February 20, 2005
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
My family knows the kinds of restaurants that I like to be in. No, it’s not a vegetarian place but rather a restaurant dining room that is bright and well lighted. I like to see what I eat. I would prefer a bright window table. I don’t like dark restaurants!
But we know that when things are too bright, we need sunglasses to see. Sometimes the light can be so bright, when all things stand out with such clarity, that we are unable to see the important things. We become blinded by the light. When Jesus was transfigured on that bright mountain, it is said that there was dazzling light; his garments shown as he was glorified. Peter couldn’t see what was up or down, he wanted to build churches on that mountain until the light faded away. When it was darker then Peter was able to see Jesus by himself again.
In the Bible, there are many references to the symbol of light and darkness. John’s gospel begins by declaring that Jesus is the light, the light of the world; yet humanity loves darkness rather than light. Still the light, the light of the world, shines in darkness, and the darkness has yet to overcome it.
In Genesis, in the beginning, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, but darkness was pushed back when God created light. God set a boundary between light and darkness.
In the New Testament, darkness has spiritual significance. Jesus speaks about the power of darkness but God is the one who is light and in Christ, there is no darkness. When we come to the early church, we see that Christians are those who are “a chosen race, royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, called out of darkness, into his marvelous light.” (1 Pet. 2:9)
It seems like if we had to choose between light and darkness, light is the right answer. But before we can know the light, we are aware of the darkness. Darkness has its place in the world.
By Night
In our Scripture for today, we read about a Pharisee, a lay person, named Nicodemus.
Nicodemus, pictured as an old man with a long beard came to Jesus by night. Most of us think that Nicodemus came by night because he was going under cover, lest he be seen. We think that given the fact that Nicodemus, a teacher of Israel, was “in the dark” about Jesus that he was too embarrassed to be seen in full light asking Jesus questions.
Darkness is a symbol for our ignorance and inability to see.
But another way of interpreting why Nicodemus came to Jesus at night is that it was at night that he came to a deep conviction of wanting to know more about the meaning of new life that he couldn’t wait until morning to come. It’s like us waking up at night repeatedly before going on a big vacation or getting ready for a new job. We just can’t wait to go. Maybe Nicodemus just couldn’t wait until morning to ask Jesus his questions so he came at night.
When our busy day is over and we are lying quietly in bed at night is when some of our deepest thoughts come to mind. I have learned to get up and write these things down so that I can go back to sleep. When it is dark outside and all of the artificial lights are turned off is when we switch on the important questions about life and why we are here on this planet. Remember how we have to go far away from the city lights to be able to look up and see the stars of the universe? When it’s really dark outside is when we can see God’s marvelous creation.
So out of Nicodemus’ darkness, he came to the light in Jesus.
Jesus immediately engages Nicodemus in conversation about his need for a second birth, a birth from above. Nicodemus didn’t understand what Jesus was saying and expected to literally be born again from his mother’s womb. But Jesus was speaking metaphorically—when we are dead in sin, we need new life. Jesus offers God’s forgiveness, despite our sinfulness. God’s acceptance of sinners is grace. Nicodemus’ role was to accept grace. The acceptance of God’s grace is faith. What results is forgiveness, totally undeserved, cleanses sinners and makes them new, as if they had been born a second time.
But Nicodemus still couldn’t understand and said, “How can these things be?” So Jesus took the time at night to explain this to him. Nicodemus, a man on earth, could not understand what God was doing until Jesus, a man in heaven, explained it to him by using Moses. See verse 14, “And 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.”
Jesus referred to the incident when the people of Israel had sinned by accusing God and Moses of leading them from a bad place, bondage in Egypt to one that was worse, sojourning in the wilderness. Turn with me to Numbers 21. So God sent fiery, poisonous snakes that bit people to death. After the people apologized to Moses and confessed their sins to God, the Lord commanded Moses to make a bronze serpent or snake and set it on a pole and when anyone is bitten by a snake and look at this bronze serpent, he would live. The bronze serpent represented God’s offer of salvation. Similarly, when we look at the crucified Christ, we are reminded of God’s offer of salvation to us.
The hidden point that Jesus was making is that sinners receive salvation. Those sinners who were already bitten by the snakes can still live by seeing the bronze serpent. Sinners like Nicodemus and us who are “in the dark” unable to understand and sinned against God can receive salvation when we see the crucified Christ.
So Loved the World
Set apart in the Scriptures that we read for this morning is the one verse that perhaps is most memorized and familiar. We see John 3:16 held up at sporting events—“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.”
For many Christians, this verse summarizes the essence of the gospel message: the meaning of Jesus’ life is that he signifies God’s love for the creation. God’s purpose in sending Jesus was not to “condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (vs. 17).
But it’s appalling to think about how many preachers who say that God hates the world and that we are all worthless sinners who deserve to go straight to hell. There are multitudes of people who no longer attend church because they don’t experience God’s love, but only God’s condemnation of them in the company of other Christians. That kind of message is contrary to what Jesus is saying here.
Then there are some Christians who see the necessity of being “born again.” They say that you are not a true Christian until you can recall a specific moment in your life when you made a conscious decision to accept Jesus as your “personal Lord and Savior.” They would say that other “so-called” Christians who have not had such a dramatic conversion experience to which they can point to have missed the boat! That too is a misreading of this text.
We can understand where this kind of thinking has come from. From verses 3, 5, and 7, we see a condition for salvation: unless one is born again, it is not possible to see the Kingdom of God. Salvation appears to be contingent upon being born again.
But let’s now look at verse 8, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Here we see that God’s spirit comes into our lives where it wills; changing those to experience a spiritual new birth.
In the first case, whether or not we are saved depends on our response to or decision for the gospel. We either believe or we don’t believe, we are either saved or damned. In the second case, if we believe, it is because grace has touched our lives, thereby enabling us to affirm the gospel in our lives. The first stresses our freedom whereas the second lays the weight upon God’s grace to people. Both interpretations have their strengths as well as their problems.
Part of the problem here is that two important beliefs about salvation are being pitted against one another: first, the importance of making a conscious decision and commitment to embrace the gospel and to live accordingly. The second is the importance of God’s grace as being the final determinant in human destiny. We need to hold both beliefs, but to do so in a way that subordinates our human decision to God’s grace. We may make our deliberate intentions to love God but ultimately, it’s God’s grace that saves us. “For God so loved the world” means that God took the first step. Then God took another step “that he gave his only Son” so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
Save the World
“God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” Jesus’ role according to verse 17 was not meant to be a condemner. That doesn’t mean that he didn’t bring to our attention those places where we stray from God’s will; he did that consistently. In verse 18, Jesus spoke about those who have not believed in his name as the only Son of God are condemned already but he was still looking out for those to come to the light and expose the evil. The purpose of God coming to us in the flesh was positive and not negative. God came to bring light to those in darkness. God came to show us the way when our lives are dark and gloomy. God came bearing the deep hope that somehow this time enough people might listen so as to bring about the critical mass needed to change the world.
Jesus did not come to scare us into compliance with the divine will. Jesus came to present the joy, the wonder, the hope of the kind of world which God wants the beloved creation to dwell. Jesus came to say that God does not desire that we should continue to hurt each other and the rest of creation, but that if we turn from our ways, abundant life will overflow for us. Everyone is invited into the opportunity to see God more clearly in Jesus and therefore love God more by the way we live.
Remember the story of what happened to Nelson Mandela. For twenty-five years, Mandela sat in a pit of a prison on an island. He had twenty-five years to hate his accusers and the white-led government and people of South Africa. Twenty-five years to plan revenge. Yet when released, he refused to take that revenge. He refused to condemn, and he refused to allow others to do so on his behalf.
A fervent Christian, he worked with Bishop Desmond Tutu and others to set up a new model for re-making a country. They would not have mass arrests and executions of those who had done harm. A Truth and Reconciliation Commission would bring all good and evil into the light and expose it for what it was, and then move on. Today, although South Africa faces many struggles as a result of its past, it is rebuilding without the kind of violence and hatred that neighboring Zimbabwe, for example is experiencing. God came to bring light to years of apartheid and hate.
In this season of Lent, we are called to pray for our community, our nation, and our world to become more like God who does not condemn nor desire us to condemn ourselves for our behavior. But to become like God who loves us and this world so much, much more than we can ask or imagine.
In the Dark
When I was visiting our 2 ½ years old granddaughter, Evi last month in Boston, we would play hide-and-seek. She just learned the game. Whenever Evi found a spot to hide, usually behind the living room curtains, she would yell out, “Okay.” Of course, by yelling that, she gave away her location. So I told her to keep quiet after she hid to not give away where she was hiding. But Evi kept doing what she always did, yelling, “Okay!” whenever she found her spot behind the living room curtains.
Finally it dawned on me what Evi was thinking. Evi was finding joy in being found each time. After all, what fun is it if you never get found? No matter how much we try to hide ourselves from God living in the darkness of our lives, God won’t give up until we are found.
The ministry of Jesus came to a head, not in some beautiful spiritual mountaintop with the sun shining brightly, but on a hill called, “The Place of the Skull,” a garbage dump outside of town, where the sky turned completely dark for three hours. Yet on this hill, at that dump, in the darkness, we believe is our salvation. On Calvary in the dark, we received salvation.
I don’t know if the sun is shining for you right now. I hope it is. I hope that you are happy, that things are going well for you, and that you are in good health, that your family and friends are fine.
But if this day, this second Sunday in Lent, happens to find you not well, not well off, not happy, in the dark, at twilight, or toward midnight—if you know what I mean—then rejoice. Rejoice that we have a savior that keeps evening hours. Rejoice that our God works the night shift. At night is a great time to come to Jesus and let him talk with you, sit with you, teach you, reveal his will and his way for you.
Do you wonder what ever happened to Nicodemus? The only other mention of Nicodemus in the Bible is when he and Joseph of Arimathea removed Jesus’ body after his crucifixion to place in a new tomb. It was at night again. In John 19:38, we read that Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the council, was a secret believer of Christ who was afraid that he would be persecuted for his belief. Nicodemus came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds. They took Jesus’ body and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths. Nicodemus saw the crucified Christ.
Traditions say that when Nicodemus heard the next day that some of the disciples had seen Jesus was alive again, he wept like a newborn baby.
Let us pray.
Gracious God, in the darkness of our lives, come and lead us on the way to understand your love for the world that you sacrifice your Son, Jesus Christ on the cross so that we may receive salvation. Show us to be more like you who came to not condemn the world that you love so much but to save it according to your plan. In the name of our Lord, we pray. Amen.