Grace in the Night
When I was a little girl, I absolutely dreaded bedtime. I was frightened of the darkness and the monsters who lurked there. I was frightened of nightmares and I was frustrated that I couldn’t prevent them. And, I was convinced that all the worst things happened at night: storms, illness, phone calls with terrible news. I did anything I could think of to put off going to bed. I feigned illness to keep my parents busy taking my temperature. I volunteered to do chores after dinner. I would start a movie half an hour before my bedtime and then beg my parents to let me finish it.
And the agony did not stop once I’d finally succumbed to my bed. Some nights, I would lie awake for hours, ruminating about stressful things, willing sleep to take over.
Eventually, of course, I would drift off. But every once in a while, either from too much caffeine or the mighty force of childhood fear, I would stay awake just long enough to reach a breaking point. All of sudden, in the middle of the night, while I was staring into the terrifying darkness, the fear would drain out of me like a fever breaking, and the darkness and I would accept and embrace one another. My unlit room would become beautiful to me and my mind would come alive. Some of my life's best thoughts and ideas have come from these late night liaisons with the darkest, scariest parts of the world and my own soul.
As I got older, I found this experience in other places. Once, I found it while gathered with family in a hospital lobby in the middle of the night, waiting for news of a loved one. We were hungry, exhausted, in desperate need of a shower, and staring into the darkness of the fate that might await us when the doctor returned with news. But then, a shared memory suddenly sent us into a fit of giggles, and we found release from the tension.
A few years later, I found it in a library study carrel, again in the middle of the night. My college classmates and I stared into the darkness of all the material we needed to comprehend by morning, and the impossibility of retaining it all in the next few hours. And then, someone threw their notes in the air and announced it was time to give up and go to Waffle House, and we all gleefully marched out the door.
I call this phenomenon “grace in the night.” Our world is filled to overflowing with examples of God’s grace, that free and unearned expression of God’s love that Paul tries to explain in his letter to the Romans we heard today. Grace is not transactional, Paul tells us. We can't earn it or even predict it, we just have to trust it. We experience moments of grace in the most unexpected places. The lovely scent of your favorite flower. The humor in a joke. The very fact that you were born. These are all examples of God's grace. But grace in the night is special. Sometimes, we have to be submerged in darkness to notice the light of God’s grace.
Today’s Gospel passage takes place under cover of darkness. We are introduced to Nicodemus, a Pharisee. He's a leader in the community. He is strong in his faith, and he believes in his Jewish tradition. He's a rule follower. Nicodemus knows that Jesus is trouble, that he threatens their already precarious way of life under Roman oppression. But he’s also irresistibly drawn to Christ’s message.
Earlier this week, I heard Nicodemus compared to a small child peeking out from behind the legs of a parent: terrified yet unable to look away. He disagrees with much of what Jesus says, and doesn’t understand most of the rest of it, and yet, here we find him, sneaking out in the middle of the night, against his better judgement, risking his life and career, to stare down the darkness with Christ.
We meet the two of them deep in discussion in the wee hours of the morning. Nicodemus has asked again and again for Jesus to explain this idea of rebirth in a way that makes sense, and Jesus replies, “listen, if you haven't understood yet, the best I can give you is to remember Moses and the serpent.” Nicodemus, we presume, knows exactly what Jesus is referring to. He’s a Pharisee after all. But we might need a little reminder.
In their long trip through the wilderness, the Israelites had it rough. And they brought worse conditions upon themselves by ignoring God and forgetting to be grateful. After a pretty significant temper tantrum which they expect Moses to relate in full to God for them, the Israelites are beset with venomous snakes. Now I suspect that if I were bitten by a snake, I might well develop an aversion to them. If I were bitten by a snake, I might work as hard to avoid them in the future as I did to avoid my dark bedroom at night as a child. But no such luck for the Israelites.
God sends Moses a golden serpent, a symbol of the thing the Israelites fear most, and God says that to be healed from a snake bite, they have to look right at it. In other words, in order to come out of their darkness, they had to stare it down. The source of their fear is also the source of their grace. It will be the same for you, Jesus tells Nicodemus. It will be the same for anyone who endures pain, who fears darkness, who walks through the unknown toward the Cross.
We are not without our own darkness today. Lent is not a season of ease. Maintaining our Lenten disciplines is tough. Committing to extra devotional practices, in addition to the high demands of our lives in springtime, is no small feat. Add to that, we’re in a election year, in which tensions are high and it's harder than ever to show even the slightest shred of kindness to our political opponents. And in the past few weeks, a growing global epidemic has made us fear for our safety and the safety of those we love. Truly, we are all Nicodemus, peering out into the night, hoping against hope for a message of comfort and reassurance from our God.
Faithful as ever, God sends us the same message that Nicodemus and Moses and all of our ancestors have heard: the source of our fear will be the source of our grace, grace in the night. While the unknown darkness of illness, injustice, and death can leave us paralyzed with fear, following the way of the Cross means staring down that darkness together. For only then will the light of God’s grace be revealed.
Take heart, because grace in the night is nothing if not Good News. I have been worshiping and serving God among you all for nearly two years and I can truthfully attest to the fact that Christ Church is a place where new life is constantly rising from the ashes, and in the midst of the darkness all around us, this community brings me so much hope. It is and will be a delight to see what grace Christ Church can bring into a world that is searching for the light. Perhaps, the darkness we’re submerged in this Lent will bring the grace in the night that the world needs most. Amen.