Teaching the Teacher: John 3:1-21 - Third Sunday after Epiphany

In the 2014 film God Is Not Dead, a young man enrolls in a Philosophy 101 course during his first semester of college. On the first day of class, the male professor asks the students to take out a piece of paper and write on it the words “God is dead,” sign their name, and pass it in.

Our main character, a Christian, refuses to do that, and quickly finds himself failing the class. 

This scenario has played itself out countless times across college and even high school campuses, and not just over the existence of God. The Christian college I attended and even at seminary there were professors who taught what I believed was wrong. As a student, you’re fighting a losing battle if you stick to your convictions, because the professor has spent a lifetime studying the subject, reading books, writing books, earning advanced degrees. Surely, they’ve encountered every argument you can make against them, and they know how refute it.  

Belgravia VOL. XXVIII by Shawn Harquail on flickr. CC BY-NC 2.0

I do believe it is unreasonable (and illegal) for a professor to demand his students to renounce their faith to pass the course.

But even Jesus, the Word made flesh, full of grace and truth, could not convince everyone that he was God’s Son. Unsurprisingly, the strongest opposition to Jesus came from those who were regarded as experts in divine truth. But there were exceptions.

In today’s Gospel, we meet Nicodemus: a Pharisee and member of the Sanhedrin, a 70-member council of men who, with the High Priest, were the governing body of Judaism. They interpreted Jewish law, tried cases related to blasphemy and false teaching, and they presided over the Temple institution. Only the most educated and most upstanding men could belong to this Body, though, in Jesus’s day, many positions of power, including the high priest, could be bought and sold. 

Nicodemus was a teacher, the modern-day equivalent of a tenured professor at an Ivy League university. But Nicodemus wasn’t an arrogant know-it-all like the Philosophy professor in God is Not Dead. Unlike most of his peers, who see Jesus as a liar and deceiver, Nicodemus believes he is a teacher who has come from God. So, he visits Jesus in the night, hoping to learn more.

Why at night? Because the nighttime provides him some cover. How would it have looked for the teacher of Israel to ask questions of Jesus like a student? The Sanhedrin was the authority on divine truth, not some carpenter’s son from Nazareth. But Nicodemus could not help but believe that Jesus was legitimate. His knowledge, his wisdom, and his humility all confirmed that Jesus was a teacher from God. 

This puts Nicodemus in a very uncomfortable position. He could, theoretically, go back to the Sanhedrin and proclaim everything Jesus proclaimed to him. But he knew these men were not about to surrender all their wealth, their power, and their prestige to follow a sandal-wearing itinerant rabbi who wasn’t well-educated and well-bred like they were.  

Jesus understands his dilemma. That’s why he said, “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” “No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.” Nicodemus is on the verge of being born again, but for him, the birth pangs are going to be especially painful, because he won’t be able to take with him all his wealth, power, and prestige. Right now, he caught between two worlds; stuck between two lives. 

This is something all of you will face numerous times on your life’s journey. You aren’t born again or born from above once. It’s a daily affair; an ongoing process. 

Like Nicodemus, you will hear the Gospel and see the signs pointing to God’s grace and glory. Like Nicodemus, the Holy Spirit will push and pull you towards Jesus. But in the same way that you can’t have resurrection without death, you can’t be born from above until you die from below. That means change, and human beings despise change. That means learning, and learning is hard work. That means uncertainty, and we want security. 

Some, like Nicodemus’s fellow religious elites, have so hardened their hearts with pride and self-righteousness that they can’t be taught. To them, silencing Jesus is God’s Work. Or, for the atheist professor, he will make his students smarter by making them atheists. 

But even the hardest hearts will end up broken sooner or later, and Jesus will show up. The seeds of new life will be planted, and the time will come to make a choice. The easiest thing to do will be to say, I will listen to Jesus, I will be his friend, I will believe in him. But I’m not going to give up my time or possessions to him. I will not be made uncomfortable for him. I will not be made a fool for him.” You’re content to leave your bible on the shelf, convinced that God has nothing more to say or that there’s nothing more you need to learn.

When you’re born again from above, you’re born an infant: helpless, fragile, vulnerable, needing to be taught. You thought you had the answers before, but now you have questions. Where once there was security, now you must have faith. When once you were strong and mature, now you must grow into a whole new way of living. Jesus teaches you by sending you places you’ve never been to do things you’ve never done. Jesus teaches you by afflicting you with discomfort so that you learn to trust him.

There is no peace or joy when you play it safe, go with the flow, holding onto your right to yourself. This isn’t living. This is perishing. 

So challenge yourself this week: whenever you find yourself anxious, frustrated, doubting, questioning, ask Jesus, “what are you teaching me?” “What must I learn?” “How will I grow from this?” Will you accept the challenge that brings the change, the difficulty that brings the learning, the growth that comes from letting go, the death that brings rebirth?

3 Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. ² He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with that person.” ³ Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” ⁴ Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” ⁵ Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. ⁶ What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷ Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ ⁸ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” ⁹ Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” ¹⁰ Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

¹¹ “Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen, yet you do not receive our testimony. ¹² If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? ¹³ No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. ¹⁴ And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵ that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

¹⁶ “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

¹⁷ “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him. ¹⁸ Those who believe in him are not condemned, but those who do not believe are condemned already because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. ¹⁹ And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰ For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. ²¹ But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.” (NRSVue)