March 1, 2026
When we lived in Northern California there was a church located practically in our backyard. It wasn’t the congregation I served but one I walked by every day with our dog. For the longest time there was a banner on the outside of the building that advertised a series for adults with inquiring minds. It was called “Living the Questions.” I had some familiarity with “Living the Questions,” having viewed one or two of the videos used in the series and from conversations I had with their pastor. The point of the series is that Christian faith isn’t so locked down and set in cement. Faith is fluid and filled with questions that are best understood by living them.
Given what I knew of that congregation, it made sense to me that they would provide such an opportunity. It matched their progressive ethos and in some ways resonates with me. I have developed an allergy to pat answers but still love Jesus. In talking to a lot of seasoned Christians I have learned from them that a lifetime commitment of following Jesus doesn’t mean you abandon your questions.
On that same daily walk with our dog, I passed by another church. This particular church, just blocks away from the other church was advertising a course called “The Answer Series.” It seemed like an offering quite counter to the living questions series. Maybe that was intentional. If you had questions about God or Jesus or faith or the church all you were welcome to this class and receive all the answers to your searching questions.
That made sense to me because this particular church was more of a fundamentalist persuasion that tended toward giving not just answers but definitive answers. You couldn’t ask for a greater contrast between these two Christian congregations. I often asked myself that if I were looking for a church, based on their course offerings, which would I want to attend.
The question to myself wasn’t as easy as you might think. A big part of me lives the questions of faith. There’s another part of me that appreciates answers I’ve been given. So, I think both are true and in good Lutheran fashion, I liked to maintain the tension, the paradox. Some days I am all about living questions around God and my particular calling and life of prayer when there are no easy answers. And some days I am comforted and reassured by the answers that have been handed down to me through faithful Christians and I am grateful for our sacred story by which we live.
Christian faith is apostolic. Our beliefs and traditions originate with the apostles, the first Christian witnesses and teachers. We have something to say about who God is and, at the same time, we know that faith is not a route to certainty. Like Abraham of old, we take this faith journey with God not entirely sure where we are going or even knowing what we are doing. We go anyway in response to God’s call.
I wonder what compelled Nicodemus to visit Jesus. Nicodemus, a leader among the Pharisees, had a sense that there was something about Jesus that demonstrated he was from God. Many of the Pharisees held fast to their conclusion that Jesus had nothing to do with God but Nicodemus believed there was something to this rather unconventional Rabbi. Jesus did many signs and wonders like changing water into wine at the wedding feast in Cana. Nicodemus, among others, took notice and saw in Jesus something of the divine.
Nicodemus was determined to find out more and so he visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus wanted some answers or explanations. Nicodemus was in search of meaning and the best way to find out who this Jesus was is to go straight to the source. Find Jesus and have a visit with him.
Once Nicodemus admits to Jesus that he is drawn to him, Jesus launches into a sermon of sorts by letting Nicodemus know that the best way to understand him is to be born anew. Jesus is saying that if you really want to know who he is or understand who he is then you must be born anew.
In other words, you can seek to understand him with your head but if you really want to understand him, open up your heart as well. Be born anew, born again, born from above and allow the Spirit of God, so elusive to us, to work in your life. Then you’ll understand who Jesus is, through the eyes of faith.
Nicodemus, being the rational man he is, wonders how this could be. A second birth seemed foolish to him. He took it quite literally and asked, “Can you enter your mother’s womb a second time?” Jesus resisted explanations. He simply replied that the Spirit is like the wind. It blows where it chooses.
Again, Nicodemus wonders how this could be. He cannot get beyond his definitive explanations.
Through the ages people have wondered about Jesus and have favored particular images of Jesus. There are many: rabbi, miracle worker, wise sage, social change agent, truth-teller, exorcist, teacher, prophet and the list goes on. Some of these very images have been more dominant than others, depending upon the culture and the era in history. Scripture itself reveals many faces of Jesus. The Gospels alone focus on one or more certain aspects of Jesus but what they all agree on and make central in their narratives is this: the Paschal Mystery. The death and resurrection of Christ and our participation in this mystery.
Listen to what Jesus says to Nicodemus. To get to understand who Jesus really is we are called to trust in God with much more than our minds. Jesus’ call is to a radical reorientation of life. Belief isn’t an intellectual puzzle. It is a way of living. It is a call to abide. Living questions and knowing the answers can be matters of speculation that never leave the head to travel down to the heart. Jesus calls us to abide in him.
The word “abide” is used many times in the Gospel of John. We often speak of the importance of having God in our lives but Jesus goes a deep step further. For Jesus, the important thing is to enter into God’s life. It is to abide, to place all your trust and all your life in the very life of God.
Jesus prods Nicodemus toward being born anew, to have his life changed inside and out and to abide in him.
It’s both exciting and scary, especially for the person just starting out on this journey of faith. For to abide in Jesus is to live in something far greater than yourself. To abide is to live in the mysteries we know and can discuss but never explain.
To abide in the expansive mystery of God is to know something of the eternal one in the love he has for you and that he has for all who share in the community of Christ. To abide is to fall back always on the safety net of forgiveness. To abide is to trust. To abide is to dwell in Christian community. It is to hear God’s living word that fills both head and heart and it is to feast on Christ in the holy meal we share at the altar. To abide is to belong to a communion that is far greater than what we can see for the communion of saints includes both heaven and earth, those we rub shoulders with and those who have gone before us.
To abide in him is to be open to the wild spirit of God and to know that the mystery of God is like a deep well that can never be fully tapped.
To abide in Jesus is to live in the house of love and allow the Spirit to blow where it chooses and pray God that we, his church, will be open to and receive the Spirit for the good of our lives and our ministry together as church. To abide in Jesus is to be sent into the world to love our neighbors.
This is God’s call to us always and this call is our laser focus in this season of Lent. If it is a first encounter with Jesus this Lenten journey may lead you the living waters of baptism. And if you’re already baptized, it is call to go deeper into the one who calls us to abide, live, dwell in him. And, as a friend of mine likes to say, be careful what you pray for because this very Christ who loves us dearly has a way of changing us. Just so we are born anew not once but throughout our entire lives.
Lent is an intentional journey toward Easter where we fast and pray and give alms and perform acts of love and all these practices are opportunities to go deeper, to let go and allow the Spirit to blow where it chooses, and be born anew. Abide in Jesus and allow the Spirit to lead you to new birth again and again and forever.
Have you ever wondered what finally happened with Nicodemus?
Did he walk away with Jesus with permanent frustration or did he find himself on a journey of change and transformation?
Nicodemus shows up twice later in the Gospel of John.
First, he argues that Jesus be listened to before making any judgments about him. This he said to those who were ready to arrest Jesus.
Secondly, he appears after Jesus’ crucifixion. He appears along with Joseph of Arimathea, one of Jesus’ incognito disciples. Joseph was given permission to remove the body of Jesus and take the body to the cemetery. Nicodemus brought along the spices with mixtures of aloe and myrrh. Both Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus wrapped Jesus’ body with the spices and buried him.
I believe that Nicodemus, at first an admirer of Jesus, became a follower of Jesus. I suspect Nicodemus came to believe and to even trust Jesus. When he helped place the body of Jesus in the tomb, I suspect he was shedding tears of grief for like countless others, Jesus did more than illuminate him or instruct him. Jesus changed his life. He came to trust that abiding in Jesus was to live fully. Along with many others grieving the events of Friday, they could not imagine life without Jesus.
Then three days later on Sunday, those who grieved Jesus’ death and shed tears of loss and grief were overcome with wonder because Jesus was raised from the dead. I bet Nicodemus was right there with all who shed tears, finally, of immense joy.
I imagine Nicodemus weeping tears of joy like a new born child.
Amen