John 3:1-17
When I was a freshman in college I opened the door of my room one evening and met three young women who were making the rounds on behalf of salvation. They smiled warmly and spoke in gentle voices and invited me to participate in a weekly bible study they were holding in their room. I said yes. I didn’t need to think about it. It was like God had opened the door and said here you go.
I went to the bible study, and at first it was very nice. These young women radiated warmth and love, and I appreciated the things I was learning. But then suddenly one day it changed.
We were in our usual space, sitting on the floor together reading the scriptures and then the leader turned to me and asked me when I had been saved. I didn’t know how to answer that question. I was a Lutheran, we didn’t talk that way. When was I saved? What an absurd question. But when it became clear I didn’t know the answer, they pounced.
It was imperative for me to be born again. And if I were born again, I would know that I had been born again. There was no gray area in this business of being saved. I either was or I wasn’t. They were telling me that it was becoming pretty clear that I wasn’t. They told me that if I did not accept Jesus and be born again I was most certainly going to hell. The dissonance I experienced between their sweet tones and their harsh words was really messing with me.
I left there in tears. Because I had loved Jesus all my life. I had been taught that I am saved by grace alone, through faith alone. There was nothing I needed to do to earn it; indeed, there was nothing I coulddo to make it happen. God had already done this amazing work through the Son’s death and resurrection. I didn’t think a born-again experience was going to happen to me, and I knew I couldn’t fake it. Yet the certainty of these girls unsettled me, and I was afraid.
I understand why Nicodemus was unsettled by this talk of being born again. Because, to him that night, it seemed quite impossible. How can a grown man go back into his mother’s womb? How can anyone be born a second time?
Nicodemus got stuck on a few words and couldn’t get unstuck. “How can this be?” he says. We have no idea if Nicodemus hears any more of Jesus’ words after that. He seems to fade away into the night.
How can this be? Well, I could ask that question about a whole host of things, particularly on Trinity Sunday. When I think about Isaiah and the Seraphs, and the Lord God upon a throne before him. When I think about that live coal being pressed to his lips. When I think about the Spirit of God blowing where it will blow and somehow touching us, enabling us to be born from above, as Jesus says. How can this be?
When I think about God loving the world so much that God gave his only Son so that we may not perish but may have eternal life. That God sent the Son not to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through him, I wonder – how can this be?
I don’t have the answer to these questions.
When I think about the words of the scripture saying that God sent the Son for us and for our salvation, and that the Son sent the Spirit, the Advocate, so that we would not be alone, I do wonder – how can this be? When I ponder the presence of God as creator of all things, the one who was present before the beginning of time, making beauty and meaning out of chaos, I wonder – how can this be? When I consider God as being incarnate, born of flesh to live and teach and heal and die for our sake in order to overcome death for us all, I do wonder – how can this be? When I think of God being present in our midst now, as Spirit, intangible, elusive, but powerful, I wonder – how can this be?
I don’t know how this can be. these are strange and mysterious gifts. And it is certainly not for us to determine how and when these gifts are received. Nicodemus walked away into the night without an answer to his question, just as lost as he had been before. He didn’t receive what he had come for, what he had asked for.
Isaiah didn’t ask for the gift that was given to him. As far as we know, he wasn’t asking for anything, at the time. He was just minding his own business when the Lord and his heavenly entourage appeared before him, calling out to one another with words of praise, filling the room with smoke and noise and trembling. A seraph touched a burning coal to Isaiah’s lips and said, “Your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” He didn’t ask for this gift.
The wind blows where it chooses; you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with the Spirit of God.
Isaiah did not ask for this gift, but the gift chose him. And when the Lord called out, “Whom shall I send?” Isaiah said, “Here I am; send me.”
The Spirit blows where she will and how she will. Did the Spirit blow on Nicodemus? It didn’t seem so, as he skulked away into the shadows. But here is something else we should know about Nic.
A few chapters later, Jesus goes to the temple in Jerusalem and begins teaching, saying some very provocative things. The Pharisees watching become very agitated and want to have him arrested. But Nicodemus, who is himself a Pharisee, speaks up. Now, we have not heard him speak since he said, “How can this be,” but now he speaks to the gathered Pharisees to urge restraint. Nothing bad happened that day, and perhaps it was because of Nicodemus’s words.
Again, Nicodemus disappears. We hear nothing more about him – until after Jesus is crucified. A man named Joseph asks permission to take his body down from the cross. He arranges to have it taken to a tomb. And Nicodemus, who first came to Jesus under cover of darkness, brings a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloe to give his body a proper burial.
Did the Spirit blow over Nicodemus? Perhaps. We don’t control how any of this works.
So often it seems that the Spirit blows over us, surprising us, and moving us in a new direction – a direction of service, a direction of love. Sometimes the earth shakes and the angels cry out and the Lord says, “Whom shall I send?” and you answer, “Send me!” and everything is changed. Sometimes, you get blinded by the light on the road to Damascus and hear Jesus speaking to you. And everything is changed.
But other times there are gentle brushes … moments of confusion … questions that seem unanswered – until the moment when you know you have to answer. Like Nicodemus, who spoke to the Pharisees in a moment of necessity and came to the grave with compassion and a lavish supply of myrrh and aloe.
The gifts of the Spirit are strange gifts. But somehow, they empower us to do the work of God in this world, which we know from the words of John chapter three, is the work of love.
I never had the kind of born-again experience that those girls wanted me to have. But I know that, in the years since then, the Spirit has worked in surprising and powerful ways in my life. No Seraphim and burning coals. Sometimes more questions than answers. Perhaps I am more like Nicodemus than Isaiah.
The gifts of the Spirit are strange, indeed. Let us be grateful for these strange gifts that empower us to do God’s work on earth.
Let us be grateful for those who stand up and say, “Here I am; send me.”
Let us listen for the call of love in our lives.
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