INCARNATION 3: A STUDY IN THE BOOK OF JOHN
JOHN 3:1-21
SEPTEMBER 27, 2015
I want to start today by reading a portion a great book I read last week.
Read:Officer Buckle and Gloria.
The short synopsis of the book is that a nobody becomes a somebody, but realizes he is only a somebody because of someone else. He goes back to being a nobody because he’s upset that his being somebody is dependent on somebody else. Then he finally realizes nobody is a somebody unless they have someone else.
I read that to you because that story made me think about grace, and that reminded me of the wise words of C.S. Lewis. Before C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien popularized fantasy reading, it seemed that genre was mainly for children. So what business did a literary giant and Oxford scholar have in writing fantasy books for kids about witches and lions, wardrobes and Turkish delight?
“I wrote fairy tales because the fairy tale seemed the ideal form for the stuff I had to say. Then, of course, the man in me began to have his turn. I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition, which had paralysed [sic] much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. An obligation to feel can freeze things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday School associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could.”
-Sometimes Fairy Tales may say best what needs to be said-C.S. Lewis
C.S. Lewis grew up in church, but did not become a follower of Jesus until he was an adult. He was told the stories from a young age, but they never seeped into his soul. They became stories to be memorized with the utmost spiritual meaning but they seemingly had none. They became rote and systematized. Instead of softening his heart, they hardened it.
C.S. Lewis is not lowering scripture or scriptural authority but he is advocating for sometimes stripping biblical stories of their rote religiosity and sneaking up on people with a whole new way of seeing the world. I think this is absolutely true and I think this is entirely what Jesus did. Outside of his occasional quotation or his short reading of scripture in the temple, Jesus never started off by saying, “Turn with me to Exodus 33 today because I want to teach you about the glory of God.” Instead he told stories about mustard seeds and prodigal sons, treasures in a field and seeds on the side of the road.
Jesus did this because many Jews had succumbed to the watchful dragons of the Torah. An observant Jewish boy was meant to memorize the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament, by his Bar Mitzvah. That is an impressive feat unto itself. That is hundreds of pages of content, and keep in mind that includes books like Numbers and Leviticus. That is a lot of this person begat that person and a lot of ceremonial laws and dry history.
You can guess that for more than few of them, scripture and even religion had become a bit dry, wearisome and desiccating to their souls. One of those souls comes to Jesus in John 3.
John 3: 1-2
Nicodemus is not just anybody. He is a “somebody.” He is a member of the Sanhedrin and we find out later he is the lead teacher for the Jews. We find out much later that he is quite wealthy as well. He is a “somebody.”He probably has all of the scriptures committed to memory, and as it turns out, that might be his problem.
If you are new with us or haven’t been here in awhile, we are studying the Gospel of John in a series called Incarnation. The meaning for this series is twofold. We are studying what the incarnation of Jesus means. If Jesus was God made flesh, then that should order our lives. That should order how we understand God. There is nothing un-Christlike in God and there is nothing un-Godlike in Christ. He is the perfect representation of God and the rest is just commentary. Paul is not the guy, he is talking about the guy. Moses isn’t the guy, he is pointing forward to the guy. The law is not preeminent, the temple is not preeminent, Jesus is.
Secondly, we are wrestling with the idea of God being incarnate in us. We were nobodies until that great someone made us into somebodies. The indwelling of God in our lives means we are God to this world. We are his hands and his feet. We are his love and his justice. He has chosen to work in and through us by incarnating in us, and that should change us. The problem, of course, is all of that can become very mundane and rote and systematic and neutered. We are in John 3, which probably has the most well known verse in the Bible. It is painted on signs that are show during football games. It is pointed to as the essence of why Jesus came and what he did. This of course is John 3:16. I want you to see Jesus and Nicodemus leading up to John 3:16, because I am afraid John 3:16 has become a watchful dragon. Theological verbiage covered in religiosity and stained glass. I want you to see John 3 with new eyes today.
John 3:16 is not a verse to be used as a club or an oversimplification for the calling of Jesus. It is a brilliant summary statement from John about the life of Jesus. If we aren’t careful it can become a punched ticket that makes us miss the journey ahead. It can become a foundational truth upon which we build nothing.
So Nicodemus, this somebody, comes to Jesus at night. That’s not just a bit of color commentary; it is a theological and insightful picture of the man Nicodemus. He is a somebody that is afraid of what his fellow Sanhedrin and Jewish constituents might say. He is afraid he might be exposed for his interest in Jesus and become a nobody after being stripped of his power, influence and money. So he comes at night.
Nicodemus starts out by asking a question without really asking a question, “You must be from God because of all of the signs you are doing. Right?” Listen to Jesus’ response:
John 3: 3-8
Here is what Jesus doesn’t do. He doesn’t give Nicodemus the Emmaus road experience. He could have walked him through the Old Testament and shown how all things pointed towards him. He could have shown him time and again where God was laying the foundation for his arrival.
Instead of pointing to scriptures that might show Jesus as the Messiah, he shakes him up with a completely new idea. You need to be born again. This is not an allusion to Jewish scripture. There was Hellenistic concept of rebirth but none for a Jew. This was not in their theology and it had no meaning in scripture. People who have been Christians for some time have read this story many times over, so much so, that some Christians refer to themselves as “Born Again Christians.” The problem is, we speak of this in concrete terms when it was intended to be conceptual and spiritual and to mess with everything Nicodemus has ever known.
Jesus says you have to be born again, and Nicodemus immediately goes literal, “You mean re-enter the womb? That’s not possible.” Jesus says, “No, you must be born of flesh and you must also be born of water and spirit, flesh and spirit.” Jesus then says, “The wind (which in Hebrew was a word interchangeably used to describe the Spirit) goes where it may and so it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
Nicodemus wanted to ask what John the Baptist asks later, “Are you the guy? I’ve seen the signs and I think you are the guy but can you just spell it out?” That’s when Jesus launched into this bizarre soliloquy about rebirth and water and spirit and wind.
I’m not sure if you saw this a few years ago but it might allow you to feel what Nicodemus was feeling.
This poor girl was probably frightened and flummoxed. I have nothing but compassion for her. Maybe, she ironically pointed to the education problems in America with her answer. The difference here if course, is Jesus does know what he is talking about, Nicodemus just can’t fathom it.
John 3:10
How can this be? I don’t think this is just a question about the logistics of being born again. This is a questionabout the very nature of God. Nicodemus was expecting something systematic that fit within his framework. He was a somebody that wanted to better understand, and instead he gets a mini-sermon telling him that God is much bigger than his understanding. That God is leaping off the pages of the book and the Spirit is going where it will. This dusty concept of God is being replaced with a wild wind Savior who is offering new life. How can this be?
John 3:11-15
How can this be? The Son of Man has to be lifted up. This has the double meaning foreshadowing the cross and showing the supremacy of Jesus. I have to be lifted up. I have to die so that you may live. The big not so subtle implication, the one we often overlook in getting to being born again, means you must die.
I am going to skip over the section you know so well because I want you to hear it with new ears today. It is directly connected to what happens next.
John 3: 22-30
All of John 3 is connected, and now we come to some disciples of John the Baptist and they see a competing ministry. Jesus is baptizing people and lots of people are going to him.
“John, what should we do about it?” John of course reminds them that he has never claimed to be the Messiah, only the one who would pave the way for his coming. His work is to get the bride ready for the groom. Then he says these important words, “He must become greater and I must become less.”
These words are pertinent to John’s disciples. They are pertinent to Nicodemus, and they are pertinent to us. In fact, I might argue today that they get to the heart of the issues more than John 3:16. I might say that John 3:30 would be a better theme verse for Christianity. John knows his place and he gets rebirth. He knows that you have to become smaller. He knows you have to recognize you are a nobody if you want to be a somebody. When you acknowledge Jesus in your life, that happens, when you become lesser.
Nicodemus didn’t get that, and that’s why he came at night, to preserve who he was. John’s disciples didn’t get it either because they saw a competition for the disciples. To be born again, you have to die to yourself. You have to get smaller. You have to be lesser. You have to become a nobody, if you want to become a somebody.
Unfortunately, that is often not the case with Western 21st century Christianity. We are more inclined to John 3:16 than John 3:30. We want the saving, but we don’t want the dying. We like the idea of eternal life but it’s hard to truly wrap our brains around being born again.
John 3:16 has become a watchful dragon for many. Myself included on occasion. We like the system of salvation but we don’t like the process. We get to maintain all that we are, all that we have and all that we desire, but going small is out of vogue. Dying isn’t popular. Becoming lesser is not normative.
Oddly enough, I think Nicodemus got this. It doesn’t look like it in John 3 but watch him progress.
John 7: 42-52
Nicodemus stuck his toes in chapter 3, and asked some questions. In chapter 7, he began to align himself with Jesus. He began to stick up for Jesus and oppose injustice. They want to illegally seize and kill Jesus and Nicodemus reminds them of their own law and due process. They shoot back at him, “Are you a Galilean too?” Before there was the moniker, Christian, believers could be aligned via the term Galilean. Are you with him too?
He put himself out there to side with Jesus. He is beginning to realize you’re nobody without this somebody in your life. He’s becoming less concerned about social convention. He is becoming less concerned with maintaining his power and his wealth and his position.
Then we read this, after the death of Jesus.
John 19: 38-42
A couple of things to note here. 1) This was daytime. Jesus was on the cross from 9:00 am-3:00 pm and darkness did fall over the land, but this was done in the middle of the day. You have to think of Jesus’ first meeting with Nicodemus. It was in the dark of night so as to avoid being seen and losing his status. Now, in the daytime, in front of a large crowd, he helps collect the body of Jesus. 2) Nicodemus was a Pharisee and any observant Pharisee was not supposed to handle a dead body. They would be considered unclean. They would be ritually unclean and so it was to be avoided.
I want you to understand something today. When Nicodemus collected the body of Jesus, he understood rebirth. He understood getting smaller. He understood dying to himself, because he just aligned himself with Jesus when he collected his corpse from the cross. He didn’t care about becoming a nobody. He didn’t care what the somebodies of the world had to say. All he cared about was putting in his lot with this dead and seemingly defeated savior.
Of course you know the story doesn’t end there. On the third day, Jesus rose again. Conquering sin and death. Completing the story. The invitation to die, the invitation to become lesser and smaller is not just for self-flagellation. It is an exchange, your old life for new life in Christ. That is the secret here. It’s not lemmings-off–the-cliff theology. The invitation is to become a somebody by realizing you’re a nobody unless you have Jesus, then you have everything.
There is no format or biblical principle for a prayer of salvation in the Bible. There just isn’t. It’s something that was cobbled together through the readings of Paul. Jesus’ invitation is your old life for his new life. Jesus’ offer is to go small so that he will make you big. Jesus’ offer is that you can do more with him than you ever could on your own. Like Nicodemus, you can find freedom and wholeness when you lay down who you are for what God wants you to be.
My prayer is that you are aware of the watchful dragons, the things of your faith that have become rote and stale and memorized but not lived. Maybe you need to hear the gospel in a fresh way. Maybe you need to be reminded that a great exchange is being offered, your old life for his new life. Acknowledging your finite nature so that his infinite nature can take over. Salvation is through Jesus alone. You can’t come to the Father except through Jesus, but discovering him may be more different than you think. It may be more complicated than you think. Not a prayer. Not a moment of mental ascent. But a smallness that readies you to be reborn. A death leads to new life. A lesser that leads to greater.
Sometimes, it takes hearing it in a new way to capture an old truth.