Eavesdropping on Jesus
John 3:1-21

Eavesdropping. Eavesdropping is listening secretly to what is said in private. My first awareness of eavesdropping was as a child. We spent our summers in a small town in rural Virginia. The telephone in the house was a party-line. Do you remember those? I can’t recall how many other homes were on our loop, but it was widely rumored that our neighbor, Ms. Annie Lee Long, spent a great deal of time eavesdropping on the party-line. I was never sure if that was true, but it was certain that someone was often listening in because you could hear the person breathing or making other noises during a lull in the conversation. This kind of eavesdropping is a little irritating but generally benign.

Of course, when governments eavesdrop on their citizens, it is more sinister. The Communist Party of China is renowned for creating a surveillance state that tracks the movements and communications of all its citizenry. The truth is that every modern nation eavesdrops to some degree on its citizens. No phone call, text message, email, or other electronic communication is really private. If the government wants the contents of a communique, it can secure it.

There is a third sort of eavesdropping: the kind that is unintentional. Sometimes you cannot help overhearing a conversation. In some cases, what you hear might be amusing, alarming, hurtful, upsetting, insightful, or even profound.

In this morning’s reading from John’s gospel, we get to eavesdrop on a conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus, but do not feel awkward about listening in. The Apostle John wants us to hear the dialogue because it is the most important conversation that ever happened in this planet’s long and continuing history. It is a conversation about eternal life: the quality of existence here and now and our continued existence after death.

Nicodemus was a Pharisee, one of the many religious factions in first-century Judaism. The Pharisees were renowned for their scrupulous, almost fanatical, obedience to the law and the prophets.

Furthermore, Nicodemus was a leader of the Jews. He was a prominent Pharisee, well-known and respected. He appears to have been part of the counsel in Jerusalem, Israel’s highest court. Nicodemus, the prominent leader of Judaism, comes to Jesus. Normally, we would have expected the opposite. Jesus would have sought an audience with Nicodemus. In addition, Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. He was attempting to be discreet or perhaps even secretive about his audience with the Rabbi Jesus.

Nicodemus is mentioned only in John’s gospel. He appears two more times in John Chapters 7 and 19. “Then the temple police went back to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, ‘Why did you not arrest him?’ The police answered, ‘Never has anyone spoken like this!’ Then the Pharisees replied, ‘Surely you have not been deceived too, have you? Has any one of the authorities or of the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd, which does not know the law—they are accursed.’ Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus before, and who was one of them, asked, ‘Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?’ They replied, ‘Surely you are not also from Galilee, are you? Search and you will see that no prophet is to arise from Galilee’” (Jn. 7:45-52). Nicodemus seems to defend Jesus’ rights in this passage.

In John Chapter 19 we read these words, “After these things, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission; so he came and removed his body. Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds. They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, according to the burial custom of the Jews. Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there” (Jn. 19:38-42). John tells us that Joseph of Arimathea was a secret disciple of Jesus, and Nicodemus’ association with Joseph suggests that this leader of the Pharisees was a secret disciple too. At least this seems to be the case by the end of the gospel.

In his first encounter with Jesus, Nicodemus seems earnest but struggling mightily to understand Jesus’ words. Nicodemus begins with a flattering appraisal of Jesus’ ministry. “He came to Jesus by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God’” (vs. 2).

Interestingly, Jesus does not react at all to Nicodemus’ positive evaluation of his ministry. Presumably, Jesus ignores Nicodemus’ gracious words because of what John tells us about Jesus in last Sunday’s reading from Chapter 2. “But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone” (vs 24-25).

Instead, Jesus goes right to the heart of the real issue: entry into the kingdom of God can come about only through birth “from above.” The Greek word John uses, anothen, can be translated, “again” or “from above.” Nicodemus seems to understand the word as “again,” in a literal sense. He asks, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” (vs. 4).

Jesus clearly understands the word anothen as meaning “from above.” Jesus tells Nicodemus that “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit” (vs. 6). He also compares the new birth to the wind. “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (vs. 8). Being born from above is synonymous with being born of the Spirit.

Nicodemus was mystified by Jesus’ teaching. In the end he throws up his hands and says, “How can these things be?” (vs.9). Essentially, Nicodemus is saying, “I don’t understand what you are talking about." People have been saying the same words ever since.

Jesus is talking not only to Nicodemus, but directly to everyone who hears or reads these words. In verse 12 the pronouns suddenly change from singular to plural. We might dynamically render the verse, If I have told you all about earthly things and you all do not believe, how can you all believe if I tell you all about heavenly things?

This is the human dilemma. We are confronted by Jesus and his mysterious teaching. We are interested, and we want to understand what he is saying, but we struggle to make sense of his words and way. Jesus goes on to elaborate how this birth from above happens. Jesus says, “No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man” (vs. 13). Jesus had spoken to his first followers about himself as the Son of Man. And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man” (Jn. 1:51). Jesus’ language hearkens back to Jacob’s vision at Bethel of a ladder stretching between heaven and earth upon which angels could ascend and descend (Gen 28). Jesus is telling us that he is the ladder which joins the two dimensions of God’s world, the heavenly and the earthly, the flesh and the Spirit, the eternal Word and the human.

Jesus alludes to another Old Testament story in his attempt to elucidate the meaning of his words. “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (vs. 14-15). The Old Testament story occurs in Numbers 21:5-8. N. T. Wright, a British New Testament scholar, summarizes the story for us. “During the wandering in the wilderness, the Israelites grumbled against Moses and the LORD. They were punished by poisonous serpents invading the camp, killing many of them. God gave Moses a remedy: he was to make a serpent out of bronze, put it on a pole and hold it up for the people to look at. Anyone who looked at the serpent on the pole would live.” It's interesting that to this day various medical organizations use the symbol of the serpent entwined around a pole as a sign of healing for their profession.

Jesus is clearly alluding to his crucifixion, where he would offer himself as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He is saying to Nicodemus and to us, “Look and live.” Human beings have been smitten by the deadly disease of sin. The only cure is to look at the Son of Man, the Lamb of God, dying on the cross and find the cure to sin and death by believing in him.

The crucified Christ is the ultimate ladder set up between heaven and earth. No serpent hangs there. The Son of Man was hung upon that pole. Jesus says all we must do is look and live.

Jesus gives not only the life of the flesh. Remember from the prologue to John’s gospel that “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being” (Jn. 1:3). Jesus also gives us eternal life, the life of the Spirit. And it is ours without cost or effort. As one commentator puts it, “All we can do, just as it was all the Israelites could do, is to look and trust: to look at Jesus, to see in him the full display of God’s saving love, and to trust in him.”

With verse 15 the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus comes to an end. The Apostle John begins to testify in verse 16. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (Jn. 3:16). The basic thrust of John’s testimony is that God is benevolent. God loves the world. As the Psalmist says, “God does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities” (Ps. 103:10).

However, God does summon us towards the light. This does not mean that having trusted in the Son of Man lifted up on the cross we now must try a lot harder to be good. As one commentator wryly observes, “You might as well try to teach a snake to sing!”

Still, in the end, we are given the choice: either to approach the light and allow it to illuminate us, both the good and the bad in us, or to run away from the life-giving light because we are afraid or because we love darkness more than light. We are called to be children of light in this darkened world.

John must have been eavesdropping on Jesus and Nicodemus’ conversation. I am glad he did. Are you glad you listened in? I think we all are. We are all a lot like Nicodemus. We are struggling to understand what Jesus said. We are struggling to trust in the Son of Man, to look and live. We desperately want eternal life, and we cannot secure it on our own. Only Jesus has the words of eternal life. We can turn to no one else. So let us trust. Let us remember that God is kind, that Jesus loves sinners. Let us walk in the light as he is in the light that we may become children of light.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Alleluia! Amen.