John 3:1-8 Living A Double Life
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
“How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!”
Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 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.”
They say cats have nine lives; somehow they seem to survive just about anything. They fall from great heights and always land on their feet. I read of a cat that thought a car engine would be a nice warm place to sleep, right before the family drove off on a trip of several hundred miles. A kitten named Tipper saved its own life by dialing 9-1-1. He was trying to get out of his flea collar but it got stuck and he was choking when he knocked a phone off the table and hit the speed dial programmed for 9-1-1. The sheriff arrived in time to rescue the kitten. Cats are survivors. They may have nine lives, but we only have one. We have to be careful with it.
Yet as we ponder the events of Good Friday once again this Lenten season, we see that there were a number of people, on the day Jesus died, who had more lives than the normal one life we all get, people who should have been dead themselves. Lazarus was alive because Jesus call him out of the grave. A woman caught in adultery was spared death when Jesus spoke up for her. Barabbas walked away, alive and free, when he should have been crucified alongside Jesus, or instead of Jesus. Many of the people Jesus healed in the past three years would not have survived without him. And they maybe didn’t even know that the one who gave them life was dying in Jerusalem.
But there’s one more individual that we find had a surprising extra chance at life, a man named Nicodemus. No, you won’t find any stories in the Bible about Nicodemus being raised from the dead or cured of a fatal illness. But Nicodemus’ story, not of nine lives, but at least two, catches our attention because he should have been the deadest of the dead.
Nicodemus had three strikes against him that are mentioned already in the first couple verses of our text. “Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night.” Strike one: he was a Pharisee. In all the Bible’s stories the Pharisees are always the bad guys because they regarded themselves as the good guys, too much so. They obeyed the letter of the law right down to the nit-pickiest little detail. They were not just righteous, they were super-righteous.
That should be a good thing, somebody who always does good things. But they thought they could earn heaven, that they could be good enough to satisfy God’s absolute, holy standards, and they condemned everyone else who wasn’t a Pharisee. They were the proudest of the proud, the quickest to call other people sinners, and slowest to forgive. And they were totally blind to the fact that they themselves continued to sin, that their pride itself was a sin big enough to bar the gates of heaven to them. And the Pharisees hated Jesus for telling ordinary sinners they were forgiven, for preaching that salvation was a free gift, that heaven is open to all, and not just the super-righteous. In fact, he told them it was not open to the super-righteous at all, unless they gained a little humility and repentance. He called them whitened sepulchers.
But Nicodemus was not only a Pharisee, he was a member of the Jewish ruling council, the Sanhedrin. They’re the guys that condemned Jesus to death. As a group, they hated and opposed Jesus because he was threatening their position as spiritual leaders of the nation. Nicodemus was one of them. It’s strange, that when Caiaphas advised, “It is better that one man die for the people,” I don’t recall Nicodemus raising any objections. The only time he ever spoke up for Jesus was after Jesus had cleansed the Temple in Jerusalem for the second time, during Holy Week, and the Pharisees were asking the guards, “Why didn’t you arrest Jesus?” Nicodemus asked one little question: “Does our law condemn anyone without first hearing him to find out what he’s doing?” Not exactly a glowing endorsement. And from then on he was silent. When the council put Jesus on trial, there’s no mention that the jury was divided, that there was even one man on the council who voted “Not guilty.”
And that’s the third strike against Nicodemus, his silence, his secrecy. We’re told he came to Jesus at night. He, too, had been following the career of the miracle worker. He had heard what Jesus said and did. But while all the rest of the members of the Sanhedrin turned against Jesus, Nicodemus thought, maybe, just maybe, this man could actually be who he said he was. But he wasn’t ready to confess Christ as his Lord and Savior, not openly, and maybe not even admit it to himself.
Nicodemus led two lives. He went to Jesus by night, and listened to his teachings and instruction in secret. By day he walked among the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin, thankful that no one knew. Remember how Simon Peter, in a moment of weakness, fear, and shame, denied his Lord saying, “I don’t know the man”? That was one brief hour in the darkest night, under the most threatening circumstances. Nicodemus denied he knew the man, or believed in him, or followed Jesus, in the daylight, every single day. He lived in denial.
Yet Nicodemus lived. He had a second life. I don’t just mean a secret life as a disciple to go along with his open life of denial. He had two lives. The first was in the flesh; he lived a long and ordinary life as any human being does, and he was growing old, and now he had the second, brand new life of a newborn child in the spirit. In fact it was on Good Friday when Jesus died that Nicodemus really began to live, one life, no longer two. After Jesus died, Nicodemus, the man who was ashamed to be associated with him, came forward along with Joseph of Arimathea to give Jesus a decent burial. When the disciples were all hiding out of fear that they might be the next to die, Nicodemus came out of hiding. When it seemed like there was no longer any point in following Jesus, Nicodemus followed him. And that’s when Nicodemus really came to life. And that’s why this story of a man who had never faced death deserves a place on that list of all the people who were alive that day who should have been dead, with Lazarus, Barabbas, and the woman caught in adultery.
But that’s just what John 3 is all about, a man who was born again when he was old, the wind blowing where it will, the Holy Spirit moving where you could never predict he would. At the time, Nicodemus didn’t understand it. “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” That’s silly. Two births? Two lives? Nonsense. But even if we understand a little better than he did what Jesus was talking about, we still really don’t fully understand how it’s possible.
We were all dead. Whether the gift of life and faith was given to us as infants by the Holy Spirit in baptism, or whether a man or woman is born again when they are old and frail, it’s a miracle. It’s life, not just living flesh—cells and skin, organs and blood—but a living soul, a soul that now enjoys fellowship with God, that lives in God’s love and God’s light.
Jesus calls it a new birth in the Spirit. “So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” He’s not talking about a “born-again” experience like some churches teach, as a charismatic experience a few lucky Christians enjoy some time after they first get to know Christ. No this is the birth that every single Christian has experienced, without which you could not be a Christian, the moment when we first come to life, the very first stirring of faith in your heart.
You may not have felt it. You may not be able to name a specific year, day, place, and time when you were born again. It can sneak up on you, grow and blossom into a living, trusting faith when you’re not looking. That’s what this new life is: faith, simple trust in Jesus. That’s the birth of the Holy Spirit, for no one can say Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Spirit. We could not believe or confess or follow Christ at all if we didn’t have this birth, this life.
We were dead. We were sinners who inherited death from our father Adam, and like our father we have disregarded God’s commands and sinned in thought, word, and deed. Sin is death because sin cuts you off from the one true source of life, our righteous and eternal God. And in fact we continue to sin, even now. Every day we do things that should be fatal. You heard the Ten Commandments. We lie, we hate, we lust, we covet. If a cat has nine lives, how many lives must we have used up, after all the deadly, foolhardy and utterly fatal things we’ve done? How many lives do we have? Just one: Christ the Life of all the living.
On Good Friday he died for all our sins. He died for us, and he rose again for us to give us life. Paul said, “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life... Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
We are alive because Jesus died. Jesus said in the Good Shepherd chapter of John, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” Anyone who has even a little seed of faith and trust in Christ has life, even Nicodemus while he was still too ashamed to speak up for Jesus and while he was still somewhat confused about Jesus’ teachings. There was life there. And with life there is salvation. But Jesus doesn’t want us to be just barely alive. He wants us to have life to the full.
We’ll have it in heaven when we see our Savior face to face. But he wants us to have it now, too, the way Nicodemus was fully alive when Jesus died. He gave up his reluctance to confess Christ, to follow him and be known as his disciple. He was willing to start taking chances to show his love for his Savior. He lived for his Lord in the daylight.
Was he grieving that day? Yes. Was he confused? Yes. Was he scared? I imagine. But he also knew what was right and he did it. He knew the love of Jesus, that Jesus died for him, and he showed his own love in return. That day, he lived. As we’ll hear next Sunday, as the story continues in John 3, “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.” But you already knew that, for in him you, too, live, now and forever. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
“How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!”
Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 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.”
They say cats have nine lives; somehow they seem to survive just about anything. They fall from great heights and always land on their feet. I read of a cat that thought a car engine would be a nice warm place to sleep, right before the family drove off on a trip of several hundred miles. A kitten named Tipper saved its own life by dialing 9-1-1. He was trying to get out of his flea collar but it got stuck and he was choking when he knocked a phone off the table and hit the speed dial programmed for 9-1-1. The sheriff arrived in time to rescue the kitten. Cats are survivors. They may have nine lives, but we only have one. We have to be careful with it.
Yet as we ponder the events of Good Friday once again this Lenten season, we see that there were a number of people, on the day Jesus died, who had more lives than the normal one life we all get, people who should have been dead themselves. Lazarus was alive because Jesus call him out of the grave. A woman caught in adultery was spared death when Jesus spoke up for her. Barabbas walked away, alive and free, when he should have been crucified alongside Jesus, or instead of Jesus. Many of the people Jesus healed in the past three years would not have survived without him. And they maybe didn’t even know that the one who gave them life was dying in Jerusalem.
But there’s one more individual that we find had a surprising extra chance at life, a man named Nicodemus. No, you won’t find any stories in the Bible about Nicodemus being raised from the dead or cured of a fatal illness. But Nicodemus’ story, not of nine lives, but at least two, catches our attention because he should have been the deadest of the dead.
Nicodemus had three strikes against him that are mentioned already in the first couple verses of our text. “Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night.” Strike one: he was a Pharisee. In all the Bible’s stories the Pharisees are always the bad guys because they regarded themselves as the good guys, too much so. They obeyed the letter of the law right down to the nit-pickiest little detail. They were not just righteous, they were super-righteous.
That should be a good thing, somebody who always does good things. But they thought they could earn heaven, that they could be good enough to satisfy God’s absolute, holy standards, and they condemned everyone else who wasn’t a Pharisee. They were the proudest of the proud, the quickest to call other people sinners, and slowest to forgive. And they were totally blind to the fact that they themselves continued to sin, that their pride itself was a sin big enough to bar the gates of heaven to them. And the Pharisees hated Jesus for telling ordinary sinners they were forgiven, for preaching that salvation was a free gift, that heaven is open to all, and not just the super-righteous. In fact, he told them it was not open to the super-righteous at all, unless they gained a little humility and repentance. He called them whitened sepulchers.
But Nicodemus was not only a Pharisee, he was a member of the Jewish ruling council, the Sanhedrin. They’re the guys that condemned Jesus to death. As a group, they hated and opposed Jesus because he was threatening their position as spiritual leaders of the nation. Nicodemus was one of them. It’s strange, that when Caiaphas advised, “It is better that one man die for the people,” I don’t recall Nicodemus raising any objections. The only time he ever spoke up for Jesus was after Jesus had cleansed the Temple in Jerusalem for the second time, during Holy Week, and the Pharisees were asking the guards, “Why didn’t you arrest Jesus?” Nicodemus asked one little question: “Does our law condemn anyone without first hearing him to find out what he’s doing?” Not exactly a glowing endorsement. And from then on he was silent. When the council put Jesus on trial, there’s no mention that the jury was divided, that there was even one man on the council who voted “Not guilty.”
And that’s the third strike against Nicodemus, his silence, his secrecy. We’re told he came to Jesus at night. He, too, had been following the career of the miracle worker. He had heard what Jesus said and did. But while all the rest of the members of the Sanhedrin turned against Jesus, Nicodemus thought, maybe, just maybe, this man could actually be who he said he was. But he wasn’t ready to confess Christ as his Lord and Savior, not openly, and maybe not even admit it to himself.
Nicodemus led two lives. He went to Jesus by night, and listened to his teachings and instruction in secret. By day he walked among the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin, thankful that no one knew. Remember how Simon Peter, in a moment of weakness, fear, and shame, denied his Lord saying, “I don’t know the man”? That was one brief hour in the darkest night, under the most threatening circumstances. Nicodemus denied he knew the man, or believed in him, or followed Jesus, in the daylight, every single day. He lived in denial.
Yet Nicodemus lived. He had a second life. I don’t just mean a secret life as a disciple to go along with his open life of denial. He had two lives. The first was in the flesh; he lived a long and ordinary life as any human being does, and he was growing old, and now he had the second, brand new life of a newborn child in the spirit. In fact it was on Good Friday when Jesus died that Nicodemus really began to live, one life, no longer two. After Jesus died, Nicodemus, the man who was ashamed to be associated with him, came forward along with Joseph of Arimathea to give Jesus a decent burial. When the disciples were all hiding out of fear that they might be the next to die, Nicodemus came out of hiding. When it seemed like there was no longer any point in following Jesus, Nicodemus followed him. And that’s when Nicodemus really came to life. And that’s why this story of a man who had never faced death deserves a place on that list of all the people who were alive that day who should have been dead, with Lazarus, Barabbas, and the woman caught in adultery.
But that’s just what John 3 is all about, a man who was born again when he was old, the wind blowing where it will, the Holy Spirit moving where you could never predict he would. At the time, Nicodemus didn’t understand it. “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” That’s silly. Two births? Two lives? Nonsense. But even if we understand a little better than he did what Jesus was talking about, we still really don’t fully understand how it’s possible.
We were all dead. Whether the gift of life and faith was given to us as infants by the Holy Spirit in baptism, or whether a man or woman is born again when they are old and frail, it’s a miracle. It’s life, not just living flesh—cells and skin, organs and blood—but a living soul, a soul that now enjoys fellowship with God, that lives in God’s love and God’s light.
Jesus calls it a new birth in the Spirit. “So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” He’s not talking about a “born-again” experience like some churches teach, as a charismatic experience a few lucky Christians enjoy some time after they first get to know Christ. No this is the birth that every single Christian has experienced, without which you could not be a Christian, the moment when we first come to life, the very first stirring of faith in your heart.
You may not have felt it. You may not be able to name a specific year, day, place, and time when you were born again. It can sneak up on you, grow and blossom into a living, trusting faith when you’re not looking. That’s what this new life is: faith, simple trust in Jesus. That’s the birth of the Holy Spirit, for no one can say Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Spirit. We could not believe or confess or follow Christ at all if we didn’t have this birth, this life.
We were dead. We were sinners who inherited death from our father Adam, and like our father we have disregarded God’s commands and sinned in thought, word, and deed. Sin is death because sin cuts you off from the one true source of life, our righteous and eternal God. And in fact we continue to sin, even now. Every day we do things that should be fatal. You heard the Ten Commandments. We lie, we hate, we lust, we covet. If a cat has nine lives, how many lives must we have used up, after all the deadly, foolhardy and utterly fatal things we’ve done? How many lives do we have? Just one: Christ the Life of all the living.
On Good Friday he died for all our sins. He died for us, and he rose again for us to give us life. Paul said, “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life... Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
We are alive because Jesus died. Jesus said in the Good Shepherd chapter of John, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” Anyone who has even a little seed of faith and trust in Christ has life, even Nicodemus while he was still too ashamed to speak up for Jesus and while he was still somewhat confused about Jesus’ teachings. There was life there. And with life there is salvation. But Jesus doesn’t want us to be just barely alive. He wants us to have life to the full.
We’ll have it in heaven when we see our Savior face to face. But he wants us to have it now, too, the way Nicodemus was fully alive when Jesus died. He gave up his reluctance to confess Christ, to follow him and be known as his disciple. He was willing to start taking chances to show his love for his Savior. He lived for his Lord in the daylight.
Was he grieving that day? Yes. Was he confused? Yes. Was he scared? I imagine. But he also knew what was right and he did it. He knew the love of Jesus, that Jesus died for him, and he showed his own love in return. That day, he lived. As we’ll hear next Sunday, as the story continues in John 3, “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.” But you already knew that, for in him you, too, live, now and forever. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
