"Nick at Nite" - John 3:1-21

Nicodemus is one of the key people who John sees as a symbol of Jesus’ ministry. He is an insider among the opponents of Jesus, a Pharisee. He comes to Jesus by night to talk rabbi to rabbi, possibly to represent the ruling council itself. Nick starts with a conciliatory move, citing the miracles as evidence that God was with him. Small talk soon ceases when Jesus says, “You can’t see the kingdom unless you’re born again.”

Just as in John 2, the religious leaders take literally what Jesus means figuratively.

“How can a man be born again when he is old? He can’t redo the birth process in his mother’s womb.”

Jesus then clarifies that the new birth he is talking about is spiritual.
One of the misinterpretations of John 3 is when we turn being “born again” into a single spiritual experience. Jesus was challenging Nicodemus to move out of his legalistic faith into one in which God’s Spirit was free to move and lead. If Nicodemus came to St. Barnabas, we would welcome him with open arms and put him quickly into leadership. But Nicodemus had a common religious problem – He had reduced a relationship with God to rules and moral behavior.

Jesus then uses something from the law (Numbers 21:8ff) and sees his own ministry as God’s way of doing the same thing. In Numbers, the people look to the snake on the pole and are spared. The people look to the uplifted Christ and are given eternal life. Notice how positive the motivation is and how different it is from the way the Church is often perceived. The agenda is salvation and life, not condemnation and death.

Yet people are free to choose to receive God’s initiative in Christ or reject it. So then we read very familiar themes about “light,” and why people choose darkness. To come into the light and face who we really are is not easy. We would rather stay in hiding. But once we step into the light of Christ and allow his love to do its life-giving work, our hearts and minds change. We want to be in the light.

The conversation with Nicodemus was pretty blunt, a risky strategy on Jesus’ part. We are given some clues that the strategy worked. In John 7:50, Nicodemus defends Jesus in front of the Pharisees, alienating himself with them. In John 20:38-39, he joins Joseph of Arimathea in requesting the body of Jesus after his crucifixion.