I left Nicodemus, Pharisee, member of the Sanhedrin, hanging yesterday. He had come to Jesus in the night, perhaps to by-pass the crowds, with the statement, “your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you.” We don’t know exactly what he references, but it is clear that Jesus has begun the ministry that would always be characterized by healing. And He calls Jesus “Rabbi,”so Jesus is already an acknowledged teacher.
Jesus responded to the interest of Nicodemus with an approach to God unknown to a Pharisee. “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.” To a Pharisee the law was life, and following the rules conferred spiritual life. Their faith was entirely a faith of works. But Nicodemus asked the right question: “How can this be possible?” Jesus responded with the central truth of his entire ministry. “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him. There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him.”
That is the essence of our faith, but after 47 years in the ministry, most of it in the institutional church, I have learned that most of us still believe that we get to go to heaven because we are good people. It is simply politically incorrect to tell and to convince people that they are broken, damaged, self-deluded sinners who are entirely unacceptable to God if they are not washed clean by the blood of Jesus. In fact, we don’t even talk about blood anymore because it offends people.
The central fact of the Christian faith, however, is that God loves us in spite of ourselves, that he has offered up his Son as a blood sacrifice to ensure the satisfaction of justice as well as love, and that everyone who believes in Jesus is destined for eternity. The whole rest of the New Testament is simply commentary on that central truth.
John never tells us what became of Nicodemus, but he is never referred to as a disciple of Jesus. For many of us, reliance on our own goodness is far easier to trust than the act of abandoning our whole and entire self into the mercy of God.
Prayer: “Merciful and Loving Father, we may never know the true cost to you of sending Jesus to be our blood sacrifice, but we are going to be grateful eternally. Between now and then, please help us not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. Teach us to live with humility and thankfulness, especially those of us who have refined complaining to a high art. Please guard us from pride, and let us not be haughty. Teach us always how to love you as we ought. In the name of Jesus, Amen.”