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| "Christ and Nicodemus" Fritz von Uhde (Ger. 19th cent.) |
You’ve
got to love Nicodemus. Personally, I think he was a pretty good guy. For a
Pharisee, he seems to be displaying a refreshing amount of open-mindedness.
John the evangelist tells us in the Gospel appointed for Holy Trinity in Year B
of the RCL cycle (John 3:1-17) that Nick was a “leader of the Jews” (v.1) and a
“teacher of Israel” (v.10). I’d say this makes him a fairly important dude;
nevertheless, he doesn’t act like he’s all that hung up on his own importance.
He’s willing to visit with Jesus on his off hours and show this controversial
new rabbi some respect. He doesn’t just bust in and start flashing his own
credentials or challenging Jesus. No. He’s cool. He recognizes Jesus must be a
teacher divinely inspired because—obviously—Jesus does good works in God’s
name. Nick likes this, and it looks as if he’d like to learn a little more
about what this weird, peasant prophet is all about.
You’ll
remember Pharisees were not exactly famous for being tolerant. These guys liked
to parse every syllable of the Torah and make hard and fast rules. These were
strict no-dancing-no-card-playing-no-rock-n-roll kind of guys who believed
there were two ways of seeing every situation: their way and the wrong way. In
contrast, Nicodemus is willing to give the new guy the benefit of the doubt. I
like to think the questions he puts to Jesus when Jesus tells him all this
funky stuff about being born from above[i] and being born of the
spirit are asked with a genuine desire for knowledge. Maybe Nicodemus will find
what Jesus says enlightening, maybe he’ll be confused by it, or maybe he’ll
just flat-out disagree. Whatever his response, at least he’s open to another
point of view.
There’s
a ton of stuff to unpack in the third chapter of John’s Gospel, but I think
it’s refreshing to point out in this age of polarization, Fox News, and MSNBC
that it is possible to have a reasonable discussion with someone with
whom you might disagree or whose world view might challenge your own. You don’t
have to enter the discussion with your six-shooters blazing. You can be like
Nicodemus and start out by acknowledging something positive about the other
person. You can also take a page out of Jesus’ playbook and start the
discussion with stuff you both agree about. Jesus references a story about
Moses[ii] (v.14-15) which Nick
would surely have known and could relate to. Even though the Pharisee seems to be
leaving this encounter in awkward befuddlement about the things Jesus was
saying, our evangelist lets us know that something about the nature of this
little chat had a positive effect on the old guy. Why else would Nicodemus
spring for a hundred pounds of burial ointment for Jesus’ body after the
crucifixion?[iii]
But
now you might be asking, “So what’s all of this got to do with the Holy
Trinity?” Good question. I think the lads who cooked up the Revised Common
Lectionary liked this passage because it references all three persons of the
Trinity, but I like it because it puts us in Nicodemus’ place—scratching our
heads and wondering about the nature of God. The cool thing about this story is
we’re left feeling it’s okay to wonder or be confused. Jesus even acknowledges
Nick’s confusion (v.12). Earthly things are confusing enough—don’t even get
started on heavenly stuff. Nobody but the Son of Man has been up in heaven, so
don’t sweat it if you don’t get it.
My
take on John’s Gospel has evolved to be that John was pretty cool with not being
able to fully grasp the nature of God. For him, the only insight into the
divine was through the humanity of Jesus. It used to bug me that John’s Gospel,
unlike the three synoptic Gospels, made Jesus so God-like. You know: all of
those “I AM” statements. But, as I read the Fourth Gospel over the years, I see
how John also highlights Jesus’ very humanity. It is in this Gospel that Jesus
weeps, that he makes arrangements for his mother, that he confesses to being
troubled in spirit, and that he plainly tells his followers that he loves them.
This same author, we believe,[iv] taught his own followers,
“…those who do not love a brother or sister whom they
have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.” (1John 4:20b)
I
try to put this all together and conclude John is teaching us that if we are to
look for God, we must first look to the person of Jesus and to each other. We
are to see Christ in one another. We can look for his love and sacrifice and
humility and, maybe, even his suffering. If we’re open to seeing that, we can
learn to be Christ for one another. There’s a really nice unity here. God
living in Jesus, Jesus living in us, and we living in God. I think it all hangs
together. Each person of the Trinity leads us to contemplate the other two. The
Father creates us, the Son gives us understanding, and the Spirit connects and
unifies us.
I
like to think those bishops of Nicaea back in the fourth century—the guys who
gave us our orthodox creed—had some wisdom about God. The doctrine they cooked
up and passed down to us may be perplexing, but I hope we’d approach it the
same way Nicodemus approached Jesus. That is, we don’t settle for pure dogma.
We’re willing to wonder, question, and maybe accept a little befuddlement.
And
there’s nothing wrong with that.
A
Happy Holy Trinity to you, my friend. Let me know what you think.
[i] Or
“born again” if you prefer. The Greek word anothen can mean “again,”
“from the beginning,” “from the very first,” or “for a long time.”
[ii]
See Numbers 21:4-9. It’s a short but meaningful tale.
[iii]
John 19:38
[iv]
We believe. We’re not really sure that the author of the Fourth Gospel and the
epistle of First John were one and the same dude, but there’s a similarity in
the diction of both writings and Church tradition has always held they were one
and the same. We can’t prove it, but that’s our story and we’re sticking to it.
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