2/15/26 Sermon

Before we do anything else, we need to notice how John tells this story, because this isn’t mainly a “Nicodemus story.” Nicodemus shows up again later and he becomes interesting as a person, but here he functions like a symbol. John introduces him not as “a seeker,” not as “a friend,” but as a Pharisee and a leader. He is, in a real sense, the voice of the established religious order. He comes carrying the weight of official religion. You could almost read it like this: not just Nicodemus, but the religious system itself comes to Jesus in the night. And then there’s that detail — at night. People often assume Nicodemus is sneaking around, trying not to be seen, and I get why we say that, but it doesn’t actually fit the world of the Gospels very well. Pharisees talk to Jesus all the time. They argue with him in public. They invite him to dinner. They follow him like spiritual hall monitors—always watching, always checking. So why at night?

John gives us two reasons for that — one subtle, one central. The subtle reason is that night marks Nicodemus as a serious scholar. In Jewish tradition, the rabbis study. They wrestle. They keep at it. There’s something almost honorable here: he’s awake, thinking, searching, trying to understand even deep into the night. But the central reason is this: John loves light and darkness. John starts his Gospel with it — light shining in the darkness, and the darkness not overcoming it — so when John says Nicodemus comes at night, it’s not just a time stamp; it’s a theological diagnosis. John is saying: The faith has been institutionalized, and the institution has mistaken its own order for God’s presence. But God isn’t contained by our arrangements; and when we treat God like a system, we find that sometimes the light of faith grows dim. So essentially John is saying that the established religious institution is trying to find God, but it’s doing it in the dark.

So Nicodemus comes and says, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God…” and then Jesus answers him in a way that, at first glance, feels like it came out of nowhere: “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born anew.” It sounds like Nicodemus says, “Nice miracles,” and Jesus says, “You need a rebirth,” and the conversation feels like two ships passing in the night.

But in the Greek, Jesus begins with something like, “Amen, amen—yes, yes—you’ve got it.” Meaning Jesus isn’t changing the subject; Jesus is naming what Nicodemus is really asking. Nicodemus is saying, “We see something in you. A connection. A life with God that we don’t possess—at least not in that way. How is that possible?” And Jesus replies, “Exactly. That kind of life doesn’t come from tweaking your behavior or upgrading your religious performance. It comes from being born from above. Born anew.”

And then Nicodemus asks the most practical question imaginable: “How can anyone be born after having grown old?” In other words, “How are you asking me to do something that’s impossible?” And Jesus answers with what might be the most disorienting line in this whole passage: “Unless one is born of water and Spirit… Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit… The wind blows where it chooses… you hear the sound… but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.” Now this is the riddle part. This is where Jesus starts pulling threads that Nicodemus—and honestly, we—don’t like to have pulled, because Jesus is drawing a line between two kinds of life: life “of the flesh” and life “of the Spirit.” And he’s not just talking about morality. He’s not saying “bad people versus good people.” He’s talking about origin. He’s talking about what your life is rooted in—what story you think you’re living inside.

“Flesh is flesh” means that human life, on its own, is fragile, temporary, and self-enclosed. It burns hot and fast and disappears. Even our best efforts—left to themselves—don’t hold the weight we want them to hold. And if that’s where Jesus stopped, it would be crushing, but Jesus doesn’t stop there. He says there is another origin available to you, another kind of life, another birth: a life “of the Spirit,” a life that comes from God, is carried by God, and returns to God. And then Jesus says the part that is genuinely shocking: you don’t control that birth. You didn’t choose your first birth—where you were born, when you were born, what you inherited and what you didn’t inherit—and Jesus says the second birth is like that too. The Spirit isn’t a vending machine. You don’t insert the right ritual and get a guaranteed result. The Spirit is wind—free, wild, moving where it wills.

So if Nicodemus is standing there representing the established religious order, here’s what Jesus is doing to that whole system. He’s saying, “You’ve built a faith around the idea that closeness to God is produced by what you do—your obedience, your correctness, your sacrifices, your purity, your performance.” And then Jesus says, “That’s not how it works.”

That is… a lot, because it undercuts the oldest religious instinct in the human heart, which is, “Tell me what to do so I can be in control.” We want a ladder. We want steps. We want spiritual math. But Jesus gives Nicodemus the wind. And Nicodemus asks the only honest question left: “How can these things be?” Which is also what a lot of us want to ask, if we’re being real. Because if the Spirit moves where it wills—if new birth is God’s action, not ours—then what’s the point? What do we do with that?

This is where John’s light-and-darkness theme starts to matter in a new way, because the problem isn’t that God refuses to give life. The problem is that we keep looking for the key in the wrong place. Let me tell you a story I may have told you before and I’ll probably tell you again because it’s one of my favorites.

Once there was a village where a wise teacher gave lessons every day at noon. One day a devoted student arrived early and found the teacher on hands and knees, searching the grass. “What are you doing, teacher?” the student asked. “I’ve lost my key,” the teacher replied. “I’m locked out of my house.” So the student got down and helped him search. Then the villagers arrived and they searched too. The whole village was combing the yard. Hours passed and no key. Finally the student stood up and said, “Teacher… where did you lose it?” And the teacher said, “I think I left it on the coffee table inside.” The student said, “Then why on earth are we looking for it out here?” And the teacher replied, “The light seemed better out here.”

That story is funny until it isn’t, because that’s what we do. We look “out here,” because the light seems better. We live in a world that constantly tells us meaning is found out there: buy this and you’ll be whole; achieve that and you’ll be enough; secure this and you’ll be safe; curate that and you’ll finally be loved. And even when we don’t say it out loud, we start living like our lives are built on those promises. And here’s the problem: those lights are bright, but they’re false. They can illuminate a lawn, but they can’t unlock a house. John is saying the key is not out here—not the key that matters. The key is found in God, and more specifically here, in the life God gives through Jesus Christ.

To be clear, this isn’t a sermon against money or success or having good things. Wealth isn’t the only temptation; it’s just an obvious one because it makes such loud promises. The deeper issue isn’t whether you have a lot or if you have a little. The deeper issue is what holds your heart — what you believe will save you, what you look to when you’re afraid, what story you think you’re living. Because you can be poor and still live for “the flesh,” still live inside the closed loop of “me, mine, and my survival.” And you can be wealthy and live for the Spirit, using what you’ve been given as a tool for love, justice, generosity, repair, and joy. John’s question isn’t “Do you have things?” John’s question is “Do things have you?”

And this turns outward into every part of life—not just money. How do you use your gifts—your intelligence, your charm, your skills, your leadership, your words, your influence, your time? Do you use them in service to yourself, or in service to God? I’ll put it personally: I learned pretty early I could talk my way out of a lot. I had the gift of gab. And that’s a gift that can serve the light, or it can serve the darkness. It can be used to build people up or manipulate them. It can be used to speak truth or sell lies. History is full of people who can move a room. Some use words to manipulate fear and build a cult of self; others use words to wake up conscience and call people toward courage. The gift isn’t the difference. The story behind the gift is.  Powerful gifts are morally flexible. They bend toward whatever story you’re living inside. And so the question becomes: what are you being born into—again and again—the story that begins with you, or the story that begins with God?

That’s where John is pressing us. Nicodemus—the voice of established religion—comes asking the question at the heart of faith: “What does it take to be in relationship with God? How does salvation happen?” And Jesus says, “It doesn’t happen by human effort. You can’t manufacture it. You can’t control it. It comes from God.” And then Jesus goes on to say God has shown us what that new birth looks like. The Son will be lifted up. Love will go all the way down into death. And then, against everything we expect, God will raise life out of the grave. That’s the miracle. That’s the birth-from-above moment.

So when people ask, “When were you saved?” there’s a Christian answer that is both kind of snarky and profoundly true: we were saved two thousand years ago. Because the foundation of our new birth isn’t our spiritual performance; it’s Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. Which means the question for us, on this side of Easter, isn’t “Can God give me new life?” The question is “Will I live like it’s true?” Will I keep searching the grass because the light seems better out here, or will I step into the house where the key actually is?

John says the light has come into the world, and some people prefer the dark—not because they’re cartoon villains, but because darkness is where we feel in control. Darkness is where we can curate ourselves. Darkness is where we can hide what we don’t want exposed. But whoever “does the truth,” Jesus says, comes into the light—not to be shamed, but to be made real, to be made whole, to finally live as someone whose story begins with God.

And friends, here’s the good news John is preaching with this strange nighttime conversation: you are not locked out of God. You are not trapped in the flesh. You are not abandoned to the false lights of this world. The Spirit is moving. The True Light has come. And the miracle has already begun. So come into the light. Let your life begin with God. And watch what gets reborn.

Amen.