Relational God - John 3: 1-17

       Today’s scripture passage contains one of the most often quoted Bible verses, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of the water and the spirit.” Its so popular that you can even see it printed on signs along the road and in people’s yards. But when we strive to capture the message Jesus is trying to relay to this one verse we miss the beauty of the struggle in the passage as a whole.

Nicodemus is a man whom many scholars have pondered over the years. Because so little is said of him, one would think that he would be one-dimensional or easy to categorize, but this is not the case at all. John Calvin believed that Nicodemus was like Joseph of Arimathea (the man who gave his family tomb for Jesus’ body), a secret disciple of Christ, not quite strong enough to act on his convictions in the light of day, so he had to sneak under the cloak of darkness to be taught by Jesus. Soren Kierkegaard thought Nicodemus could not even be seen as a secret disciple, instead he has someone who only associated himself with Jesus when it was to his own benefit, out of fear of what other people would think. But when we try to form a complete picture of Nicodemus from today’s scripture passage or the thoughts of scholars alone we miss some big pieces about his life - that he argued against the Sanhedrin;s decision to arrest and sentence Jesus during the last days of his life and that he bought the spices to give Jesus’ a proper burial. All in all, Nicodemus was a complicated man.

And things would be very complicated for Nicodemus. On one hand he had his colleagues telling him why Jesus was dangerous to their way of life and should be silenced. On the other hand his own convictions told him that Jesus was a teacher who was sent by God with a message for the people. He believed that what Jesus was doing and saying showed that he had a relationship with God and God’s presence was being demonstrated through Jesus. Through Nicodemus’ context as a keeper of the law it appeared that Jesus was exemplifying the Law’s of Moses.

But Jesus did not consider himself to be a keeper or teacher of the law. Instead, he proclaimed that he was someone who came directly from God to tell of what he knew of God from being in relationship to God. And that was confusing for Nicodemus. If we would be honest with ourselves it would probably be just as confusing for us today. We’ve created this term and concept to try to help ourselves and explain to others just what we believe about this relationship that Jesus has with God. We hold this belief that God is three divine persons, Father, Son, and Spirit, also referred to as Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. We believe that these three persons have such a deep and intrinsic relationship that they cannot be separated from one another. That they are equal and of one being. Each person is wholly and entirely God, yet wholly united and distinct at the same time. It is not logical. 

I can understand why this ill-logical idea of who Jesus is was hard for Nicodemus as a man of the law. Rules exist for a reason that can be explained. The Law of Moses existed to describe God’s character and values. And here is a teacher whom Nichodemus believes in, yet cannot fully grasp, standing in front of him, a logical and learned man, telling him to throw what he believes out the window. Telling him that when it it all said and done, logical and laws will not save him. Talking to him about being born again of the Spirit, when the only logical and proven birth is physical. Jesus just doesn’t fit into how Nicodemus understands the world. He cannot categorize or contain Jesus, and that presents a problem.

Birth that comes from faith. Life that comes from death. Three in one and one in three. Its just as hard for us to understand with our rational minds today. The love of Christ is not something that someone can teach us or argue us into believing. It is something that must be experienced and touch our hearts on the inside in order to transform our minds and spirits. If anyone should believe this it should be the Methodists for our creator, John Wesley, had such a transformational experience. He, like Nicodemus, understood rationally the law and the scripture. He could explain the theological doctrines, like that of the Trinity, but it wasn’t until years after preaching and teaching that his heart was “strangely warmed.” That faith went from being a decision of the head to a matter of the heart. 

I fear that too many Christians have not had this heart warming experience. When one does not have this experience with the relational God who changes our entire beings, it is hard to tell someone else about it. So we resort to apologetics, or making a case for our faith through logic. Logic may speak to the logical, but it is not transformative in the same way as God using our heart to speak to other hearts. The heart cannot speak to logic, nor logic to the heart. Part of Nicodemus’ struggle in today’s passage is that he is not speaking the same language as Jesus. He comes seeking answers that are concrete, maybe even plain, and definitely literal. And he enters into a conversation with Jesus speaking in words of poetry - symbols and analogies trying to pontificate about the spiritual. The part of our souls that countless have tried to capture through creative and artistic means. 

Our soul needs someone to speak to it in this language of the heart - a language that is hard to put into words and even harder to understand with our heads. Perhaps that is what makes public worship gatherings so vital yet so difficult at times. We have rituals of beauty with deep symbolism and words of poetry that are spoken, but we will not let ourselves be free to be moved by their beauty because we are so caught up in the rational instead of the relational. 

Jesus’ entire purpose in coming to this world was to save us from ourselves, and help us rediscover who we are in the image of God. And when that truly happens it is as if we have started this life all over again. And somewhere in Nicodemus’ life between this very confusing conversation with Jesus and him having enough courage to stand up and condemn his peers for what they were doing, he got it. He had a transformation of the heart that transformed his very being. He went from being someone so afraid of the stigma Jesus’ presented that he went to see him at night to someone of bold courage speaking out against injustice. From someone who was bound up by fear to someone who could publicly proclaim himself to be a follower of Christ. 

There are a lot of people who use this verse to tell people that they need to be saved, and that may be well and true. But this scripture passage is telling us the story of a man who went from being caught up in his head to being lead by his heart. Of a man who was transformed. From someone cloaked in the darkness of not understanding and caught up in questions about facts to a man of new possibilities. 

This past week I had the honor to preside at a funeral where I had the opportunity to speak about a God who loves us enough to be in the business of constantly doing a new thing in our lives. Constantly reaching out to us in new ways, just trying to break through our stubborn heads into our malleable hearts. And I see that in today’s scripture passage today as well. But I’m left asking if that is really what we want. Do we really want to be transformed in our entire beings and have our hearts strangely warmed? Do we want be in relationship with a God who is all about community and relationship, even in God’s very own being - the Father is with the Son who is with the Spirit who is with the Father. To be in relationship with the one calls us to give, and receive, and constantly be renewed and recreated? Because that is scary. It requires vulnerability and a propensity for setting reason aside. 

Friends, I do not believe that we simply make the choice to be reborn. We make a series of choices each and every day that lead us in that direction. That open us up to the stirrings of God. Just as God made a series of choices through each person in the Trinity to reveal the very self of God to us. To make himself known and heard. God now is inviting us to make a series of choices to let our hearts be bear before the throne of God, so that our entire beings may be transformed, not only in this life, but in the life to come. Do you want to be transformed by a relationship with God? Amen.