Introduction

I wonder how many people here feel a bit like Nicodemus?

• uncertain what this Jesus stuff is really all about,
• afraid to leave our old familiar ways,
• unsure if we want to get too involved in the church,
• struggling to cope with sickness and unemployment and family conflicts and deaths,
• and to hold on to the faith, or to find a faith to keep us going.

I think many of us are like Sylvia and Nancy and Jim who told us so movingly of their journeys of faith last Sunday during and after church. Maybe like them and like Nicodemus, we too are seeking meaning, but full of questions about God and Jesus and the church and wondering if we dare to make the leap of faith.

In today�s story we read about Nicodemus the seeker, drawn to Jesus, talking with him late into the night, yet held back by all his old beliefs and customs and commitments.

I think Nicodemus has had a lot of bad press, a lot of unfair criticism. Why? Maybe its because

he represents the old guard, the traditional Pharisees who were so often criticized in the gospels, or because he seems like a coward, sneaking in to visit Jesus at night when nobody would see him, or because he seems stupid, not understanding what Jesus meant by about talking being "Born again," or because we have the impression that he left without becoming a believer.........or did he?

I want to re-claim Nicodemus for us, Nicodemus the seeker after truth,

I want to claim that many of us here in this church today � young and old � are very much like him;

to claim that it is a wonderful thing to be seeking Jesus, seeking to understand his teachings, his call, and the love which he offers to the world.

In fact, I want to pro-claim Nicodemus as the PATRON SAINT OF SEEKERS

1. Nicodemus and Jesus

So who was this Nicodemus, who is mentioned only in the Gospel of John?

"A Pharisee and a leader of the Jews" John says. That implies that he was deeply religious, highly educated, well trained in Jewish law and traditions, and perhaps active in the top levels of the Jerusalem establishment.

Why did he come to Jesus? What drew him there?

Nicodemus must have heard worried reports about the young carpenter whose teaching and healing was drawing huge crowds in the dusty little villages up in northern Galilee. Was this Jesus dangerous, destabilizing, or was he for real? Nicodemus took the risk to go see for himself, to be with Jesus, to talk with him, to listen.

Why did he come to see Jesus at night? Maybe so that no one else would see him, laugh at him, or accuse him of being a Christian. Or maybe he just wanted to talk seriously without being interrupted by the curious disciples and the noisy crowds.

Try to imagine the scene. Jesus staying up late after the others had all gone to sleep, perhaps out in the courtyard to pray alone under the stars. Then the quiet knock on the gate. Jesus opened and welcomed Nicodemus, told him to come in and sit down. And then Nicodemus began - not with a question or a challenge or an argument.

He began by declaring his faith, limited as it was. He said he knew that Jesus really was a rabbi, a teacher who had come from God. And more than that, he recognized the presence of God in Jesus because of the miracles that Jesus had done. Already we see Nicodemus beginning to believe in Jesus and yet he came as a seeker, wanting to know more, to understand more, to believe more deeply and truly.

Jesus must have seen the longing in Nicodemus� heart, and he responded with compassion and challenge. Jesus didn�t say he was wrong, but he challenged Nicodemus to a totally new approach, a new beginning, radically portrayed as starting life all over again. Not just to believe in Jesus because of the miracles he could do. But to believe in Jesus himself as Emmanuel, God with us. Jesus as the source of new life, new hope, new meaning. "Unless you are born again (or born from above) you cannot see the Kingdom of Heaven."

Nicodemus didn�t seem to understand. He seemed to say "what a silly idea, nobody can literally be born again." And so we can imagine their conversation going on into the night �

Jesus telling him about the living water, the life-giving Holy Spirit and the promise of eternal life.

Nicodemus pouring out his soul, telling of his responsibilities as a Pharisee and a leader, of the people who counted on him in the temple, of his family�s expectations, of his fears to step out of his familiar role.

And we hear Jesus sharing with him some of the most beloved and perhaps the most often quoted words of the New Testament, that ...he had not come into the world to condemn ... but to save ... (John 3:17))

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him may not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16

2. Nicodemus after meeting Jesus

Then what happened, after that night when they talked together for so long?

Did he become a believer? We don�t know.

Could Nicodemus make the radical new start that Jesus was calling for.

We don�t know. But I want to suggest that we should be much more sympathetic to Nicodemus, appreciating the struggle he faced and the extent to which he was already on a journey of faith when he came to Jesus that night.

I think that being "born again" is not necessarily a once only event, a single moment of conversion after which you are a good faithful Christian forever. It doesn�t mean you must make a total break from everything you have ever done before and everyone you have ever known before. Rather I think that to be "born again" is the beginning of a process, turning in a new direction, setting forth on a lifelong journey of faith.

Nicodemus was on that journey. Maybe he was actually "born again" that night when he talked with Jesus. I think hints of this appear in the two brief glimpses we have of Nicodemus later in the Gospel of John.

Look at John 7:50 where Nicodemus reappears and courageously comes to Jesus� defense at a moment of crisis. Jesus had been preaching in the temple and stirred up such violent controversy that some people wanted to arrest him. The temple police themselves had been so moved by Jesus� preaching that they were reluctant to interfere, so they went back to the chief priests and Pharisees for instructions. The Pharisees claimed that nobody in authority believed in Jesus and so implied that the police should arrest him, until Nicodemus had the courage to stand up and say Stop! "Our law doesn�t judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?"

Because Nicodemus was still there on the boundary between Jews and Christians, still there in the temple establishment rather than out on the road with the disciples, he was the one who could come to Jesus� defense and prevent his arrest.

We meet Nicodemus again in John 19:38-42 on the day that Jesus was crucified. It was Nicodemus, together with Joseph of Aramathea, who had the courage and the love and the connections to ask Pilate for permission to take the body of Jesus down from the cross, wrap it for burial, and place it in the tomb.

Joseph is described as a "disciple of Jesus, although a secret one because of his fear of the Jews" (19:38) and Nicodemus is mentioned as "the one who came to Jesus by night" (19:39). Probably he too had become a secret disciple of Jesus. Think of the faith it must have taken for those two respectable Jewish leaders to publically go out and take the broken, blood-soaked body of a convicted criminal in their arms and carry him to the tomb.

Then what happened?

I like think that many of us here today are like Nicodemus � seekers, travelers, each on our unique journey of faith with one foot still in our old lives and one foot about to take the next hesitant step into a new and richer level of relationship with God.

3. St James - a community of seekers.

We at St James are a community of seekers, and if we aren�t seeking a deeper knowledge of God and of ourselves, we should be. And we welcome everyone else on this journey. All of us seekers here today -

Like all these little kids with the most amazingly difficult questions about life and death, God and Jesus, the Bible and the Church. Questions which challenge us parents and teachers to grow in our own faith as we try to think how to answer them.

Like you teenagers and young adults. So many of you are trying to figure out who you are and where you are going and if there really is a God going with you. None of us can forget the wonderful sermons you preached last spring on the Sunday before Confirmation, moving many of us to tears.

Yes, even many of us who seem to be settled and grown-up Christians are seekers. We too come back again and again as seekers, trying to rethink our faith, to hang on to it, or to rediscover it after facing some devastating crisis in our own lives, or after we feel that the church itself has let us down or driven us out.

Some of us have grow up in secular post-Christian communities in America or Europe or Latin America, in homes and schools where Christianity was just not a part of our lives. No wonder we feel a little bit like new-born babes as we try to make sense of the Bible and the worship on a Sunday morning.

And a few of us have come from situations actually hostile to Christianity. Think, for example, of our visiting scholar friends from China who grew up during the Cultural Revolution when churches and temples were closed and Christian believers were imprisoned or driven underground. A whole generation has grown up in China without Bibles or churches, taught in school that religion is the opiate of the people. Thank God that Churches are open again and people are finding their way to them in China, and they are visiting churches like ours when they come to the states, trying to find meaningful beliefs and values to guide them when they go back to live in the largest, fastest developing nation in the world. What a chance to share God�s love....

So to everyone sitting in the pews this morning let me say,

- don�t worry if you are full of questions and uncertainty about your faith;

- don�t worry if, like Nicodemus, you�re not quite ready to make a commitment to Christ; because

And we all should have the courage to voice our questions, express our doubts and tell our stories of how God�s love has been working in our lives.