A Visitor by Night

Jerusalem is asleep. Lamps are out. And through the dark streets walks one of the most respected teachers in the city, on his way to ask a young rabbi from Galilee some questions.

His name is Nicodemus. He's a Pharisee, a man who has spent his life studying God's law, and John calls him a ruler of the Jews, one of the leaders of his people. People listen when Nicodemus speaks. And yet here he is, coming to Jesus at night. John doesn't tell us why. Perhaps he was cautious about being seen. Perhaps he simply wanted a quiet hour without the crowds. Either way, he has come, and he starts politely. “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. Nobody could do the signs you do unless God were with him.”

Jesus goes straight past the compliments. “Truly, truly, I tell you, unless someone is born again, they cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus blinks. Born again? “How can anyone be born when they are old?” he asks. “Can a grown man go back into his mother's womb and be born a second time?” He's taking Jesus literally, and he knows it sounds impossible. Jesus explains. “Unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, they cannot enter the kingdom of God. Flesh gives birth to flesh. But the Spirit gives birth to spirit. Don't be surprised that I said you must be born again.”

Outside, perhaps, a breeze is moving through the streets. “The wind blows wherever it wants,” Jesus says. “You hear the sound of it, but you can't tell where it comes from or where it's going. That's how it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus is still puzzled. “How can these things be?” And Jesus answers gently, but pointedly. “You are the teacher of Israel, and you don't understand these things?” The expert has become the student.

Then Jesus reaches back into a story Nicodemus knows well. Long ago in the wilderness, when the people of Israel were bitten by snakes, Moses lifted up a bronze serpent on a pole, and whoever looked at it lived. “In the same way,” Jesus says, “the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” And then come the words that millions have learned by heart. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save it.

The passage ends with light and darkness. Light has come into the world, but some people love the darkness, because they don't want what they do to be seen. Whoever lives by the truth comes into the light. Bible scholars differ on whether these last lines are still Jesus speaking or John reflecting on what Jesus said. Either way, they hang in the night air. And we never hear Nicodemus answer. But John hasn't finished with him. Later, Nicodemus speaks up for Jesus before the other leaders. And after the cross, he comes again, this time in daylight, carrying spices to help bury Jesus' body.

There's a word play here that's easy to miss in English. The Greek word John uses for born again, anothen, can mean again, and it can also mean from above. Nicodemus hears the first meaning and pictures a second ordinary birth. But Jesus seems to mean both at once: a new start that comes from God. Many English Bibles print one meaning in the text and the other in a footnote, because translators can't keep both.

A Visitor by Night. You'll find it in John chapter 3, verses 1 to 21. Nicodemus came in the dark with careful questions, and he left with an answer bigger than he expected. So here's something to wonder about. What question would you bring to Jesus if you could talk with him tonight?