Sunday 11 February 2018       Changes in the Night            Martin Baker

Introduction

We started the Gospel of John with thegrand statement about the Word of God, the logos, God’s creation-bringing word,becoming flesh. Flesh in Jesus.  Thelight that shines in the darkness and the darkness’s never overcoming it.

And we learn about what that means in aseries of signs.

This huge amount of water being turned towine in the wedding at Cana. Abundance, celebration, new life in old customs.

Then Jesus turning over the tables in temple.The sacred centre of faith identity, political and financial life. Somethingneeds to be overturned and rebuilt, and we learn about the resurrection, the transformationof faith and hope that that event will bring.

And today is the third sign of the Wordcoming into the world. A new creation - what is encounter with this light inthe darkness going to mean for Nicodemus and those who would follow? 

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Nicodemus Visits Jesus

3 Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus,a leader of the Jews. 2 He came to Jesus[a] by night and said to him, “Rabbi,we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do thesesigns that you do apart from the presence of God.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Verytruly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born fromabove.”[b] 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grownold? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesusanswered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God withoutbeing born of water and Spirit. 6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatis born of the Spirit is spirit.[c] 7 Do not be astonished that I said to you,‘You[d] must be born from above.’[e] 8 The wind[f] blows where it chooses, andyou hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where itgoes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” 9 Nicodemus said tohim, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher ofIsrael, and yet you do not understand these things?

11 “Very truly, I tell you, we speak ofwhat we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you[g] do not receive ourtestimony. 12 If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe,how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascendedinto heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.[h] 14 Andjust as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Manbe lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.[i]

16 “For God so loved the world that he gavehis only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may haveeternal life.

17 “Indeed, God did not send the Son intothe world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be savedthrough him. 18 Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who donot believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the nameof the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment, that the light has comeinto the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deedswere evil. 20 For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light,so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21 But those who do what is true cometo the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done inGod.

I’d like you to try to recall a time whenyou changed your mind about something or about someone.

I’ll just give you minor examples from whatis almost certainly a memory that has become more distorted over time.

Vogue magazine has declared corduroy themost unsexy fabric of all times.

But, has anyone owned a pair of cords? Corduroytrousers.

I actually can remember a time when corduroyswere quite cool. It was about the time when men had big hair, bell bottoms andplatform shoes.

I must have been about 10 or 11 at thetime, and on Friday night, that was when people did their shopping when I wasyoung,  we were walking along Victoriastreet to the menswear shop. I was looking forward to getting a new pair of corduroytrousers.  In brown. Nice and thick.

And I walked into the store with my motherand there serving in the store on Friday night was my teacher. We will call himMr Cooper. Dale Cooper. My mother insisted that I be measured up for my browncords. And there was only Mr Copper, my Form 1 teacher,  in the store, to do the measuring.

Now, just as a bit of a back plot here, MrCooper had just a day or two before, given me a pretty good strapping I have tosay for something quite minor. Whistling I think was the offence of the day.And never a big child, I found Mr Cooper in particular to be a thoroughly forebodingpresence. But here he was. Earning a few extra dollars. With his little tapemeasure, pins on a Fridays night the Victoria St mensware shop. Down on his significanthaunches, measuring my 10 year old waist and other dimensions.

So after that point, of extraordinaryembarrassment, something changed in my little pre- teen brain. As a reasonablyimaginative child, the image of Mr Cooper that night, was easy for me to conjureup whenever I encounter him delivering one of his frequent tirades before ourclass of 10 and 11 year olds.  

If someone had simply told me that I neednot be too concerned about Mr Cooper because he worked in menswear on a Fridaynight, that might have been interesting,  but it was this encounter that made all the difference.

We talk about those powerful things, love,joy, fear, grief and loss. And we might talk about them like we might talkabout snow to someone who has never been to the mountains. But understanding ofthese things only comes about through experience. Those experiences change us.And even though these experiences are the most difficult to describe to someonewho has never encountered them, they are also the most important things. Thenature of faith, the truth of God, comes from encounter.  

 Light coming into the the darkness and thedarkness never overcoming it.

Two weeks ago a 13 year old was caughtunder a rock in the Rakaia River.  Twoordinary blokes risked their own lives to save him from certain drowning, accordingto the police. It started off as an ordinary day for them, and became a momentwhen all their lives would be changed forever. The men discovered within them aself-less courage that they had perhaps had never imagined existed. And the boydiscovered something about the life giving power of human kindness and self-sacrifice.We can read about the story, be inspired by it perhaps, but what we can becertain of, is that three lives have been changed forever.

Nicodemus comes to see Jesus in the nightand they have this startling conversation. We can read the story, hear it beingtold, argue about who is and who is not born again. We can even grab the wonderfulheadlines words from this encounter. God so loved the world that he gave hisonly son.

But those things aren’t the main point.This encounter with Jesus is like an encounter with the wind.  The wind  blows where it chooses, and you hear the soundof it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is witheveryone who is born of the Spirit.”

In fact we come across Nicodemus twice morein our scriptures. And it seems that the spirit that wind, had indeed beenblowing around him.

Nicodemus reappears a few chapters later,advocating among his fellow Pharisees who have tried to arrest Jesus,encouraging them  to give Jesus a fairtrial (John 7:49-50).  Nicodemus appearsto be stepping outside of his own community to defend Jesus.  Might he be beginning to see thingsdifferently?   And third time we encounterNicodemus in the story is an extraordinary moment. This trajectory whenNicodemus reappears to join Joseph of Arimathea in giving the crucified Jesusan honourable burial. We are left to fill in the blanks, but maybe we are told thatNicodemus walking toward the Light. This is what it means to walk toward thelight of Jesus. This is what it means to be born again, born afresh or beingborn from above. The word means the same thing.This is the change that happenswhen we encounter the God who so loves the world.

One of the interesting little things hereis that the call of God is from the known to the unknown. A journey we canembark upon with  a sense of promise.It’s the nature of faith. Everything is familiar but there is something more.One of the big issues we discover in this ancient story for us is a bit of awarning really. The danger of believing that tomorrow is a more familiar place thattoday. When something happens then I will be happier, better, kinder, moregenerous. I’ll be all those good things at some other point because today it isjust too difficult or complicated or I am too angry or grief stricken. If wewant to make tomorrow better than today, today is the day we have to meet thereal things that are going on for us. We have to work in the world we know nownot in the world of our fears or our fantasies.

God calls to move from the familiar infaith . All birth has a major element of surprise about it.  

Nicodemus is on a journey. He comes toJesus, and with him we come as well. With him we want to know the truth. With ourselves,with each other, with God. One thing we learn from Jesus is that the only relationshipsworth having are ones based on truth. The truth of what is happening now. 

Our Gospelstake a strong line on this.  Truth is notjust what is discovered but it’s what happens. Those who do that is true, Jesussays come to the light. We need to know the truth in order to make the right decisions.And there are right decisions to be made. The gospel and our reformation forbearer claimed   claims that we are all heading somewhere. Weare all allowing some power or force influence to affect our lives. We allbelieve something. No one is heading nowhere. We may never consciously decidevery much but Jesus tells us that we walk down a path that ultimately bringspain destruction and death or we walk along apathy that leads to abundant hopelight and life. You do the truth by making a decision to follow Him. That’s whythe Gospel says of Jesus that he is the truth. We cannot find meaning in lifeas if it was someone off discovery.  Inour faith we can say that we live lives of meaning.

The truly good news of Jesus,  C S Lewis is that "all of the roadsbelong to God," and that "the Savior can use any road to bring ushome." CS Lewis, he reminds us that the God who  alls us can even use the wrong roads on our lifejourney to take us to the right places

This week in our communities, joiningconversations and journeying along with all sorts of characters, may weremember Nicodemus’ shining example. Though at first resistant, he pushesagainst daunting social boundaries, through the darkness that clouded his firstvisit, moving toward a new way of thinking, illuminated by the Light of theSpirit

We can all know that things exist. Corduroys,Mr Cooper, the Rakaia River.

We can agree that Jesus exists.

As Jaime Clark-Soles describes in herReading John for Dear Life:

Many of us are less aware than Nicodemus ofour desire for connection with the light, because we are comfortable; secure inour status in the community, our reputations ... Will you turn your bulb towardor away from deeper connection with the Source of Power and Light.

Here in the Gospel the story invites us togo from knowledge to encounter. The answer is not in the destination but in thejourney, with Nicodemus, coming to Jesus, encountering the work of the Spirit. Withall our knowledge something stirs within us. . And we realise it’s time to moveon. For the sake of ourselves those love our world our faith. We’ve been hangingaround long enough and God has something more in store. AMEN