In the name of Jesus.

Our gospel story of Nicodemus meeting Jesus in the dark of night has all the makings of the opening of a good cloak-and-dagger mystery movie. Nicodemus the Pharisee comes to Jesus by night, implying a secret meeting. Why this secrecy, why this cover of night?

It is no small detail that Nicodemus is introduced in this story as a Pharisee and a "leader of the Jews." All four gospels portray the Pharisees as being in conflict with Jesus. To their credit, the Pharisees were the protectors of the traditions of Israel when Israel was conquered and exiled from their homeland in the Old Testament. If it wasn't for the Pharisees, much of what we know as the Old Testament, and much of ancient Jewish law and tradition, would have been lost.

The problem was, by the time of Jesus, the Pharisees had strayed from being the protectors of tradition, to believing they were the only truly righteous people in all of Judaism because of their inflexible attachment to tradition. Observance of ritual and of traditional ways of doing things had become more important than the needs and welfare of the people; and the Pharisees' feelings of personal righteousness became distorted into self-righteousness, a sense of moral superiority over everyone else.

So, Nicodemus is a Pharisee, a leader of the Jews, one of a powerful leadership group in conflict with Jesus. If he simply wanted to denounce Jesus, or try to embarrass him, wouldn't that be better done in public, with as many witnesses as possible? Why this skulking around in the shadows?

These first two sentences tip us off that Nicodemus came with a special agenda, with a curiosity about Jesus and what Jesus was doing and teaching that would be "unbecoming a Pharisee" were he to ask these question in public.

Nicodemus begins with a compliment which is a thinly veiled put-down. "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." In other words, "OK, so you're a good teacher, but you're not God."

THAT is the question of the whole New Testament. IS Jesus the promised Messiah - or not? IS Jesus a rare and inspiring teacher, or is Jesus God? It is THE question that separates the major religions of the world to this day.

Nicodemus' bottom-line question is this: Is Jesus-the-rabbi to submit to the authority of the religious tradition, or is tradition to submit to the authority of Jesus-God?

If he is simply a skilled and popular teacher, it stands to reason that he would stand under the authority of "the church." If Jesus is just a teacher, this business of breaking the Sabbath laws by healing on the Sabbath or feeding the hungry on the Sabbath; this business of ignoring laws of ritual cleanness by hob-knobbing with sinners and women and non-Jews and the diseased has got to stop. Good teacher or not, he has to obey the laws and observe the traditions just like everyone else.

But if Jesus is the Messiah/God, then not only the people of God, not only the Pharisees, but even the very religious establishment with all of its laws and traditions must submit to Jesus as the anointed and ultimate authority. The godly life, whether we're talking about personal life or congregational life, is not one of rigid legalism and authoritarianism. "What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit," Jesus tells Nicodemus. "Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.' The wind blows where it chooses, and your 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."

In other words, human rituals and traditions, even religious ones, are just that - man-made. ("What is born of the flesh is flesh.") God's Spirit of love and grace cannot be bound by such things, but will "blow where it chooses." We see the evidence of it, but we are not in control of it, and we never will control the mind and will of God no matter how many laws we issue or how many traditions we insist upon. When we are truly living "in the Spirit" of God, our rigidity and authoritarianism give way to Christ's authority -- divine authority marked not by inflexibility and legalism, but by unconditional love, and grace.

Nicodemus asks, "How can this be?" Jesus, perhaps in a rare moment of sarcasm, responds, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?" You, who pride yourself on your education and your authority as an expert of Scripture and religious law? You just proved my point: you know everything there is to know about legalism, but you don't know the heart of God. Then Jesus sums up everything he is trying to teach Nicodemus (and us) with these powerful words:

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.

And why always we omit his next sentence when we quote this verse I will never understand. Jesus continues,

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

Nicodemus and the other Pharisees were so hung up on rules, law, and tradition that they missed the heart of faith: God's forgiving love that frees us to live as sons and daughters of God. It's similar to the musical genius of Johann Sebastian Bach. We know him as one of the musical masters of all time. But (you'll never believe this) the parishioners at St. Thomas Church where he was organist often complained about the new hymns that Bach wrote each Sunday! They could see him, they could hear him, but they couldn't accept him as a gifted musician in their midst. After his death, the music of Bach was seldom performed, until Felix Mendelssohn began a Bach revival 75-80 years after Bach's death, which has lasted into our own time. And now we are proud to claim him as one of the greatest of all Lutherans!

Nicodemus could not let go of the authority and power issues that had been nurtured in him as a Pharisee for most of his life. He could see Jesus; he could hear Jesus. But he could not accept a God who isn't bound by law and human tradition. He could accept Jesus as a human teacher, even as an exceptionally good teacher, but he could not accept Jesus as God, with a higher authority than the law and tradition, which had guided him all his life.

It is right there that Nicodemus' and our lives intersect:

• At what point did you answer the question of the authority of Jesus in your life? We're ok with Jesus as Savior. But to say "Jesus is Lord" assumes an intentional obedience on our part. Do you grant Jesus Lordship, do you seek to be obedient to Christ in your decision-making, your lifestyle choices, how you administer what has been given you in trust - your time, your talents, your wealth? Or, if we were totally honest, on an average day do we really regard Jesus like Nicodemus did, as an exceptionally gifted teacher, whose teachings we take and leave as it suits us?
• What does it mean to be "born from above" in our baptism? What does it look like to live your earthly life as a citizen of the Kingdom of God?
• Are you and I able to do any more easily what Nicodemus could not do? Are we any better able to give up our own power issues, or our legalism regarding man-made traditions, especially in the life of the church, in order to embrace the newness that Jesus always brings?

The Lutheran baptism liturgy declares: "We are born children of a fallen humanity. In the waters of baptism, we are reborn (or born from above) children of God and inheritors of eternal life." Luther explained that by saying when we were born from above in baptism, our old selfish self was drowned with Christ, and we were raised from death by that same baptism in order to live a new life on this side of heaven.

Luther didn't understand being born from above as a one-time dunk, but insisted that we must die every day to our selfish, sinful self, and rise again with Jesus. This isn't a "downer," this is good news! It helps us keep from being what Nicodemus had become - a well-positioned person in life and the synagogue/church, yet so set in his religious ways that he was utterly out of touch with God.

The gospel story of Jesus and Nicodemus meeting at night teaches us something very powerful about what it means to accept Jesus as more than a teacher, but as our Lord, the authority for our lives and the life of his church - not so he can catch us being bad, not to condemn us, but to save us from our small selves and fill us to overflowing with the living spirit of Jesus. What is more inspiring, more energizing than a spirit-drenched, fresh wind blowing through our lives and the life of the church? After all, that is exactly how the Book of Acts describes Pentecost, the birth of the church. May we too, as Christians and as the church of Christ, be "born from above" again and again, to the glory of Christ our Savior and Lord. Amen.