Seeking the Light by Night

Scripture Lessons: Numbers 21: 4-9 and John 3: 1-21 Sermon Title: Seeking the Light by Night Preached on March 8, 2020 This is the first of four Sundays where the Second Scripture Lesson is from the Gospel of John. As you know, each of the four Gospels tells us the same story, that of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, just in slightly different ways. The Gospel of John offers us a beautiful perspective all its own with developed characters like Nicodemus in today’s Second Scripture Lesson, as well as important but subtle details. For example: Nicodemus went to see Jesus at night. Why would the Gospel of John include this detail? It’s as though we’re meant to ask: Why did he go at night? Why was it that he went, not during the day when people would have seen him, but at night, when people wouldn’t have noticed? This detail is important, and it makes me think how people often do things at night that they would rather not be caught doing during the day. Now, what we do in private is not necessarily bad. Think about it. What do you do in private that you’re too self-conscious to do in the light of day? How many sing in the shower, but not in the choir? How many painters are among us who would have to be forced to put their artwork on the cover of the bulletin, not for lack of talent, but for some other reason. How many of you only paint or sing or dance when no one is looking? How many students only ask questions of the teacher once the class has left the room? How many are glad to talk about sports, economics, or movies with whomever, but will only speak of matters of the heart in private with those whom they trust? Nicodemus went to see Jesus at night. He wouldn’t have told his wife where he was going. He waited until he could just slip away. Why? Why was it at night that he went to see the Lord? The answer is there in Scripture: “Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews.” That’s just one sentence but it’s plenty of information. I’ve been asking, why was it that a Pharisee named Nicodemus who was a leader of the Jews went to Jesus at night? That’s just one question which we need to ask. The more precise question is, if he went at night what was it that he stood to lose had someone seen him at the doorstep of the Lord? The answer to that question is obvious when you think about it, for a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews could no more go and see Jesus than an orthopedist could be seen in the office of a chiropractor. How would it look if Lindsey Graham or Lamar Alexander were spotted at a Bernie Sanders rally? It would look about the same as when we were introduced to Segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond’s African American daughter Essie Mae Washington. There are lines drawn to divide society. What we don’t always realize is that those lines often divide our own souls in two. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a leader of the Jews, who snuck off to see Jesus, and he had to decide which version of himself would go out in the light of day the following morning. That’s how it is for so many of us. To me, the saddest place in Atlanta is a parking lot that overlooks Piedmont Park. When we were first married, we lived there. We had a small dog in a small apartment on Briarcliff. Sara and I would often take the dog on walks through Piedmont Park and we’d always park in this one parking lot where men sat waiting in their cars. I have an idea what they were waiting for, and I have an idea of the lives that they would leave the parking lot and go back to. They were probably bankers with families and wives. What were they doing in that parking lot then? Well, they were one person in the light of day and another in the shadow. They were one person when people were looking and another when they snuck off by themselves. Who were they truly? That’s one of the great questions of human existence. Another is: what would it take for them to be their shadow selves out in the light of day? You’ve seen that kind of coming out before, often after someone has had a few too many drinks. There’s a Latin expression: In vino veritas. Or “in wine lies the truth.” Another way to say it is, “I’m one drink away from telling everyone what I really think.” Social Scientists tell us that we’re not necessarily more honest because of what we’ve had to drink, we’re just less likely to process the consequences of our being honest. We’re not always honest. No, we’re not always honest with ourselves or our neighbors about who we truly are because our standing in the community sometimes matters more to us than even our own happiness. We worry about what people think, always. We worry about what people will say, most of the time. We worry about being exposed, constantly, because we don’t want to lose our place in our families, our churches, our clubs, or our neighborhoods. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a leader of his people, but he was drawn to the light. He just couldn’t seek it out when people were looking. Why? That’s easy. He didn’t want to jeopardize his standing in the community. He didn’t want to lose his corner office, his pension fund, or his membership at the Pharisee Country Club with the best golf course that overlooks the Jordan River. It was at night then that he said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Was that good enough? Was that honest enough? By saying this was he stepping out of the shadow enough to benefit from his proximity to the light? Maybe. Maybe not. Do you remember that movie, Dead Poets Society? It’s a great teacher movie. The teacher, Robin Williams, is the hero. I like it when the teacher is the hero. I prefer when the preacher is the hero, but I’m glad when the teacher is. What’s funny about this movie is that during the day the students at this school wear ties and jackets because they go to a fancy, all boys, private, boarding school where they are being prepared to live as upstanding socialites. A few of them, at night, sneak out of their dorms to read poetry. You can think of all kinds of things boys at a boarding school might sneak out at night to do, but this group sneaks out to read poetry. That’s what they did, and feeling some level of liberation from this experience, one of the members of the Dead Poet’s Society takes things farther than the rest of them. He doesn’t just read poetry at night while preparing to be like his father during the day. He wants to be who he is at night all the time and tries out for a play knowing that his father, who forbid his passion for acting, might find out. That’s a risky thing for a young man to do. It was. And this young man, in perusing this one thing, depending on how you look at it either lost everything or gained everything. Nicodemus was the same but he wasn’t a young man. On the cover of your bulletin is this perfect original painting of Nicodemus by our own Jeff Surace. In it, Nicodemus is an old man with a beard. He is as I imagine he was at the time of our Second Scripture Lesson. That’s the probable reality of the situation: an old man, experienced, respected, upstanding in the eyes of his people, sneaking out of his house to glimpse the light of the world. What that was costing him? Possibly everything. So, when Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above,” it must have made perfect sense while being completely confusing. Born. Did he say born? Nicodemus can’t again be born, can he? Nicodemus asked him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Every mother who ever read this has always thought: “Oh gosh I hope not.” But that’s not what Jesus means. This isn’t like the first time you were born, because it’s not the mother who’s in pain this time. It’s the child. The child who must be ready to step out into the light leaving behind his honors and titles, security and high standing, to become again like an infant dependent on the grace of his Savior. Counting the cost, Nicodemus had to ask, “How can these things be?” So, Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these [most basic] things? [Let me teach you something you should know already.] Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” We read about that serpent in the wilderness in our First Scripture Lesson. Moses had to raise up something that his people might step out from the shadow and be healed. In the same way Christ was willing to be raised up on a Cross himself that his people would live. That they might live finally giving up their relentless pursuit of trying to earn the love of the world, which we will never gain, to accept the love of God, which we don’t have to do anything for. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” There it is. Can you accept it? It’s different, because the world is always telling us what we must do to gain love. The world says that to be loved we must have money, power, status, and acceptance. On the other hand, God is always saying, “You already have it. Stop trying so hard. Just step out into the light.” The Great Reformer, Martin Luther, called that one verse the Gospel in miniature, because this is all you really need to know, “God so loved the world that he gave his only son.” You’ve heard it before but listen to this: it’s really all about light and darkness. “And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light.” Why? Appearances. Power. Control. Because sin is not so different from the Corona virus. It thrives on denial and fear. It grows in the shadow. It thrives when people hide from the light of day. So, I charge you today to step out into the light, for he is everything he says he is and more. And love is yours if you’ll just accept it. Grace is yours. Forgiveness is yours. Just step out into the light and see that what you stand to lose is nothing compared with what you stand to gain. Amen.