“911, What’s your emergency?” Could you imagine being a 911 operator? Every time that phone rings, it's like opening a box of chocolates. “Eww… what do we have here” and “Oh boy, what’s coming next?” After a while, you get a sense of everything human nature might throw at you. You learn exactly how to respond.
But then one day, “Ring Ring…” and you say, “911, What’s your emergency?” You scan the computer screen and notice this call is coming from the Judean hillside, in the wilderness. And someone says, “Yeah, we’ve got some homeless straggler out here, crying.” “Crying? Crying how? Does he have visible injuries?” “No, not like that, he’s pleading with people to repent, some blasphemous jazz that ‘One who has been with God and is God’ is coming. He’s got thousands of people out here being baptized.”
“Ah, another Messianic nut job,” you say. You got this! “Nah, he doesn’t claim to be Christ, nor a prophet, nor Elijah, nor Moses… just a voice crying out. He’s got thousands of people out here stirred up, believing, waiting, expecting, being baptized.”
“Sir, let me get this straight. He himself is not claiming to be God? He’s not committing the crime of blasphemy. He’s not injured. Is he a danger to himself? Is he a danger to anyone one?”
The Jewish authorities would have been alerted to John the Baptist’ ministry. But things would have blown up the day John the Baptist announced, “Behold, the Lamb of God, coming into the world.” Here is the “supposed” Creator God incarnate. The supposed Creator God dwelling, incarnate, made into human flesh, revealing and exegeting God. Guys, that’s supposed to be our job! Here is the supposed light and life of man. Here is a man building a following of misfits. (Well, most of them were just fishermen but they just got Nathaniel one of our best and brightest students). Here is the supposed God of Abraham, Isaac, Israel… coming as Israel’s Bridegroom, literally to a wedding feast in Cana, allegedly turning water into wine. Here is the supposed “Holy One of Israel” that the Prophet Malachi warned about, coming into the Holy Temple, on Passover, during the feast of unleavened bread, overturning money tables, driving out “the merchandise” (lambs, doves, oxen, sacrificial animals), confronting the Levites for corrupting “His Father’s House,” and turning it into a “den of thieves.” This dude. His sheer audacity! His presumption! The outrage. Who do these clowns think they are?”
By the time we get to John 3, the Jewish authorities are on high alert. First, a Pharisee named Nicodemus goes quietly by night to meet a certain Jesus of Nazareth, son of Joseph, and investigate matters for himself. I’ll come back to that in a moment. Secondly, they continue to scrutinize John the Baptist. In John 3, John continues preaching repentance and baptizing people. But now Jesus and his disciples are also out there baptizing people. John’s ministry is trickling to a halt, Jesus’ ministry is exploding.
There is not much they can do with John the Baptist. In John 3:26 he’s asked about Jesus, “Rabbi, the one you testified about, and who was with you across the Jordan is baptizing—and everyone is going to him”
John responds somewhat illusively. He says, “No one can receive this unless it's been given him from heaven itself.” “I’ve plainly testified that I’m not the messiah, just a messenger.” But then John says this… John 3:29-30, “He who has the bride is the groom. But the groom’s friend, who stands by and listens for him, rejoices greatly at the groom's voice. So, this joy of mine is complete. He must increase and I must decrease.”
John tells them, “You all missed the wedding! The God of Israel has arrived to claim his bride. You ought to be celebrating him not interrogating me. My joy is full.” I’m paraphrasing John 3:31-36. “Guys, He is the one who's come from heaven. Those who accept his testimony affirm that God is faithful and true. He’s speaking God’s words. He’s giving the Holy Spirit without measure, he’s turning water into wine, the wine’s not running out, the grace is overflowing, he’s causing streams of living water to flow in the desert. Let us not mince words.” John 3:36, “The one who believes in the Son has eternal life, but the one who rejects the Son will not see life; instead of the wrath of God remains on him.” Again. Behold the Lamb of God. Jesus has come to take away our sin.
They would be relieved when Herod arrested and beheaded John, because they sure couldn’t refute him. They definitely couldn’t silence him.
But it’s Nicodemus who goes under cover of darkness to meet Jesus. Was he a friendly? Was he a hostile? Was he a genuine truth seeker? Was he officially sent? Did he come under his own accord? We're given the impression that Nicodemus was beginning to be “affected” by the wedding, temple incidents, and the various testimonies being given about Jesus. To a certain extent it is plausible in Nicodemus’ mind that Jesus could be God, that Jesus could be the Holy One, Israel’s Bridegroom, Isaiah’s suffering servant, Malachi’s coming Kingdom. The Psalmist's coming King. Genesis' Satan-crushing offspring of Eve, the promised child of Abraham, Isaac, Israel. John 3:1-2, “There was a man from the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to him at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could perform these signs you do unless God were with him.”
John 3:3. Jesus replies rather directly, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus deflects, he plays his naïve card. John 3:4, “How can anyone be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asks. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?”
Nicodemus is a high educated man. He knows exactly what Jesus talking about. John 3:5-8, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be amazed that I told you that you must be born again. 8 The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
In so many words, Jesus is telling Nicodemus, that unless he goes out during the light of daytime, in full view of all Israel and his Pharisee pals… that unless he submits to water baptism and is baptized both for repentance and to receive the Holy Spirit (i.e., born of water and spirit), he won’t be part of God Kingdom. In so many words, he who has the Son has the Spirit, has light and life, is covered by atoning blood of Jesus. He who doesn’t have the Son will face the full wrath of God.
Nicodemus is mystified. John 3:9, “How can these things be?” But Jesus asks a counter question, John 3:12, “If I have told you about earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?” And then Jesus says, do you really want to know how you’ll know I am who I say I am? The wedding was just a first sign. But just like Jesus told Nathaniel he’d see greater signs so he tells Nicodemus that he too would see greater signs!
John 3:13-15, Nicodemus! Buckle your seatbelt. “13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven —the Son of Man. 14 “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”
Do you remember how Moses staff was a sign of God’s power and authority to Israel. When Moses threw the staff to the ground it became a snake. When he lifted it up, it became a staff. When he struck the rock, streams of living water flowed forth. When he touched the Red Sea, the mighty waters parted and a way of salvation was open up for Israel to leave her past and worship her God.
“Nicodemus, when Moses wielded the staff, when he raised it up, all Israel believed! Well, I’m like that staff. I’ve descended from God, I’ve come in his authority and power, I’m the one like Moses that he promises would come. When I’m raised up and set to die on that cross everyone will see that I’m truly the Lamb of God, sent to atone for the sin of the world. But when I ascend back to the Father all doubt will be removed. You will know that I truly am the light and life of the world… that by believing in me you can truly possess eternal life. That when I’m struck the mighty torrents of death will subside and a way will be opened up into a glorious new future with God. Nicodemus, I am the way, the truth, and the life. If you believe in me, you live! If you reject my baptism you die.”
And then this. John 3:16-21, “16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. 19 This is the judgment: The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone who does evil hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed. 21 But anyone who lives by the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be shown to be accomplished by God.”
“Nicodemus, what time of day is it? Its dark outside. It’s nighttime. It’s time for you to stop hiding your faith, going incognito. If you truly believe that I am the Son of God, the Lamb sent not to condemn the world but to save man from their sins, to open a way back to God… come into the light! If you want to live by the truth, come into the light, so that the work of God in your life may be accomplished!”
Nicodemus, how did your meeting with Jesus go last night? Well, he doubled down. John 3:16, “16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” So how did your meeting go with John the Baptist? What did he say? John 3:36, “The one who believes in the Son has eternal life, but the one who rejects the Son will not see life; instead of the wrath of God remains on him.” Hmm. Guess we have a decision to make!
The Gospel writer Luke gives us some interesting commentary about what was going on here. Luke 7:29-30, “(And when all the people, including the tax collectors, heard this, they acknowledged God’s way of righteousness, because they had been baptized with John’s baptism. But since the Pharisees and experts in the law had not been baptized by him, they rejected the plan of God for themselves.)”
Nicodemus was wanting to make the matter of Jesus’ identity academic, but Jesus made it a matter of personal commitment. Believe on me. Accept my baptism. Go out there and submit in repentance. Receive my forgiveness. Let me take God’s wrath upon my shoulders in your place. Let my Spirit regenerate your dead heart, dead mind, and dead flesh. Let my Spirit blow, and carry you along into your salvation.
More signs would come, and then the ultimate sign came. Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection, and also his ascension back to the Father! In baptism we acknowledge that we weren’t born to die, to be buried, nor just to be raised to live a better life here on earth. In baptism we're born to ascend before the throne, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. We we're born to be eternally wed to Christ our Bridegroom, to dwell in eternal light and possess eternal life! What say you?