The Power of a Good Story: A Sermon for 4 Lent

Every now and then, somebody will ask me what my favorite Bible verse is. But you know, I don’t tend to like that question, because, quite frankly, Bible verses aren’t what make me love the Bible. 

The stories of the Bible are what made me fall in love with Holy Scripture. Now, some of you might find it odd that I would pick this day to talk about my preference for stories over sound bites, because in our gospel reading we have perhaps the most well-known one-liner in all of scripture: “For God so loved the world the he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.” But when I was a child in Sunday School, we learned Bible stories, not Bible verses. And as great as John 3:16 is, it has never captured my imagination like a good story.

When I was a child, the stories of David and Goliath and blind Bartimaeus stuck with me. Bible memory verses never did. For me, the power of narrative has the power to transform because I can usually put myself in the story, and thus draw meaning from it. So if I were an unchurched person and you were going to try to talk to me about salvation, I’d much more likely be drawn in by the story of the transformation of Nicodemus throughout the gospel of John than I would you telling me that if I believed in Jesus I wouldn’t perish.

I mention Nicodemus because that is who Jesus is talking to when we hear today’s gospel reading. The context within which our gospel reading falls is a rather intriguing conversation between Jesus and the Nicodemus. It appears that Nicodemus, who was a Pharisee, was wrestling with what to make of Jesus – this teacher, healer, and prophet who was embodying an entirely new way of interpreting the Law. Jesus was taking Nicodemus and the Pharisees’ entire way of being faithfully Jewish and turning it upside down.

But what is remarkable to me is that Nicodemus chose to engage Jesus in an entirely different way that the others. It appears that he was interested in having a conversation with Jesus, so he approached Jesus with genuine curiosity, not animosity. Unlike the other Pharisees we see in scripture, he wasn’t trying to trap Jesus, or engage him in a public debate. And I believe that it was Nicodemus’ non-antagonistic approach to dealing with Jesus that in the end made room for his transformation, conversion, and indeed his salvation. And as the Body of Christ, I think we can learn a lot by examining how Nicodemus wrestled with the issue of salvation by engaging Jesus in a conversation, not an argument.

The first thing he says to Jesus is, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs apart from the presence of God.” Jesus responds by telling Nicodemus that in order to see the kingdom of God, one must be born from above, or born anew. Of course, this was an odd way of understanding salvation for a Pharisee, because for them, strict adherence to the Law was what mattered the most. 

But rather than screaming “blasphemy!”, Nicodemus asked a question. He wanted to know how the heck somebody could be born after growing old. What do they do, crawl back into their mother’s womb?!  Interpreters of scripture usually read this response from Nicodemus, and because he is a Pharisee, write him off as too stuck in his ways to understand Jesus’ new way of seeing the kingdom of God. He is blinded by his narrow mindedness. For us in the South, “born again” language is simply part of the DNA of our culture. Even if we’re not Baptists, we’ve heard it and know what it means. But for a first century Jewish Pharisee, being “born again” wasn’t everyday language. So I don’t blame Nicodemus for his confusion.

Jesus attempts to explain what he means by being born from above, but Nicodemus remains perplexed, and asks Jesus, “How can these things be?” And again, I don’t blame him for asking. If we’re honest with ourselves, we all should be perplexed, dumbfounded, and amazed by the audacity of God’s saving grace for all of God’s people.

The reason I am going backwards in scripture this morning to rehash the encounter between Nicodemus and Jesus is that I feel like we are done a disservice by only getting verses 14-21 of the story. Without the context of Nicodemus having a transformative conversation with Jesus, all we get is Jesus waxing poetically into thin air about salvation. I need the larger story of salvation told to me through many smaller stories; through holy conversations with other people who like me oftentimes wonder how these things can be. 

Remember, when Nicodemus approached Jesus in the night, Jesus knew that he was a Pharisee. For all Jesus knew, Nicodemus could have been coming to turn him over to the authorities. And on the flip side, Nicodemus perhaps could have been condemned for having a secret meeting with the enemy.

But Nicodemus and Jesus were willing to take the potentially life threatening risk of meeting together that night. Nicodemus had the courage to go. Jesus had the courage to invite him in. And the courage that they both showed ended up being a story of salvation, not just for Nicodemus, but for the countless number of people who have heard and been transformed by Jesus’ words to Nicodemus that evening.

One thing that has always frustrated me about this story is that we don’t hear how Jesus and Nicodemus wrap things up. After Jesus finishes a brief homily on matters of salvation, the story abruptly ends. No response from Nicodemus, and no parting words from our narrator John. I mean, come on! Did Nicodemus immediately drop to his knees and say that he believed that Jesus was the messiah and get saved?  The text remains silent for the time being, which I have now come to believe is brilliant on John’s part.

We next hear from Nicodemus in chapter seven, when the Pharisees are upset with the chief police for not arresting Jesus. Out of nowhere, Nicodemus says, “Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?” It appears that his conversation with Jesus had indeed been a transformative one for Nicodemus. His wheels were turning. 

We only hear about Nicodemus one more time in John’s gospel. But this time, he doesn’t say a word. But his actions speak much louder than any words he could have said.  It was Nicodemus the Pharisee who, along with Joseph of Arimathea, asked Pilate if they could remove Jesus’ body from the cross to give him a proper burial. And it was Nicodemus the Pharisee who brought 100 pounds of myrrh and aloes to use to treat Jesus’ body for burial. This is the same Nicodemus who was perplexed when Jesus told him about being born from above. This is the same Nicodemus that asked Jesus, “How can these things be?” 

My guess is that Pilate and those around the crucifixion site asked the same question when Nicodemus the Pharisee removed Jesus’ body from the cross and began treating it with spices for burial. “How can these things be?”

Now that is a great story. It is a great story about two people coming together from opposite sides of the aisle so to speak and having a conversation about things that really matter. My guess is that if Nicodemus had immediately confessed that Jesus was the Messiah, John would have told us about it by giving us a sound bite. But we don’t get a sound bite from Nicodemus. But we do get snapshots of his transformation.   

And that is why this story is so powerful for me. My faith journey wasn’t ignited by a one-time, mountaintop moment where I went from total unbelief to total belief. As an adult, my faith journey has been a lot like Nicodemus’. I had a lot of questions that I wanted and that I still want to ask Jesus. I needed time and experiences to draw me closer to Jesus. I’m certainly not where I was ten years ago and I’m not even where I was one year ago. And I am still perplexed by so much of what I encounter in our Holy Scriptures.

But the story told in the 3rd chapter of John’s gospel gives me permission to be perplexed, and to ask, “How can these things be?” No, the whole story won’t fit on a bumper sticker, on a sign at a football game, or under an automated email signature. But if we take the time to be curious, to ask the tough questions, and to risk being transformed by the answers, we too will have our own transformative story to tell.