Nicodemus was a follower of Jesus. We read about him three times in the Bible: in John Chapter 3 where he comes at night to speak to Jesus, in John Chapter 7 where he defends Jesus at a meeting of the Jewish leaders saying “Does our law condemn anyone without first hearing him to find out what he is doing?” (7:51), and in John Chapter 19 where he and Joseph of Arimathea buried the precious body of Jesus, wrapped in linen with spices. Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a member of the Jewish ruling council, and so he had to come to Jesus at night when no one of the council would see him. He would have been seen as a traitor if he sided with Jesus.
But Nicodemus had seen the miraculous signs of Jesus and heard his message. He knew Jesus was sent from God. And so he wanted to know more about the Kingdom of God. And Jesus said “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
Nicodemus did not understand what Jesus meant. Maybe he was thinking like I did. Usually, you are a citizen of the country in which you were born or of which your parents were citizens. So, if you are born in Israel of Jewish parents you are a Jew. To be a citizen of Heaven you need to be born in heaven (an angel) or have God the Father as your parent. Therefore you need to be born again. But not physically reborn “of flesh”, but spiritually reborn “of spirit.”
Nicodemus still did not understand what Jesus meant. The next explanation of Jesus is still a bit confusing. He talks about spirit and wind. In both Greek and Hebrew, both words have the same pronunciation, “pneuma” in Greek or “ruach” in Hebrew. Jesus said, “8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” You hear the sound of the wind, and you hear the Word of the Holy Spirit. And this Word creates faith. And faith is what gives us rebirth in the Kingdom of God. This faith is confessed in the rite of Baptism. As Jesus said, “5 I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.”
Nicodemus still did not understand what Jesus meant. Things that are spiritual and of heaven are hard to understand by people that are limited by physical minds and bodies of this earth. And so Jesus had to tell the Gospel. The Gospel is the Good News that Jesus came down from heaven to be on this earth. We have physical bodies on this earth, so we can see Jesus who has a body on the earth. He came down in order to be lifted up. Moses lifted up on a pole a bronze snake in the desert so that anyone who was bitten by a poisonous snake could look at it with faith and be saved. Jesus would be lifted up on a cross so that anyone who was bitten by sin could look up to the cross in faith and be forgiven and healed and saved and have eternal life.
The words of John 3:16 and 17 are not just for Nicodemus, but they are for all of us who are like Nicodemus. We too become confused by the details of the Bible. The Catechism too becomes complicated. We need simple words that will be simple to understand and believe by our human, earthly minds and hearts. In John 3:16 and 17 there are no confusing words like “rebirth” and the “wind” and “spirit” and “snakes in the desert.”
16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
The most difficult word here is the word “love.” Today I want to look at this word from a different angle. The other day I was reading an article in my magazine, “The Lutheran Forum.” It talked about the grace and mercy of God. Psalm 34:8 is usually translated like this: “Taste and see that the LORD is good.” The article reads, “Taste and see how friendly the LORD is.” The author of the article, Prof. Oswald Bayer is from Germany, and it seems he was using the German Translation of Luther which reads, “Schmecket und sehet, wie freundlich der HERR ist.” “Taste and see how friendly the LORD is.” Luther used the usual word for “love” in his translation of John 3:16, “Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt." But I was wondering how the following translation might be. “God so befriended the world that he gave his one and only Son.” God was so friendly, so nice to the world that he sent Jesus. There is the beloved hymn, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” At the Last Supper Jesus told his disciples, John 15:12-15 “12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”
The greatest love of God is that he died for us who are his friends. We can understand that. And so like Nicodemus, we confess Jesus as our Lord and Savior and Friend.
Amen.
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German: Luther (1912)
Psalm 34:8 “Schmecket und sehet, wie freundlich der HERR ist. Wohl dem, der auf ihn traut!”
Johannes 3:16 “Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt, daß er seinen eingeborenen Sohn gab, auf daß alle, die an ihn glauben, nicht verloren werden, sondern das ewige Leben haben. 17 Denn Gott hat seinen Sohn nicht gesandt in die Welt, daß er die Welt richte, sondern daß die Welt durch ihn selig werde..”
Michael Nearhood, Pastor
Okinawa Lutheran Church
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