The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
It was Passover. Jesus and His disciples camped on the Mount of Olives, a hill outside Jerusalem overlooking the city. By John chapter 3, Jesus’ doctrine and miraculous works were well known throughout Judea, including Jerusalem itself. The religious elite, led by the Pharisees, were not fans of this new young Rabbi. They hated Jesus almost immediately and began plotting to stop Him.
Nicodemus was an exception. He was an honorable man, yet not yet a believer. But Nicodemus recognized that Jesus brought both teaching and miracles, signs that could only be done if He had authority from the Lord God Himself. Though he did not confess Jesus as the Word made flesh, he came to Him by night and said, “Rabbi, we know You have come from God as a teacher; no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” He used the plural “we know”; others were curious too about who Jesus was and what His mission was.
Nicodemus came in the cover of darkness. He wanted information, but he, a high-ranking Pharisee, did not want to be seen as a disciple of this man. He came in humility and respect. He had already reached a conclusion: Jesus just might be a prophet in the line of the Old Testament prophets, men who spoke the words of God.
What is interesting in John chapter 3 is how Jesus walks Nicodemus through questions of identity, mission, and salvation. Jesus starts at the end of the process and works backward. He kicks the simple equation to the side of the street. Sometimes Jesus wants Christians to struggle and come to a deeper understanding of familiar verses like John 3:16, not some shallow bumper-sticker slogan. He wants Nicodemus to have a deep understanding of the Messiah and salvation.
So Jesus starts with the initiation into the Christian Church: Baptism, the means of grace. We often think that is the end: first believe in Jesus, then the cross, then decide for Jesus or get baptized. Jesus starts at the end and works back to the cross. “Truly, truly,” He says, which means, “I tell you the absolute truth.” When you see “truly, truly,” Jesus is making sure you understand this is the singular truth: “Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven.”
Nicodemus said, “How can a man be born again when he is old? He cannot enter his mother’s womb a second time, can he?” Nicodemus does not get it. He is on one level; Jesus is on another. But that is most people. Jesus starts where the Christian life begins: in the water and the Word and the work of the Holy Spirit. That made no sense to Nicodemus. The dominant teaching of the day was that status as a child of God was established by being born a Jew and maintaining that status by obedience to the Torah. But now Jesus tells him a second birth is absolutely necessary.
A significant portion of the Christian world still does not understand what Jesus teaches here. They think “born again” is something they do: making a decision for Jesus, turning their lives around, an intellectual acknowledgment. But Nicodemus is confused, and Jesus answers, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Jesus makes it clear that the second birth, like the first, is not the work of the one being born. Grammatically, Jesus uses the passive voice: to be born is always the act of another. You do not conceive yourself; you do not give birth to yourself. That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of Spirit is spirit. Becoming a Christian is the work of the water, the Word, the Holy Spirit; it is the work of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
Nicodemus still does not understand. “How can these things be?” Jesus answers, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and you do not understand these things? If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” Jesus first tells Nicodemus that a new birth is required. Then He tells him how the new birth comes: by water and the Word and the work of the Holy Spirit, clearly a reference to Holy Baptism.
Then Jesus takes Nicodemus to the person who gives the new birth: “No one has ascended into heaven but He who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.” Sinful human beings do not ascend; they do not climb Jacob’s ladder into heaven. Salvation descends from heaven. Jesus descended and will ascend, taking with Him those born of water and the Word. Jesus is telling Nicodemus that the One speaking to him is the One who came down from heaven: the promised Messiah, the Son of God, David’s Son and David’s Lord.
But the theology lesson is not over. There is one more question: what makes this new life possible? What creates this new birth? So Jesus takes Nicodemus to the place where Baptism gets its redeeming power: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that whoever believes in Him will have eternal life.”
Jesus takes Nicodemus to Numbers 21. The children of Israel were wandering in the desert, partway through their forty years. God sent serpents among them, and many died. The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord that He take away the serpents from us.” The Lord did not promise to take away the serpents. Instead He gave them a cure: “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, will live.”
It is an odd remedy. Put an image of a snake on a stick for all to see. It is the image of the tempter in the Garden of Eden, the agent of their loved ones’ deaths. Yet by looking on in faith, they lived. In the same way, Jesus says, the Son of Man must be lifted up on the cross. The bronze serpent is the last thing they would expect to save them; the crucifixion of the Messiah is the last thing Nicodemus would expect as the means of salvation.
Many Christians today still do not know how God works. God does not magically take away our suffering, pain, or losses. What He has given us is the means by which we are saved through it. What God did was send His eternally begotten Son into the flesh to suffer pain, sorrow, and death in our place as the atoning sacrifice for our sin.
Remember, when you hear John 3:16 quoted, it comes from the mouth of Jesus: “For God loved the world in this way: He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” God did not love the world in its sinful form; He gave His Son. That is, He loves the world because of what He did in His Son. His love is tied to the person, the work, the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. That is how God comes to love the world as sinless and holy in His sight: through His Son and His Son’s work. “Handed over” is the image: like handing a prisoner over to custody, or handing a gift to another.
Nicodemus would not understand until after the crucifixion. The same Nicodemus who came to Jesus by night also came on Good Friday, bringing a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes, and they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen, as was the burial custom of the Jews. It is through faith that Nicodemus was ultimately saved, and we are saved by grace through faith, because of the benefits the water and the Word bestow from the person and work of Jesus Christ.
In this sermon, Jesus works backward from the new birth to Baptism and the Holy Spirit and the Word, to His person as the One from on high, the Son of God, and finally to His atoning death on the cross. As Moses lifted up the serpent, so the Son of Man must be lifted up.
We still suffer death and the effects of sin. We get sick, things do not work out, the serpent still bites. But Christ crushed the head of the serpent. By His death Christ destroyed eternal death. We endure suffering as an aftereffect, the scorched-earth policy of the devil. You have been baptized. God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved. He heals you, comforts you, loves you, gives you hope in the midst of hopelessness. In the midst of a world full of snakes, He provides the ultimate cure that will result in your resurrection. He brings you to the Church to make use of His Word and Sacraments, your Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, Confession and Absolution, for it is here that your sins are forgiven and your salvation is dispensed. Amen.
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.