The Rev. Noah Van Niel
The Chapel of the Cross
March 8th, 2020
Lent II (A): Genesis 12:1-4a; Psalm 121; Romans 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3: 1-17
“So Abram went.” Friends, I would submit to you that these three words, and the preceding three verses in Chapter 12 of Genesis, are the most consequential words ever written in human history. That’s right. I can already see your fingers itching to send me an email telling me how wrong I am. But before you do, note that I did not say it was the most famous, or the most eloquent, or the most enlightening, text ever written. I said it was the most consequential. Because what you have in these few words is the first statement of the Abrahamic covenant; the moment the one God reached out to this one man and promised him everything, if he would leave it all behind and follow Him. And despite all the questions Abram must have had, “he went.” And from that moment flow three of the most consequential religions in the history of humankind: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Together they currently account for more than half the world’s population, and through their combined history have shaped more lives and societies than any other social force, ever. And they all trace their roots to right here, to Abram (who, of course, we know better by his later name, Abraham.) And what they celebrate about him, specifically, was his faith.
I find this somewhat strange because Abraham’s faith is patently absurd. God told him to leave the safety and familiarity of his homeland and his family to head for who-knows-where; and even though his wife was old and barren God promised to make of him a great nation; and even though he was a nobody, God promised to make him famous, and make him the conduit of blessing to all the peoples of the earth. It’s absurd. It doesn’t make any sense. If Abraham came to you and told you all this, you would think he was crazy. And yet here he is, celebrated by the majority of the world as the prototype of what it means to have faith. Because the reality is, faith always has an element of the absurd to it. It’s part of its nature. It inevitably requires a suspension of the rational and thus you can never completely understand it. You can’t think your way into faith. The famous 19th century Danish philosopher and theologian, Soren Kierkegaard makes this exact point in his classic book, Fear and Trembling. The book is a slim, but densely packed character study of Abraham in which Kierkegaard writes, “I can’t understand Abraham. I can only admire him” (137).[1]
And yet, despite its inherently irrational nature and the fact that we are inherently rational beings, faith persists. It has persisted across human history in vastly different contexts from the earliest human societies to the present day. It coalesced around Abraham in a major way, but it didn’t start with him. Faith has proven so persistent and so pervasive in human history that some scientists argue it must be in our DNA; our spirituality inscribed in our cells. This has fueled the search for the “God gene.” I’m not sure our capacity for faith will be proven in our genetics. But it does seem apparent that there’s something in us, not all of us, obviously, but many of us, maybe even most of us, that seems wired to believe there is something else out there, something more than just what we can see, and feel, and explain. Faith has always been a part of who we are.
Thus, the paradox. Faith is as undeniable as it is unexplainable. We admire Abraham without understanding him, because there is a part of us that feels he hit on something deeply true, that resonates with us, but we also resist it, because it violates our reason, the thing we hold onto to keep us sane and safe. How then should we proceed? Well, in the face of this paradox, I find it helpful to think of faith not as a thing to wrap our minds around, but as a thing to wrap our hearts around. Which is a non-rational, but still very real way of knowing something. Kierkegaard calls faith a “passion,” in fact he calls it the “highest passion of the human being” (151). It’s a “movement of the heart,” he says, not the head. A work of the Spirit, you might say. In this way it’s very much like love—another passion, another movement of the heart—not completely understandable, at times infuriatingly irrational, occasionally dangerous, but undeniably real, and everlasting.
This distinction—that faith is a movement of the heart, not the head; a work of the spirit, not the flesh—is what I think Jesus was trying to get Nicodemus to understand in their encounter from our Gospel passage today. Nicodemus is a high level religious official who has examined the evidence and wants to better understand who Jesus is and what he’s doing: “We’ve seen what you’re doing and it certainly presents as if you are a teacher who has come from God,” he asserts. “No,” Jesus responds, “to really know me, to really see the Kingdom of God, you have to be born from above.” “That doesn’t make any sense,” Nicodemus responds. “You can’t be born a second time.” “Yes, you can,” Jesus says. “It is a work of the Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh. What is understandable, what is rational will lead you only to things you can understand. I’m trying to tell you, you need to give yourself over to the mysterious workings of the Spirit, which you can neither understand, nor control, but which you also cannot deny. Like the wind, you feel it, you hear it, you can see its power, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. That’s what it’s like to be born of the Spirit.” “I don’t get it,” Nicodemus says. “(Sigh). I know,” says Jesus. “I can’t even get you to understand about earthly things—things you can see, and touch. How will you ever understand these heavenly things?”
Jesus is frustrated. Because he’s running up against the problem that everyone faces when it comes to faith: you cannot explain someone into it. Even Jesus can’t make Nicodemus understand faith, in the rational sense. But rather than give up Jesus takes a different tack. Instead of trying to explain to him something as mysterious and strange as the workings of the Spirit, he tries to make him feel it, tries to stir his heart with his words, in the hopes that then Nicodemus might finally understand what he’s talking about. “Nicodemus, listen,” he says, “It’s like this. For God so loved world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” This is a new slant on that old covenant between God and Abraham. This is what we are invited to give our lives to in an act of surrender, not understanding. That there is a God. That that God loves the world, and therefore, loves you! That that loving God participated fully in our human existence in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. That he did that for you, so that you and everyone might know that death is not the end, and that life goes on in the perfect company of God. Jesus is speaking straight into his heart, right into his Spirit, hoping to kindle the flame of faith in the tinderbox of his soul. Like all statements of faith, it’s absurd. Any one of those phrases violate all sorts of rational arguments and understandings. Taken all together they are ridiculous. And yet they persist. And they don’t just persist, they may be the second most consequential words penned in human history (perhaps). Not because they make you understand the Christian faith but because they make you feel it. These are heavenly words about heavenly things. And somehow, despite their absurdity, they speak to us; speak to the center of our souls. This is a promise to fall in love with, to give yourself to, to believe in.
John’s Gospel doesn’t record any response from Nicodemus in this moment. The scene changes, the story moves on, and Nicodemus slips back into the night from which he came. But he resurfaces in chapter 7. He’s not with the disciples, though. He’s still as a member of the council, the group that is trying to arrest Jesus. In that scene Nicodemus speaks up, meekly, to say that they shouldn’t just arrest him without a trial. This invites the mockery and scorn of his colleagues and we are left to ask, is he yet a believer or is he just trying to uphold the rule of law? It’s unclear. And it remains unclear all the way until chapter 19. Jesus is dead on the cross. Everyone has abandoned him. Joseph of Arimathea comes to take the body and bury it. And who, in this moment of crisis, this moment of despair, of public humiliation and death, comes to help him? Nicodemus. No longer hidden by the shadows of night, no longer offering just an ineffective, moderating voice, but now a fully-fledged disciple for all to see. Carrying the body of this convicted criminal like that of a king, and wrapping it tenderly in linen and spices, and laying it in a virgin tomb. Years had passed since he heard the promise, but here he was, finally following his heart, and not his head, and giving his life to it in love. There’s no way he could have known what was going to happen three days later. But he believed, finally, he believed.
When Abraham heard God’s promise, he
went. His response was immediate. He gave himself to that covenant despite its
absurdity and it was reckoned to him as righteousness, as Paul says. Good for
him. That is why he became the father of the faithful and changed the course of
human history. But in my experience, most of us are more like Nicodemus when it
comes to faith. We struggle to believe. We want to understand and are hesitant
to give in to that movement of the heart, that work of the Spirit. We inch our
way to the edge of the diving board we don’t sprint off the end. Because it
doesn’t quite make sense. And we’re not really sure what will happen when we
take that leap. If we are going to do it, we want to have first completely exhausted
our reason and see if we still find ourselves left with that niggling suspicion
that there is more out there beyond the hazy horizon of our understanding. For
most of us, faith is hard won, and hard kept.
Perhaps for those of us who experience faith in that way, who are more
Nicodemus than Abraham, perhaps we can find some assurance in his slow
surrender, some confidence that it is no less valuable, no less true. Because
no matter how much fear and trembling we must suffer through, or how much we
struggle to fall in love with it, the echo of that absurd and profound promise whispers
in our hearts for as long it takes for us to believe it….“For God so loved the
world.” Amen.
[1] Kierkegaard, Soren. Fear and Trembling (trans Alastair Hannay). Penguin Books, New York NY, 2006.