All of us have moments when we do impulsive things. Like, when your friend says, “Let’s go out for ice cream!” and you weren’t planning to do that, you were actually planning to go home and do laundry, but then you thought, “Ice cream? Why not? You only live once, right?” We have all done something impulsive once in a while. But probably not leaving your home and walking off toward an unknown destination. I’ll bet you haven’t done that.
I wonder what Abram thought when God called him to walk away from his home and his people and go to a place God would show him. There must have been something – or a few things – on his mind.
But we don’t know. The text doesn’t say. It just says that Abram went, as the Lord told him. I try to imagine why.
Maybe Abram was a thrill seeker, always up for an adventure. But I doubt it.
Or maybe Abram was the most obedient, submissive man to ever live – the ultimate Do-Bee. I doubt that, too.
Is it possible that Abram had the sense that there was something more to his life than what he was currently living? Maybe there was a yearning, then there was a call, and Abram just knew this was what he had been waiting for. And so he went.
For all his life, Abram had been doing what was expected, keeping his head down, following the well-trod path. Then one day he heard a higher calling. And he went.
Sometimes discipleship happens like that. But not always.
Other times it’s more like Nicodemus, who approached Jesus hesitantly and stealthily. He came in the dark of night. And it’s no wonder he came at night. After all, he was a Pharisee – a teacher of Israel.
He was breaking ranks with his fellows, who were, of course, emphatically opposed to Jesus. Something pulled at Nicodemus, though, leading him to make this night visit. But he came with all his hesitation and doubts and uncertainties, and a certain amount of resistance to being made new – some fear of what was unknown.
And this baggage Nicodemus brought with him seemed to make it impossible for him to take that leap in understanding. It weighed him down. Nicodemus asks Jesus, how can these things be? and you can almost hear the quiver in his voice when he asks. His shoulders slumped, his head down, Nicodemus couldn’t even see that high way Jesus was showing him.
Nicodemus arrives in the dark and he leaves in the dark, seeming to have gained nothing. He is not able to step onto that road with Jesus. He can’t even see the possibility of it. Maybe we know, ourselves, what it’s like to be in the dark, unable to take that step into something new.
Nicodemus was asked to let go of some things. He needed to let go of certain ways of looking at the world – this idea of what it means to be born, for example – born from above, born of water and Spirit. He needed to let go of his concepts of truth, of certainty. He needed to let go of the way he understood God’s actions in the world, and even who he was in relation to God and all of humankind. Nicodemus was being asked to let go of some really big things.
And Nicodemus, as we see, was not very successful at it. This conversation we hear between Jesus and Nicodemus is funny, in a way. Jesus is speaking on a level that Nicodemus doesn’t grasp, his words seem to fly right over Nicodemus’s head, and Nicodemus responds with questions that completely miss the mark.
The problem seems to be that Nicodemus wants answers, but answers that fit into his boxes. And Jesus is handing him a whole new set of boxes. Nicodemus can’t deal with it, he’s drowning in his confusion.
Then Jesus tries to throw him a lifeline: he tells him about God’s unfathomable love. But, maybe it is just plain unfathomable to Nicodemus. He doesn’t say anything more, and we might assume he walked away into the night.
If only he could have recognized the help he needed. If only he could have accepted the love Jesus offered. If only he could have known that such love is strong enough to make him strong – strong enough to stand up against whatever is holding him down.
We feel sad for Nicodemus, because we certainly know what it is like to be utterly confused by something, like he was confused by Jesus. We understand how it feels to be losing control of things, the way Nicodemus was losing his grasp on everything he believed to be true; to feel the dissonance between the life you are living and the sense that God is offering you a different way. We might even worry about him. Maybe you find yourself wondering: whatever became of Old Nic?
Let me tell you.
Nicodemus made another appearance in the story in chapter 7. Jesus is teaching among crowds of people at a religious festival. The Pharisees are about ready to have him arrested, but Nicodemus is there, and he says something to the others to slow things, calm them down. Now, Nicodemus is no longer skulking around in the dark of night. He is openly challenging the conventional wisdom of his fellows. That’s a step up for Old Nic. But there is more.
Nicodemus makes one final appearance. After Jesus is crucified. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus take his body from the cross to the tomb. Nicodemus brings the myrrh for his burial.
What could possibly have moved Nicodemus to take such a public action for a dead criminal? Only one thing.
I don’t know where Nicodemus goes from here, but I think at this point his story is a lot like Abram’s story. Stepping out into the unknown, risking everything you have known, everything you have held close, all for the sake of following this higher calling. Living into the new story God is writing for you.
Where is God calling you to go this season? What is standing in the way of you accepting the help Jesus wants to give you, of receiving the powerful love of God? How is God inviting you, urging you, to participate in the work of saving the world?
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