“A Close Encounter”
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. David McMaster
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Text: St. John 3:3
Some of you may recognize the musical theme from the 1977, Steven Spielberg film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In the early 1970s, J. Allen Hynek had been investigating UFO reports and categorized them such that a close encounter of the first kind was the sighting of a UFO at a distance. A close encounter of the second kind was a sighting of a UFO that also resulted in measurable physical effects such as heat, radiation, damage to the terrain etc. A close encounter of the third kind was a sighting that also involved an encounter with one or more animate beings. Spielberg's film was of course a close encounter of the third kind, depicting multiple sightings and interactions over rural Indiana and at the Devil's Tower in Wyoming.
Now, you may be wondering where your minister is going with this. In actual fact, a woman asked me the other day what I was going to preach on this Sunday. “UFOs,” I replied.
She said, “Oh, you know, men are a bit like UFOs.”
“Really,” I replied.
“Yes,” she said, “We women have no idea what planet they come from, what their mission is, or when they're going to take off.”
I don't know about you, but I have to admit to having been somewhat mesmerized by the possibility of UFOs and extraterrestrials when I was a teenager. I read books about them, wondered about them, and gazed into the heavens. This morning, I don't want to draw too close a parallel, but wonder if we could see an encounter with Jesus as a close encounter of the third kind. There was something about Jesus, something other-worldly, something that brings heaven and earth together.
Think of John 3. Jesus was in Jerusalem. He had cleansed the temple (2:13), performed mighty works (2:23), and many were said to have “believed.” At the end of a long day Jesus rested. Night had fallen, he had retreated to a quiet place, as he so often did to strengthen his soul in communion with God.
It was quiet. But suddenly a noise broke the stillness. Footsteps. Someone approached in the darkness. Jesus was surprised when he saw who it was. Usually he found himself among the common people but, on this night, it was Nicodemus, Nicodemus had come to him. Who was Nicodemus?
First, we are told in verse one that Nicodemus was a Pharisee (v.1). So often when we hear the word “Pharisee” and we think in pejorative terms of someone who is legalistic, someone who wrongly seeks to please God by keeping all sorts of silly rules. But In Jesus' day, even though the New Testament takes issue with the Pharisees, the Pharisee was highly thought of by a large segment of the Jewish population. They were recognised as people sold out to God in all things. They were viewed much as we would view a Mother Theresa, a Pope John Paul II, or a Billy Graham. They were the religious elite, highly trained and it was a strange thing that a Pharisee would have sought out the young teacher, Jesus.
We are also told that Nicodemus was a leader of the Jews (v.1). This probably means that he was a member of the Jewish ruling council, the Sanhedrin. At the turn of the era, Judaea was ruled by the Romans and they placed a prefect there. During Jesus' ministry, Pontius Pilate was the prefect, placed there to keep the Jewish population in check. To a large extent, however, the Romans allowed the Jews to look after their own internal affairs and allowed them to have a ruling body called the Sanhedrin, which acted as a court and judged issues between Jews in Jewish matters. They looked after internal policy matters of State. The members of the Sanhedrin were powerful people in Jerusalem society. It was strange indeed that a Jewish leader would have sought out the young teacher, Jesus.
We are told also that Nicodemus was a teacher (v.10). The Hebrew word for teacher is the familiar, rabbi. In Israel, rabbis were highly revered. Rabbis were thought to encapsulate God's law and will for humanity, if for no other reason than they had memorized vast amounts of Torah. It took years to become a rabbi. Rabbis were older, revered, learned, and if the New International Version is correct in translating verse 10 (“You are Israel's teacher and do you not understand they things?”) Nicodemus was not just an ordinary rabbi, he was perhaps one of the most revered teachers of Torah in the holy city. Again, it is indeed strange that Rabbi Nicodemus would have sought out the young teacher, Jesus.
It is no wonder then that John includes the little detail that Nicodemus came to Jesus, “by night,” in verse two. He had to be cautious. He was a pillar of the establishment. He could not be seen openly engaging a man who was raising so many eyebrows, threatening the uneasy status quo with Rome. However, he, the revered teacher be seen talking Torah or theology with one who probably had little or no formal training. Yet, Nicodemus was drawn to Jesus. He had heard of him and what he was doing and he was not too proud to seek out what his friends may have regarded as a most unusual source. What did Nicodemus want?
It appears that Nicodemus had been moved by Jesus' mighty works and recognized a power and strength beyond any he had noticed among his rabbinic peers. He sensed that there was something special about jesus and he said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God (3:2).” But he must have gone on and questioned Jesus about eternal life and the kingdom of heaven, for Jesus' reply to him deals specifically with that matter. Nicodemus must have asked the big one. He must have asked the one question that most of us would have asked if we had been there, “How does one reach the kingdom of God?” Or as the rich young ruler said to Jesus, “Rabbi what must I do to be saved? ” Nicodemus, in spite of all his learning, all his religious training and background and power, was still unsure of the one critical thing that many people are unsure about.
Jesus' reply must have shocked him. He said, “Nicodemus, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born again” (New International Version) / born anew (Revised Standard Version) / born from above (New Revised Standard Version). All three meanings are implied by the one Greek word, “anothen.” Nicodemus took it in the first sense “born again” and pushed Jesus further, “How can one enter again into one's mother's womb and be born again?” But Jesus was not speaking of something physical, he was speaking of a spiritual rebirth, “No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” I like that translation and thought. In a world in which the concept, “born again,” has been perhaps overdone, being “born from above” has something refreshing to it. It specifies that it is about God re-birthing, God re-creating.
The New Testament speaks often to us about this. Peter speaks of being born anew by God's great mercy (1 Pt.1:3), and being born anew of imperishable seed, not perishable (1:22f). Paul speaks of “regeneration” (Titus 3:5). He likens it to dying and rising with Christ to new life (Rom.6:11) and compares it to being created all over again, “the old has passed away… everything has become new,” (2 Cor.5:17, Gal.6:15, Eph.4:22-24). This concept is all over the New Testament and it is always something that God does (2 Cor.5:18), something by which God recreates in human beings the image of God. “No one,” says Jesus, “can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”
So we know that Nicodemus was a great man, we know that he came to enquire about the kingdom of God, What does Nicodemus's encounter with Jesus have to say to us today?
I think that this is a very radical teaching. It teaches us is that this “born from above” thing is for everyone. It doesn't matter whether a person is Jew or Gentile, slave or free, rich or poor, man or woman, “No one,” says Jesus, “can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” It teaches us that it doesn't matter whether a person is a significant person, a great person, a leader, a religious person, or even a religious teacher such as Nicodemus, everyone needs to be “born from above.”
Nicodemus was probably shocked by Jesus' statement. All of his learning up to that point had told him that being born a Jew, being a member of God' chosen people, and making the specified sacrifices in the temple, and being obedient to Torah, pretty well gave him the keys to the kingdom. He had done all these things, he had the right qualifications but yet, his mind was still uneasy. He wasn't quite sure. He saw something different in Jesus and he went to ask of him and Jesus said, “Nicodemus, you are a great teacher, but even you must be born from above, you must have an encounter with God. It's as if Jesus cuts beneath the surface of societal life, educated life, and religious life and says to us, ”it doesn't matter whether you are a minister or a lay person, it doesn't matter if you are a church school teacher or attendee, it doesn't matter if you are in the choir or in the congregation, it doesn't matter if you are on the church council, show up on Sunday mornings, or hardly show up at all; “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above, without that critical encounter with God's Spirit.”
Nicodemus, you see, is all of us. All must have an encounter that transforms.
I was speaking with a woman a month or so ago. She told me that she had become a Christian two or three years ago and that it had made a dramatic difference in her life. “What sort of difference,” I asked.
“Well,” she said, “Let me put it to you this way, without going into too much detail. My eldest son came back from Calgary a few months ago. He's been out there for a number of years and when he sat down on the couch he noticed a Bible on the coffee table. He started going on about it and saying things like, 'I hope you haven't become one of those religious fanatics.'”
The woman's younger son heard his brother spouting off, and he immediately stepped into the fray, saying to him, “You better just keep quiet about that. You haven't lived here for years. You have no idea what a difference that has made in Mom's life and what it has meant in terms of living with her.”
“Need I say more?” she asked me. I smiled, I knew that she had had an encounter.
A similar story was told by Leonard Griffith who comes here from time to time and has preached here. Many years ago while he was at City Temple in London, he said that for many years a woman went to church. It was her routine but one day she wrote this to her pastor.
Last spring, I had an encounter with God. It has been the most important occurrence in my life. Nothing has changed me so radically. I have always been a person of many and varied moods … ecstatic one day, horribly depressed the next. I have 'levelled off,' as it were; and although my frame of mind is not always on an even keel, I no longer get upset or worried. I am no longer frustrated of depressed. I can't really tell you how this has changed me. Hardly a day goes by without someone expressing how much at peace I look, act, and speak. I thank God that he never intended the Christian life to be one of continual trying and striving. It is abundant living by trusting in his Son and being obedient.
Now I suppose, we could argue that those people needed to change, they needed some transformation. There are probably some of us who would be offended if Jesus said to us what he said to Nicodemus. Like Nicodemus, we go to church regularly, we are pillars of orthodoxy, we are involved in church life, committees, we know a little of the bible and our lives aren't that bad. We think, “Oh this born from above stuff is appropriate for the down and outs, the drunken reprobates, the prostitutes, drug addicts, criminals etc. but it's not for the likes of me.” Yet, if this encounter with Nicodemus has anything to say to us, it is that it is indeed for us, every last one of us.
Judy used to go to Fifth Avenue Church in Ottawa. I saw her regularly throughout the year. During the summer, she attended another church near her cottage and reported in to me from time to time. Judy is English and had a bit of that aura that we in the colonies sometimes associate with persons of the “old sod.” Judy was the last person I expected to come into my office one day and say (with best English accent), “David, something has happened to me. Promise you won't laugh?” After I promised, she continued, “I don't know what has happened to me but I feel like some power has come upon me. I was praying when something just worked through my whole body, and all that I want to do right now is be with God.” To make a long story short, after we talked I watched Judy and for the rest of my ministry in that congregation, I saw that she was as animated a Christian as I had ever seen. She went from a basic attendee, to being involved in everything in no time. She now never missed a service, never missed a small group Bible study or prayer time. She was a reader and took over the church library. She served in various capacities. Her whole life was reoriented.
Now, what I want to get at here is not exactly what Judy did or what she became, everyone is sure to be different. The important thing is that no one would have said that Judy needed to be born from above or anything else. They would have said that she was a fine, upstanding person and Christian. But something happened to Judy, something she linked with God, a close encounter, and it has animated the rest of her life.
I think that Jesus was saying to Nicodemus that you can have an encounter with God that is beyond anything you have hitherto conceived or imagined. He's saying the same to us, and you don't have to fear becoming a religious fanatic or a charismatic something or other, it's an encounter that can transform, can re-create, can encourage us in faith and belief like nothing else we have experienced.
The season of Epiphany invites us to open ourselves up, to see the appearance of God in Christ. The sacrament of Holy Communion invites us to do just that, to commune with God in a deeper sense than we normally do. Perhaps even now, just like the Holman Hunt image depicted beyond us in stained glass, Jesus stands at the door and knocks and says, “If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me.” It's a risk to open oneself to that. Close encounters are always risks. But as is sometimes said in the business world, “great risks sometimes bring great rewards.”