Sunday March 20, 2010 John 3:1-17

Greetings, spring is here! It is so nice that it is light longer even if we have to manipulate time. Light in the evenings is a mood lifter for me. Our text for this week switches to John. A little background in some themes of John may be helpful. Starting with his opening chapter John establishes an ongoing theme of light and dark. John the Baptist came to witness to the light (Jesus) coming into the world that is in darkness. As one reads John it can be seen that people in general are in darkness until their faith in Jesus brings them into the light. John also uses the theme of “signs” that point to Jesus doing God’s redemptive work in the world. Some of the signs are the healings Jesus does; others are the feeding of the 5000 and the raising of Lazarus, while still others are the claims that Jesus makes of himself-the seven “I am” statements”. All throughout the Gospel of John Jesus is using signs and coded language to define himself and what he is doing. With this in mind let’s turn to the text for this Sunday.

V1 There is a man named Nicodemus who is a Pharisee and leader of the Jews. To be a Pharisee was to follow the Torah (law) and make sure the Jews did the same. They were the keepers of the Law. What had started as a good thing after the exile in Babylon, the study of the Torah by a select group of people so as to never go into exile again, morphed silently into a legalistic practice. He is also a leader which indicates that he may be a member of the Sanhedrin, the ruling religious group that controlled the Temple. In any case he is a very learned man, knowing the scriptures inside out and has memorized all of them.

V2 He came to Jesus by night. Night equals darkness in John’s gospel. Nicodemus is in the “dark” concerning what God is doing in the world even though he knows the scriptures. Some have said that he came at night so the others wouldn’t see him talking with an unlearned rabbi who was becoming popular which is also true. There are many meanings to his coming under the cover of darkness. He compliments Jesus by calling him Rabbi which is strange considering he probably quietly questions Jesus’ status as a real Rabbi. He then gives a kind of compliment to Jesus by saying Jesus has come from God which is shown in the signs he is performing. The irony is that Nicodemus, being a leader of the Jewish religious community, can’t understand the meaning of the signs even though he compliments them. Jesus is revealing God but the great teacher doesn’t “see” this. In fairness to Nicodemus it must have taken a lot of contemplation and humbleness for him to come to Jesus, a Rabbi that hadn’t been to an official rabbinic school, to seek to understand what Jesus was doing. He is the only leader that did attempt to understand Jesus which would have been a very compromising step for him.

V3 Without waiting for Nicodemus’ question Jesus makes the statement about not being included in the Kingdom of God without being born from above. Nicodemus has believed that to belong to the Kingdom of God is to be born of a Jewish mother; genetics are what make them children of God. The Greek word “from above” can mean both from above and again. Jesus means “from above”. This is a confusing statement to Nicodemus.

V4 How can this be? We can’t crawl back into our mother’s womb? Nicodemus is still thinking Jewish family linage. We can’t go through the birth process again.

V5 Jesus replies that to be born from above is to be born of water and Spirit. This isn’t a physical event but a Spiritual one. People need a Spiritual birth to enter the Kingdom of God symbolized by a cleansing of water. The outward demonstration of a water cleansing indicates an inner Spiritual birth, a divine rebirth, a radical change.

V6 Flesh gives birth to flesh. Human beings by themselves cannot give birth to Spirit. The Spirit is powerful and unpredictable and gives new birth to those who have faith but accepting this faith isn’t a onetime event and then we are finished, it is a continued action by the believer.

V7 Jesus tells Nicodemus to not be surprised at the things he is telling him, that he must be born from above.

V8 Here Jesus uses the many definitions of the word Spirit to make an illustration. The word in Hebrew is ruach, in Greek it is pneumo. In each case it can be defined as wind, breath or Spirit. Jesus is using a play on the definition to explain it. We can’t actually see the wind we can only see the effects of the wind by looking at the leaves and branches of a tree. If the tree is swaying and the leaves are fluttering we “know” the wind is blowing. We can feel the effects of the wind on our skin but we can’t actually “feel” the wind (Try catching the wind sometime). Jesus is saying that it is the same with the Spirit. We can’t “see" the Spirit itself but we can see the effects of the Spirit (the fruit of the Spirit) in the actions of people whose lives he is at work in.

V9-10 Again Nicodemus is confused. Jesus then confronts him by pointing out that Nicodemus is a teacher of Israel. He should have some understanding of these things. In addition Nicodemus needs to grasp who Jesus is, not just a Rabbi with a new interpretation but the One who has come from God, the One who is bringing the Spirit.

V11-12 Jesus goes on to instruct Nicodemus that his testimony is accurate. Jesus knows that of which he testifies too. He has come from God. Three times in these last few verses Jesus makes statements about Israel as a whole and Nicodemus personally, verse 10 “you do not understand”, verse 11 “you do not receive” (choose not to accept) and verse 12 “you do not believe”. If Nicodemus doesn’t believe what Jesus is telling him now how will he believe or understand or accept when Jesus speaks of things in God’s Kingdom (heavenly)? It is assumed that Nicodemus came to Jesus to find out how to get into the Kingdom of God. He must have seen in Jesus a new way of being in God’s Kingdom by the signs that Jesus was doing and the teachings that Jesus was proclaiming so he came to Jesus to get clarification, just how was Jesus integrating the scriptures with Jesus’ own beliefs. To Nicodemus’ astonishment Jesus was radically reinterpreting the meaning of the scriptures.

V13 Jesus continues on to call himself the Son of Man (Dan 7:13-the true Israel reduced to one but building a new Israel around himself) and to claim that he had descended from God. This is the beginning of Jesus teaching about the meaning of his coming resurrection and ascension.

V14-15 He continues, “Just as Moses had made a bronze serpent, as instructed by God, and lifted it up so the Israelites bitten by snakes could look upon it and be healed so will Jesus be lifted up.” The word used for pole in the Old Testament has the same root as the word for sign. Just as the lifted serpent was a sign of healing in Numbers 21:9, if the people would just look at it, so will the lifting up of Jesus be a sign of God’s redemptive work and a completion of Jesus’ mission, if the people will just look to him in faith. Whoever believes in and receives Jesus will have eternal life in the Kingdom of God which had broken in with the coming of Jesus- Mark 1:15. In other words the Kingdom is present and active through the work of Jesus. Eternal life begins now; not after our death. We are to live now as we will then, the kind of life God lives.

V16 One of the most famous verses of all time. As David Lose of Luther Seminary points out the word for world is cosmos in the Bible and is that which is hostile to God. (John 16:33, 17:9-19). The verse could be translated “For God so loved the God-hating world that he gave his only Son…! The world is in rebellion towards God and yet God gave us his only Son. This is how much God loves the world.

V17 God did not send Jesus into the world to condemn it but to save it. Jesus came to reestablish a broken relationship between God and us. If God chose he could have destroyed the world just as he had created it in Genesis but he loves the world even though the world rebels against him. Jesus’ actions on the cross were saving actions for us, we only need to look to him on that sign; understand him, accept him and believe him to have life in the Kingdom of God.

I had an interesting thought come into my head as I was first studying this, the things Jesus didn’t say. For example, do we find in John 3:16 the exceptions Jesus made such as “God loved the whole world except for…you name it-drunks, prostitutes, drug addicts and yes I am going to say it- homosexuals, anyone who isn’t like me and I will never be like”. God didn’t say that he loved only Christians and only those others who were willing to convert. Jesus didn’t say from the cross “Father forgive them (except those that I will now list including all those that are undesirable) for they know not what they do”. We are the ones who add those exceptions; not God. God loved the whole world that hated him; we love our fellow Christians (neighbors) and condemn everyone else. When will we understand (verse 10), accept (verse 11) and believe (verse12) that God so loved the whole world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.