curious about God. Be curious about how God is at work in your life and how God is calling you.

Because you never know where it might lead.

Like Nicodemus, it may lead you to question what you’ve always believed to be true.

It might lead you to come out of your comfort zone and serve in a new way at church or in the community.

It may lead you to act on an idea for a new ministry that’s been longing to be born for a long time.

It may lead you to consider becoming a deacon or a priest.

It may lead you to places and people you never could’ve dreamed of.

That’s the power of God’s Spirit, God’s breath. It blows where it chooses. Amen.