08 March 2014

John 3: 1-17, Nicodemus
visits Christ by Night

‘Christ Instructing Nicodemus,’ attributed to Crijn Hendricksz Volmarijn (ca 1604-1645), oil on panel, 87.5 x 111.4cm, sold by Sotheby’s, London, 1994

Patrick Comerford

The Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) provides two options for the Gospel reading on Sunday week [16 March 2014], the Second Sunday in Lent: the first option, John 3: 1-17, is to be used only when Option A (Matthew 17: 1-19), the Transfiguration, is not taken on the Sunday before Lent; the second option is Matthew 17: 1-19, which is the Transfiguration.

This just goes to show how difficult a minefield the lectionary can be, and how important it is to prepare, plan and select readings, hymns and sermon topics weeks in advance when you are in parish ministry.

The Readings and Psalm are: Genesis 12: 1-4a; Psalm 121; Romans 4: 1-5, 13-17; John 3: 1-17.

John 3: 1-17:

1 ην δὲ ἄνθρωπος ἐκ τῶν Φαρισαίων, Νικόδημος ὄνομα αὐτῷ, ἄρχων τῶν Ἰουδαίων: 2 οὗτος ἦλθεν πρὸς αὐτὸν νυκτὸς καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ, Ῥαββί, οἴδαμεν ὅτι ἀπὸ θεοῦ ἐλήλυθας διδάσκαλος: οὐδεὶς γὰρ δύναται ταῦτα τὰ σημεῖα ποιεῖν ἃ σὺ ποιεῖς, ἐὰν μὴ ᾖ ὁ θεὸς μετ' αὐτοῦ. 3 ἀπεκρίθη Ἰησοῦς καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ, Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω σοι, ἐὰν μή τις γεννηθῇ ἄνωθεν, οὐ δύναται ἰδεῖν τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ. 4 λέγει πρὸς αὐτὸν [ὁ] Νικόδημος, Πῶς δύναται ἄνθρωπος γεννηθῆναι γέρων ὤν; μὴ δύναται εἰς τὴν κοιλίαν τῆς μητρὸς αὐτοῦ δεύτερον εἰσελθεῖν καὶ γεννηθῆναι; 5 ἀπεκρίθη Ἰησοῦς, Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω σοι, ἐὰν μή τις γεννηθῇ ἐξ ὕδατος καὶ πνεύματος, οὐ δύναται εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ. 6 τὸ γεγεννημένον ἐκ τῆς σαρκὸς σάρξ ἐστιν, καὶ τὸ γεγεννημένον ἐκ τοῦ πνεύματος πνεῦμά ἐστιν. 7 μὴ θαυμάσῃς ὅτι εἶπόν σοι, Δεῖ ὑμᾶς γεννηθῆναι ἄνωθεν. 8 τὸ πνεῦμα ὅπου θέλει πνεῖ, καὶ τὴν φωνὴν αὐτοῦ ἀκούεις, ἀλλ' οὐκ οἶδας πόθεν ἔρχεται καὶ ποῦ ὑπάγει: οὕτως ἐστὶν πᾶς ὁ γεγεννημένος ἐκ τοῦ πνεύματος. 9 ἀπεκρίθη Νικόδημος καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ, Πῶς δύναται ταῦτα γενέσθαι; 10 ἀπεκρίθη Ἰησοῦς καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ, Σὺ εἶ ὁ διδάσκαλος τοῦ Ἰσραὴλ καὶ ταῦτα οὐ γινώσκεις;

11 ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω σοι ὅτι ὃ οἴδαμεν λαλοῦμεν καὶ ὃ ἑωράκαμεν μαρτυροῦμεν, καὶ τὴν μαρτυρίαν ἡμῶν οὐ λαμβάνετε. 12 εἰ τὰ ἐπίγεια εἶπον ὑμῖν καὶ οὐ πιστεύετε, πῶς ἐὰν εἴπω ὑμῖν τὰ ἐπουράνια πιστεύσετε; 13 καὶ οὐδεὶς ἀναβέβηκεν εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν εἰ μὴ ὁ ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καταβάς, ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. 14 καὶ καθὼς Μωϋσῆς ὕψωσεν τὸν ὄφιν ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ, οὕτως ὑψωθῆναι δεῖ τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, 15 ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων ἐν αὐτῷ ἔχῃ ζωὴν αἰώνιον.

16 Οὕτως γὰρ ἠγάπησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν κόσμον, ὥστε τὸν υἱὸν τὸν μονογενῆ ἔδωκεν, ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων εἰς αὐτὸν μὴ ἀπόληται ἀλλ' ἔχῃ ζωὴν αἰώνιον.

17 οὐ γὰρ ἀπέστειλεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν υἱὸν εἰς τὸν κόσμον ἵνα κρίνῃ τὸν κόσμον, ἀλλ' ἵνα σωθῇ ὁ κόσμος δι' αὐτοῦ.

Translation (NRSV):

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 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.’ Jesus answered him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.’ Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?’ Jesus answered, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, “You must be born from above.” 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.’ Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can these things be?’ Jesus answered him, ‘Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

‘Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 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.

‘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.

‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.’

Introduction:

This story contains two of the most oft-quoted passages in Saint John’s Gospel: ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above (or born again)’ (verse 5); and ‘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’ (verse 16).

Where this story is placed in Saint John’s Gospel is one of the keys to understanding it.

We have heard about the incarnation and the Word made flesh; John has borne witness to him as the Lamb of God; Christ has begun to gather his disciples as witnesses to him as the Messiah; the first sign, at the wedding in Cana, presupposes the transcendence of all the established religion of the day in the self-offering of the Lamb of God, symbolised in the Eucharist; and the cleansing of the Temple shows that the sacrificial system is being replaced by the one true sacrifice in Christ’s death and resurrection.

Now we have an encounter with someone whose immediate concerns are with the interpretation and the application of the law, for Nicodemus is both a Pharisee and a member of the ruling Sanhedrin.

This is the only Gospel to tell the story of Nicodemus, although some commentators have sought to identify him also with the rich young ruler in Saint Mark’s Gospel (see Mark 10: 17 ff) or with other figures in the synoptic Gospels.

Verse 1:

Nicodemus is a leader of the Jews (ἄρχων τῶν Ἰουδαίων), in other words a member of the Sanhedrin, the official Jewish court made up of seventy priests, scribes and elders and presided over by the High Priest.

Verse 2:

Nicodemus comes to Christ by night. Perhaps, as a leading member of society, a very worldly figure perhaps, he did not want to be seen consulting this newly-arrived rabbi who has already caused a stir in Jerusalem. But remember the poetic and dramatic way in which John draws on contrasting images: heaven and earth, water and wine, seeing and believing, faith and understanding, truth and falseness. Here we have the contrast between darkness and light. The world that is in darkness is being brought into the light of Christ.

Nicodemus opens the conversation by referring to the signs, an important theme and key to understanding the Fourth Gospel. And he confesses a simple faith in Christ as a teacher sent by God. But Saint John the Baptist has already been described as a man sent by God (John 1: 6). So that is not enough – that is simply an understanding of Christ without the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. At this point, Nicodemus has seen but he does not believe; he has insight, but he does not have faith.

Verse 3:

The reply from Jesus puts the emphasis back on faith rather than on understanding, on believing more than seeing. The Kingdom of God is not entered because of moral achievement, but because of transformation brought about by God.

This shift in emphasis on believing rather that seeing is repeated throughout this Gospel, and reaches its climax when Thomas refuses to believe without seeing, but then confesses his faith in Christ as “My Lord and my God!” (John 20: 28).

There is a contrast between what Nicodemus sees and what those of faith may see. To “see” the Kingdom of God is not possible literally at that moment in time. For Christ, in this saying, to see is to experience. To experience the world in the light of the insights of the New Testament is so radically different an experience that it is like being born anew, being born once again.

The key word here is ἄνωθεν which has the double meaning of “from above” and “again.” The words translated as “being born from above” in NRSV (γεννηθῇ ἄνωθεν) could also be translated as “born anew” (RSV). Or it may mean “from the upper country” (physically or geographically), or “from above,” “from heaven.”

A new birth, a second birth, getting a whole new take on life, a new beginning, a fresh, refreshing start … what do you think is meant here? What has been your experience?

Verse 4:

As we go on in the story, we see how difficult it was for Nicodemus to understand what Christ was saying.

Verse 5:

Entry into the kingdom experience, birth into the new order, is through water, or baptism (see John 1: 33; Ephesians 5: 26) and through the Spirit (see Ezekiel 36: 25-27; Titus 3: 6-7). These are not separate actions – remember how the Spirit descended and remained on Christ at his Baptism by John (see John 1: 32-34).

Verse 6:

Like begets like.

Verse 7:

You: the Greek pronoun here (ὑμᾶς) is in the plural, or as it might be written in Dublin slang, “yous.”

Verse 8:

The wind (πνεῦμα): the Greek word here means both spirit and wind, while the word “sound” can also be translated as “voice.”

See Ezekiel 36: 25-27, where it says: “I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanliness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.”

Verse 9:

Nicodemus has floundered around; he really fails to grasp what Jesus is saying and its implications. His question is phrased: “How can this be?” (RSV), or: “How can these things be?” (NRSV). Others suggest that his question should be translated as: “How can these things happen?” or even more literally: “How is it possible for these things to happen?”

Verse 10:

A teacher ought to be aware of the truth. But Nicodemus is behaving like a weak pupil.

Verse 11:

In this verse, the first use of the word “you” is singular … “you yourself” as opposed to “yous,” but the second use is plural. Notice how Jesus moves from the second person singular to the first personal plural, from “you” to we, then “you” (plural) and “our”.

Who is the “we” here, who owns what is ‘our’?

Verse 12:

We have here a contrast between earthly things, such as the parable of the wind (see verse 8), and heavenly things, as in supreme spiritual realities. And Nicodemus is offered a choice. Which choice does he make?

Verse 13:

Christ descended from heaven to bring eternal life, participation in God’s life.

This is the first of Saint John’s three sayings about the Son of Man being lifted up, and is comparable to three passages in Saint Mark’s Gospel on the Son of Man’s passion (see Mark 8: 31; Mark 9: 31; Mark 10: 33).

Verse 14:

The word “lift up” refers to both Christ being lifted up on the Cross and Christ being lifted up into heaven … the cross is the first step on the ladder of the ascension. For the imagery being drawn on here see also Numbers 21: 4-9. The writer of the Book of Wisdom calls the serpent a symbol of salvation (Wisdom 16: 6). But this verse also recalls the earlier remark to Nathanael that he would see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man (see John 1: 51).

‘God so loved man (humanity)’ ... Guizhou Theological Training Centre in Guiyang Province in central China (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Verse 16:

For many, this verse is a summary of the whole Gospel. Martin Luther called this much-quoted verse “the Gospel in miniature.”

This passage is a favourite inscription to place on the outside walls of churches in China. But it is often translated in Chinese as “God so loved man (humanity) …” It is not that God so loved the saved, or even all of humanity, or even the world, but that God so loved the cosmos (κόσμος), the whole created order, that he gave, or rather sent (ἔδωκεν, from δίδωμι) his only-begotten Son.

The statue of Pythagoras by Nikolaos Ikaris (1989) on the harbour front in Pythagóreio on the Greek island of Samos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In Pythagorean thinking – and remember that John was in exile on Patmos, the neighbouring island of Samos, where Pythagoras was born – the cosmos (κόσμος) includes the arrangement of the stars, “the heavenly hosts,” as the ornament of the heavens (see I Peter 3: 3). It is not just the whole world, but the whole universe, the whole created order. It is earth and all that encircles the earth like its skin.

And this love is the beginning of missio Dei, God’s mission – he sent (ἔδωκεν, from δίδωμι) his only-begotten Son.

To perish and to have eternal life are absolute alternatives.

By now the dialogue has become a monologue.

Verse 17:

The same Greek word means both condemnation and judgment. God’s purpose is not to condemn but to save.

Conclusion:

Nicodemus carrying myrrh and aloes to prepare Christ’s body for burial … the lower right section of the ninth window in Saint John’s College Chapel, Cambridge (Photograph: the Revd Stephen Day)

So what happened to Nicodemus?

And what makes this an appropriate Gospel reading at an early stage in Lent?

This is his first of three appearances in this Gospel. We shall meet him again when he states the law concerning the arrest of Jesus during the Feast of Tabernacles (John 7:45-51).

Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea claim the Body of Christ before dark falls

The third time follows the Crucifixion, when he helps Joseph of Arimathea in taking the body of Christ down from the cross before dark, and preparing the body for burial (John 19: 39-42).

Compare the unfolding faith of Nicodemus in these three encounters with the way Peter is going to deny Christ three times.

So, in this Gospel reading, in the story of Nicodemus, birth is linked with death, new birth is linked with new life, and before darkness falls he really comes to possess the Body of Christ, to hold the Body of Christ in his hands.

It is an appropriate Gospel reading for an early stage of Lent, as we prepare to recall the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ.

Collect:

Almighty God,
you show to those who are in error the light of your truth
that they may return to the way of righteousness:
Grant to all those who are admitted
into the fellowship of Christ’s religion,
that they may reject those things
that are contrary to their profession,
and follow all such things
as are agreeable to the same;
through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Post Communion Prayer:

Creator of heaven and earth,
we thank you for these holy mysteries
given us by our Lord Jesus Christ,
by which we receive your grace
and are assured of your love,
which is through him now and for ever.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor, Trinity College Dublin. This essay is based on notes prepared for a Bible Study with MTh students in a tutorial group on Saturday 8 March 2014.

Art for Lent (4): ‘Still life with
Bible’ by Vincent van Gogh

‘Still life with Bible’ (1885) by Vincent van Gogh

Patrick Comerford

As I prepare for a Bible study with part-time students this morning [8 March 2014], my choice of a painting for a Lenten meditation this morning is Still life with Bible (1885) by Vincent van Gogh. I saw this painting some years ago in the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. It is in oil on canvas and measures 65.7 × 78.5 cm.

Vincent van Gogh completed this painting of his father’s Dutch Authorised Bible a few months after the sudden death of his father, the Revd Theodorus van Gogh (1822-1885).

The Revd Theodorus van Gogh was born on 8 February 1822, one of 11 children and the only one of six sons to follow their father into ordained ministry. He studied theology at Utrecht, and in 1849 was appointed a minister Groot-Zundert, a small village in North Brabant on the border of the Netherlands with Belgium.

In May 1851, Theodorus van Gogh married Anna Cornelia Carbentus, the daughter of Willem Carbentus, a bookbinder who had bound the first Constitution of Holland, and so became the “book-binder to the King.”

Although he was not a gifted preacher, Theodorus van Gogh is said to have had a loving nature and fine spiritual qualities, and for 20 years he lived forgotten in the little village of Zundert before moving to other small villages, including Etten, Helvoirt,and Nuenen.

In his small circle, he was warmly loved and respected, and it is said his children idolised him. According to Johanna van Gogh, Theodorus was a handsome man. He had an amiable character and fine spiritual qualities. He died suddenly on 26 March 1885.

Theodorus and Anna were very happy in their married life, and she shared in his work with all her heart. She visited his parishioners with him; and her cheerful, lively spirit was never damped by quiet village life. In her old age, even after her husband’s death and the death of three adult sons, Anna retained her energy and spirit and bore her sorrow with rare courage.

In this painting by Vincent van Gogh, the Bible symbolises his father’s faith, which van Gogh saw as mired in convention. The Bible is open at Isaiah 53.

This Bible is a 19th century reprint of the States Bible, or Dutch Authorised Bible, published in 1714 by Jacob and Pieter Keur. A crack in the spine still causes the book to fall open at Isaiah 53, precisely the page at which the Bible lies open in the painting. During the 1980s, Vincent’s father’s Bible was found at the Remonstrant Congregation in Leiden. Its provenance was established by the handwritten note at the front: “Ths. van Gogh latterly minister at Nuenen 1885.”

Van Gogh placed a cheap, unbound edition of Émile Zola’s novel, La Joie de vivre (The Joy of Living), beside the open Bible. This novel, published a year earlier in 1884, is less light-hearted than the title suggests. It describes the life of a bigoted, middle-class family who cheat an orphaned cousin out of her inheritance. One of the main characters is Pauline Quenu, an orphan who forsakes her own pleasures to care for others. Rather than a contrast between old religion and modernism, van Gogh actually saw a thread connecting the two: the attractiveness of a life lived for others.

Some say the burned out candle may symbolise the end of his father’s life or, perhaps, Van Gogh’s loss of faith and the darkness this brought him. But van Gogh explained it himself two years later in a letter to his sister Wilhelmina. “The work of the French naturalists, Zola, Flaubert, Guy de Maupassant, de Goncourt is magnificent. Is the Bible enough for us?” he asked. “In these days, I believe Jesus himself would say to those who sit down in a state of melancholy, ‘It is not here, get up and go forth. Why do you seek the living among the dead?’ ”

He continued: “If the spoken or written word is to remain the light of the world, then it is our right and our duty to acknowledge that we are living in a period when it should be spoken and written in such a way that in order to find something equally great, and equally good, and equally original, and equally powerful to revolutionise the whole of society we may compare it with a clear conscience to the old revolution of the Christians.”
In fact, van Gogh remained fond of the Bible. In the same letter he wrote: “I myself am always glad that I have read the Bible more thoroughly than many people nowadays, because it eases my mind somewhat to know that there were once such lofty ideas.”

The Bible is open at Isaiah 53, the messianic Psalm of the Suffering Servant. This is an appropriate passage for reading in these of Lent, and is provided for Good Friday in the Revised Common Lectionary.

Isaiah 53:

Who has believed what we have heard?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by others;
a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;
and as one from whom others hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him of no account.

Surely he has borne our infirmities
and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have all turned to our own way,
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
By a perversion of justice he was taken away.
Who could have imagined his future?
For he was cut off from the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people.
They made his grave with the wicked
and his tomb with the rich,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Tomorrow:Driven by the Spirit into the Wilderness’ (1942), by Stanley Spencer (1891-1959).