{"id":551,"date":"2026-03-06T10:39:25","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T15:39:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/?p=551"},"modified":"2026-03-06T10:39:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T15:39:27","slug":"conversations-before-the-cross-2-nicodemus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/2026\/03\/06\/conversations-before-the-cross-2-nicodemus\/","title":{"rendered":"Conversations Before the Cross #2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Lent-2A-Conversations-Before-the-Cross-1.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Sermon for the First Congregational Church of Albany, NY<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">by Rev. James Eaton, Pastor<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu\/texts\/?z=l&amp;d=26&amp;y=17134\">Second Sunday in Lent\/A \u2022 March 1, 2026<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The black and white flickering picture on the screen highlights the dark points of farm implements, makes the wrinkles on faces stand out, tells us the movie is sometimes long ago. It\u2019s the beginning of the Wizard of Oz, but it begins with the dust and dreary farm and the harsh black and white light. We\u2019re in Kansas in the depression. Dark clouds forming a funnel, an image burned on everyone who\u2019s ever lived in tornado country as disaster in motion, and suddenly the house is lifted, Dorothy with it, whirling through the air. When it lands and she opens the door suddenly the world is transformed: it\u2019s now in color. Perhaps you know the story, how Dorothy sets off to find the wizard and a way home. Along the way she meets the Scarecrow, who wants a brain, the Tin Man, who desires a heart and the Cowardly Lion who begs for courage. Each is invited to come along and each has to ask the same question this conversation asks us: do you believe in the possibility of transformation? Can the world change color, can the leopard change his spots, can the whole world change\u2014can you change?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s the question Nicodemus is left pondering. He comes to Jesus at night, when good Jewish men are locked up in their gated homes. He is a substantial man, well off, presumably married with kids at home. He\u2019s respected, a leader in his community and his synagogue. Yet something brings him out, some need, some emptiness. Long after Nicodemus, St. Augustine would write, \u201cLord, you have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you.\u201d [Augustine, Confessions 1.1.1] Perhaps he has a restless heart. Perhaps he\u2019s just curious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He comes to Jesus with courtesy, calling him Rabbi, a term of respect, roughly comparable to \u201cReverend\u201d or \u201cTeacher\u201d, and he says that he knows Jesus \u201ccame from God\u201d. He\u2019s been impressed by the signs Jesus has done. Presumably, he means the healing which was an important part of Jesus\u2019 ministry. He doesn\u2019t ask a question; he simply comes. What would you have asked? What do you want to know from Jesus? Perhaps Jesus is used to such seekers; perhaps he simply sees the restless heart before him. He says, simply, directly: &#8220;Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What do you hear Jesus saying? We are so used to American cultural religion with its emphasis on what we do, on the gospel of achievement applied to salvation, that we may hear the familiar phrase, \u201cYou must be born again.\u201d But that\u2019s not what Jesus says. First, he doesn\u2019t command anything. There\u2019s no imperative here. It\u2019s a simple, flat statement: \u201cNo one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above.\u201d I think Nicodemus must have heard the born again part, as we often do. Because he immediately focuses on the physical: no one can be born again he says. We apply the same thought, often, to ourselves. Nicodemus makes the obvious argument: grown up, grown old, we can\u2019t go back ad start over. \u201cHow can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother&#8217;s womb and be born?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Isn\u2019t this really what most of us think? You are born, you grow up, you learn things, you experience things. You have some tough times; you have some good times. At times you prosper, at other times you don\u2019t. Through it all you accumulate all those bits and pieces that make you, you. And among them are some scars, some injuries that left a mark. Maybe it was a marriage that didn\u2019t work out; maybe it was a loss, maybe it was a friend who isn\u2019t a friend any longer. Maybe you never quite lived out some dream you had earlier on. How do you go back and restart&nbsp; after all that? I\u2019ll tell you a secret only two people in the world know: I wasn\u2019t that great a parent to my oldest child. I didn\u2019t know how to be a parent, I certainly didn\u2019t know how to parent a girl. I didn\u2019t tell her how proud she made me nearly enough, and I wasn\u2019t kind enough, and I didn\u2019t know how when she raged to think, \u201cWell, she\u2019s 13, it\u2019s just hormones,\u201d and walk away, so I yelled back. I\u2019d give a lot to&nbsp; go back and change that. But I can\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Maybe you have something like that, something you wish had been different but never will be. So maybe you agree with Nicodemus: you can\u2019t go back. If you do, then it\u2019s so important that you listen closely to what Jesus says. Because you and I and Nicodemus have all misunderstood Jesus if we thought he was talking about going back. He says,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8216;You must be born from above.&#8217;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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.\u201d [John 3:8]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jesus isn\u2019t talking about being born again at all. He\u2019s talking about being born of the Spirit: being reborn. Jesus isn\u2019t talking about undoing the past: he\u2019s asking about the future. The wind blows where it will: it\u2019s hard to predict, it\u2019s hard to see. So is the future, and the question isn\u2019t what about the past, but what are you going to do about the future? Can you live as someone born new today from God\u2019s Spirit?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This starts with seeing. How many of God\u2019s blessings do you see each day? How do you see other people. We are being asked today by a great political movement to see people of other faiths, Muslims particularly, as fearful. Do you see others, strangers, as children of God, the same God who loves you? Can you see this way? Can you start, not over, but fresh each day, freshly looking out for what God is doing. There was a moment when Western surgeons learned to treat cataracts which were often the cause of people being blind from birth. Annie Dillard talks about some of these people in <em>Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,<\/em> concluding with this case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2026a twenty-two-year-old girl was dazzled by the world\u2019s brightness and kept her eyes shut for two weeks. When at the end of that time she opened her eyes again, she did not recognize any objects, but \u2018the more she now directed her gaze upon everything about her, the more it could be seen how an expression of gratification and astonishment overspread her features. She repeatedly exclaimed,<br \/>\u2018O God! How beautiful!\u2019 [Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, p. 30f]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jesus invites Nicodemus&nbsp; to a new life, not to a do over of his old life; not to be born again but to be born from above, into a new spiritual life.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This, he says, is his purpose:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And the first step is to believe and begin the journey.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What happened to Nicodemus? We don\u2019t know; the gospel never mentions him again. But sometimes it takes a while for the seeds of the spirit to sprout and blossom and bear fruit. There is a moment when the Tin Man, the Scare Crow and the Cowardly Lion think the gifts they seek, the new life they hoped to find, will never happen. What happens then? The wizard gives them each a gift to recognize the gifts they already have. The Scarecrow gets a degree, the Tin Man a heart and the Lion a medal for courage. What about you? What would it take to change your life? What would it take for you to believe that\u2019s possible, that you can be born from above?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Perhaps it is to simply to see God\u2019s love, the way that girl saw the world. Maybe one of your wounds is that somewhere along the way, someone suggested God was sitting like a judge, writing up everything you\u2019d ever done wrong. Maybe your list is long. Then listen: God is here, not to judge, but to love; God is here, not to judge, but to save. God is here, inviting you to start fresh today. God is here: how beautiful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Sermon for the First Congregational Church of Albany, NY by Rev. James Eaton, Pastor Second Sunday in Lent\/A \u2022 March 1, 2026 The black and white flickering picture on the screen highlights the dark points of farm implements, makes the wrinkles on faces stand out, tells us the movie is sometimes long ago. It\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[346,12,3,13,2,69],"tags":[85,86,81,83,84,87],"class_list":["post-551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-john","category-lent","category-sermon","category-theology","category-worship","category-year-a","tag-born-again","tag-change","tag-conversations-before-the-cross","tag-monologue","tag-nicodemus","tag-renewal"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2027,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551\/revisions\/2027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}