Nicodemus

Nicodemus in the Tomb, by Lester Yocum

Lections: The Second Sunday in Lent, AD 2026 A

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for you know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Nicodemus is a man of wealth, power, education, and faith. John describes him as “a ruler of the Jews,” with a seat on the Sanhedrin, the high council of Jerusalem. He joined the Pharisees, a scrupulously pious Jewish sect, concerned with the democratization of religious law. And he is fully hellenized. Nicodemus thinks like a Greek, speaks like a Greek, and even has a Greek name, which means “victory of the people.”

In short, he is smart, successful, faithful, well-respected, and possesses high status religiously, socially, intellectually. Thus, in associating with Jesus, Nicodemus has a lot to lose.

Early on in Jesus’ ministry, according to John’s Gospel, our Lord attends the Passover festival in Jerusalem, at which He takes to flipping over tables, as would seem to be His wont. Other Gospel accounts place this cleansing of the Temple—driving away the beasts for sale, pouring out the merchants’ coins upon the floor—later in the narrative. But given that Jesus travelled to Jerusalem several times a year for His entire life, I find it completely plausible that He excoriated the moneychangers on more than one occasion.

This of course produces quite the stir. Religion may be well and good as a private matter, or even for a bit of public piety, but once it starts to disrupt commerce, then you’ve gone too far. “All right, buddy,” the authorities retort. “You’d better have a decent reason for fiddling in our business.” Profit over prophets, as it were. “What sign can you provide to back up your audacity? And it had better be good.”

“Tear down this Temple,” Jesus infamously replies, “and in three days I will raise it up.” At this point I imagine gasps and laughter throughout the crowd, for, following the renovations of Herod the Great, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is likely the largest sacred structure on the planet. It would take Legions to tear it all down. People won’t forget the shocking scandal of this statement; later they will use it to accuse Him at His trial.

But for all the kerfuffle, many in the crowd appear to marvel at His words, at both the boldness and the truth in what He says. They start to see in Jesus the fulfillment of the Scriptures, start to wonder if He might not be the Christ—Nicodemus among them. And so he comes to Jesus Christ by night; night, the hour when decent folk should be abed. I wonder where they meet. I wonder whether this had been prearranged, or whether Nicodemus surprised Him. We simply do not know.

“Rabbi,” Nicodemus begins, a title of authority and respect, “we know that you are a teacher who comes from God, for no-one can do these signs that you do unless God is with that person.” He has come in caution, yes, perhaps in fear, but also in humility. And Jesus accepts him.

“Very truly, I tell you,” Jesus says, “no-one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above.” And Nicodemus, in confusion, replies: “How can anyone be born again after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb?” And this is a bit of wordplay, you see, a bit of linguistic confusion. In Greek, the word ἄνωθεν carries a double-meaning: both “born again,” that is, born a second time; and also “born from above,” that is, from heaven or from God.

What I find remarkable about this brief exchange is that it only works in Greek. Jesus’ mother-tongue is Aramaic, and we know that He speaks Hebrew because in the synagogue He reads from the scroll of Isaiah. So He’s religiously educated. Yet if there’s any historical core to this conversation as reported by John, then Jesus’ education extends to Greek language and philosophy, just as does Paul’s or Luke’s or John’s. He speaks rustic Aramaic with the fishermen, but cultured Koine Greek with certain sophisticates. This would also explain how He could later converse with Pilate.

“Truly I tell you,” Jesus continues, “no-one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the spirit is spirit.” And this would make sense to Nicodemus. In classical understanding, flesh is the life which we live out here below, where everything changes, everything ages, everything decays. But spirit is a life beyond the ravages of time; spirit is the life lived out above. We think of spirit as less real than the flesh, but for Nicodemus it would’ve been the opposite. Flesh proves as ephemeral as smoke, spirit as unyielding as diamond.

Thus, Jesus says, the Kingdom of God is not a kingdom of this world, for all of them decay and one day die. Rather, the Kingdom of God is a higher form of life, deeper, greater, truer. “Do not be astonished,” Jesus says, “when I say to you that you must be born from above. The Spirit of God”—which is to say, the Breath of God, the Life of God—“blows as the wind wheresoever She may choose, and you hear the sound of it, but know neither whence She comes nor whither She goes. So it is with all of those born of the Spirit.”

And that’s again remarkable. Because Nicodemus has asked Jesus, “How can anyone be born again, or anyone born from above?” And Jesus here replies, “You already are.” It is natural, He assures us, not to comprehend it yet, to hear the wind but not to see Her move. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit, including you, Nicodemus. And with hushed tones of awe, Nicodemus whispers, “How can these things be?”

Jesus chides him gently. “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?” Ah, but how could you? I speak of things heavenly, and “no-one has ascended into Heaven, save the One who descended from Heaven, the Son of Man.” How then can I put this in terms you’d understand? “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness”—an act of healing and compassion amongst chaos and woe—“so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.”

Now, this is terminology with which Nicodemus would be familiar. He knows his Bible, knows the story of Moses in the wilderness, and knows of the divine messianic Son of Man as prophesied by Daniel. But what could it possibly mean that the Son of Man must be lifted up like a serpent on a stick? Jesus doesn’t explain it, not here, not now, but He does drop perhaps the most astounding promise, the single greatest passage, in the entirety of the Scriptures:

For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but 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.

The Spirit has called Nicodemus to the Son; the Son will give to him, and all the world, eternal life; and He will do so by being lifted upon a pole. Nicodemus does not understand. He cannot understand. How could he? And Jesus knows this, knows that Nicodemus as yet cannot grasp what is to come. Yet Jesus loves him nonetheless, and promises to him the Kingdom of God, the life of the Spirit, of whom even now he has been born again.

We will see Nicodemus return, at the end of Jesus’ ministry, the end of His earthly life. After His corpse has been taken down from the Cross, it will be Nicodemus, along with Joseph of Arimathea, who buries Him. Nicodemus shall bring a hundred pounds of aloes and of incense, to richly honor the Son of Man, who had told him that he was reborn; and who had been lifted up, that all the world might now be saved through Him.

Even then, I doubt that Nicodemus understood. None of us did. But the Spirit had led him to Jesus; the Spirit leads him then to the Cross; and the Spirit shall lead him yet further, unto the Resurrection. So it is with all of those who have been born from above.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Pertinent Links

RDG Stout

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St Peter’s Lutheran

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Nidaros Lutheran

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