In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The reading from the gospel that’s selected for this morning, my brothers and sisters, presumes that everybody knows that these are the words of Jesus to Nicodemus. If someone doesn’t know that, then it’s worth mentioning, because the text has to fit into the context of that visit that Nicodemus paid to Jesus by night. Now this popular gospel, from the gospel of John, is annually read on the Sunday before the feast of the Holy Cross. I say popular because anyone who watches sporting events on television will see somebody, either in the outfield or on the 50-yard line or somewhere, holding up a sign that says, “John 3:16.” And you’re supposed to go home and look that up, which I think by now the whole of the American population has already done. And maybe next year they should change it to “John 3:17.” [Laughter]

Now I want to arrange today’s reflections in three stages. First, let us reflect what we see here of Jesus’ self-awareness. This is a delicate subject. Even to talk about anybody’s self-awareness is a little bit bold. But when we have a human being who thinks of himself as God’s eternal Son and is aware of who he is, it becomes very difficult. In the gospel of John, taken as a whole, we observe a great emphasis on the consciousness of Jesus that he came from somewhere else. Most of the time when we speak of entering this world, we think of it as entering it from our mother’s womb. But you notice that’s not what it means when it applies to Jesus in the New Testament. He means he actually comes from somewhere outside this world.

In today’s conversation with Nicodemus, for instance, the very first verse of this morning’s gospel, Jesus claimed to have come down from heaven and that he is still in heaven. We should reflect that this is a most unusual way for someone to speak. You know, we Christians have become so accustomed to this extraordinary claim of Jesus that it’s difficult for us to appreciate the novelty and the raw improbability of the thing. It’s a kind of claim we should tolerate in no one else. If I should start talking like that, my wife and children and grandchildren would become quite alarmed—and rightly.

But, you see, this claim of Jesus is in fact the great challenge that he poses to human history. And it was as the representative of the human race that Nicodemus came to see him under the cover of darkness. Now why did Nicodemus come to see him? I’m not entirely sure Nicodemus knew. He was sort of working through his own motive himself. But let me suggest that the first words of Nicodemus in this conversation—and his are the first words—the words of Nicodemus give us some idea of what he had in mind. His motive was an inquisitive but devout reason. He said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God.” He’s already heard enough from Jesus, he’s already seen enough of what Jesus does, that he’s quite prepared to call this carpenter a rabbi and to praise him as a teacher come from God.

Now, observe here with these words Nicodemus places Jesus in the best category known to him: rabbi and religious teacher. Human beings have a way of recognizing somebody who seems to know about the other world and the meaning of this one, and they give them names, like imam, shaman, names of this sort. In Judaism, it’s religious teacher, rabbi. In the mind of Nicodemus, this category of rabbi or religious teacher was very high. This is in chapter three of John. Let me note parenthetically that by the time you move to chapter four in John, the Samaritan woman calls him a prophet: we’re moving on.

Now, since Nicodemus places Jesus in this very high category of rabbi or religious teacher, he must have been stunned at the response of Jesus. In fact, the first time I noticed it, I was very young, and I was stunned. Jesus did not even address the subject. Instead of acknowledging the compliment, Jesus simply changes the subject. He begins to speak about the necessity of being born again. In other words, what Nicodemus says in the conversation is not related at all to what Jesus says in the conversation. Nicodemus says, “We know you are a rabbi. You’re a rabbi, a sent teacher, sent forth from God.” What are the words? How does Jesus respond to this? “Unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” That is to say, Jesus refused to have anything to do with this devout and reasonable inquiry of Nicodemus.

Jesus, in fact, explodes every category. Consequently, it was insufficient, he said, to be devout, sincere, and religiously inspired, because a completely new Reality, capital-R, has entered the world, and all human categories, even religious categories, must crumble before that Reality. Jesus goes on in this morning’s gospel to identify himself to Nicodemus as the monogenis Hios tou Theou, the only-begotten Son of God, the very expression that identifies him at the beginning of John’s gospel. John is taking up in chapter three what he introduced back in chapter one. The hymn we sang just not five minutes ago—well, not six, anyway—“Only-begotten Son and Word of God.” In Greek, it’s the same name: “Monogenis Hios kai Logos tou Theou.” Monogenis Hios: only-begotten Son.

Second, let us reflect that this claim of Jesus, because it is unparalleled in human history, is a radical challenge not only to man’s secular concerns but also to his religious history. Most religious teachers, when they appear in this world, pose a challenge to man’s secular concerns. We expect that. That’s exactly what we expect from Siddhartha Gautama: he poses a challenge to man’s secular concerns. Jesus poses the challenge to man’s religious experience. He calls into question man’s religious experience without him.

Now, if this claim of Jesus is true, then all of man’s religious aspirations are summoned to find their fulfillment in the glory that shines from his face—all of man’s religious aspirations. If this claim of Jesus is true, this claim to be God’s only-begotten Son, then he is the fulfillment of every sincere hope, the answer to every honest question, the true goal of every religious quest, and the final joy of every longing heart. If what he says is true, then everything good, noble, virtuous in human history should find its fulfillment in him.

Third, let us reflect that if this claim of Jesus is true, then he is the supreme manifestation of God’s love. Indeed, this thesis is part of the claim itself. For today he tells Nicodemus—and here’s the verse—“God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

When I said that the claim of Jesus poses a challenge to man’s religious experience, I certainly did not mean to imply that his appearance in this world is a condemnation of that experience. There’s a great deal of religious experience of man that needs to be condemned, should be condemned; there’s a great deal of man’s religious experience that is absolutely displeasing to God. One thinks of a religion expressed in ritual prostitution or human sacrifice or certain other recent liturgical innovations. [Laughter] That doesn’t mean that all of man’s religious experience is condemned.

Today we have on his own authority, in fact, that he did not come to condemn the world. He does not appear among us for the purpose of shaming us or showing us up as moral failures. God’s Son did not assume flesh to demonstrate what blighters we are! Because if that were the case, how would the appearance of Jesus Christ in this world be the manifestation of God’s love? Oh, no, he goes on. “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world, through him, might be saved.” Now, how do human beings enter that salvation? How do they in fact become participants in the divine love? Just what is the path to that new life that Jesus calls rebirth?

It is faith in God’s Son in the sense of adherence to his Person. Thus Jesus tells Nicodemus—and this verse tells us why it’s always the Sunday before Holy Cross—Jesus tells Nicodemus, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” How were they saved in the desert when the brazen snake was elevated? How were they saved? The book of Wisdom says that they were saved not by looking at the snake but by trusting in the God who was revealed there.

This eternal life available to us through God’s Son is neither a continuation nor a repetition of the human life we know. It has nothing to do with reincarnation; it has nothing to do with going on, simply continuing the life we know. It is rather a rebirth by which we share in the very life of God. Also, rebirth does not mean an emotional or psychological experience. The emotional and psychological experience which little Miles had—gosh, it’s been a year, hasn’t it?—when I baptized him. His emotional experience was not one of rebirth; it was one where he felt threatened with immanent peril of drowning. [Laughter] See, the rebirth of which Jesus speaks—Miles, pay attention. [Laughter] The rebirth of which Jesus speaks is not an emotional experience.

My old schoolmate, Grady Nutt, whom most of you are way too young to remember, although he was a very well-known comedian some several decades ago— Grady Nutt was a schoolmate of mine at Southern Baptist Seminary, and Grady Nutt used to describe what it meant to be saved, and he distinguished being saved from being gloriously saved. [Laughter] He says, “Ever’body knows what it means to be saved.” He says, “Very few people are gloriously saved! When you’re gloriously saved, your heart pounds and you sweat a lot!” But you see, there are those—and Grady was making fun of them—who believe that to be saved means to have some sort of religious experience, some sort of emotional, psychological feeling, what a friend of mine used to call a FIF: “funny interior feeling.” And those whose religion was based on this he referred to as FIF-ites. [Laughter]

But you see, being reborn is not an emotional experience. It’s an ontological reality vastly deeper than our experience of it. Now this is God’s supreme gift, that we should participate in his own life, taste eternally the joy of his love, be bathed unceasingly in the brightness of his light, and feed forever on the grace that shines from his face. Rebirth means to participate in the very life of God which is eternal. This is the prayer that we make with the Psalmist: “O Lord, God of hosts, convert us and show us thy face, and we shall be saved.”

May God have mercy on us and bless us. May he cause the light of his countenance to shine upon us, and have mercy on us, that we may know thy way upon the earth. For thy salvation among all the nations. And it is as the representative of the nations that Nicodemus takes his place today in this nocturnal visit to Jesus. With John the Baptist, he inquires, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?” With Simon Peter, Nicodemus confesses, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And also we have come to believe and to know that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” He becomes for us the serpent—the serpent which in the book of Genesis is a sign of condemnation and sin. He now, raised upon the cross, on the scandal of the cross, he becomes the one who is condemned for our sake, that, looking upon him in faith, we may attain eternal life.