Nicodemus, the Monk, and Us - John 3:1-17

The Christ Church men’s breakfast is off to a great start. They had their first meeting on Wednesday at 7:30 in the morning, and I hear that everyone had a good time. Not to be outdone, there’s a women’s gathering at my house this Friday night. Having a bit of healthy competition is meet and right so to do. But I will give the guys credit for the interesting discussion they had. Led by Ragan and Jason, they talked about an old story so good that I had to steal it outright for this sermon. It’s the perfect opener for considering Nicodemus’ encounter with Jesus. It goes like this, as told by the remarkable writer and theologian, Belden Lane.

There was once an English monk who all of his life had dreamed of making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. There he would walk around the Holy Sepulchre three times, kneel, and come back a new man. Through the years he’d dreamed of leaving his monastery with its old yew tree in the cloister yard—making his way on foot from Canterbury to Rome along the ancient pilgrimage route, the Via Francigena. He’d cross the rocky terrain of Greece to follow the Templar Trail through the dry expanse of Cappadocia. He’d visit cathedrals and the tombs of saints, coming at last to the old city of Jerusalem.

Through the years the monk had prepared for the trip, putting away money that he received as alms. Near the end of his life he’d finally saved enough to begin his journey. Taking his staff in hand, he opened the monastery gates and set out for the Holy City.

But no sooner had he left the cloister, than he encountered a man in rags, bent to the ground, picking herbs on the side of the path. “Where are you going, Father?” the man asked. “To the Holy Sepulcher, brother. By God’s grace, I’ll walk around it three times, kneel, and return home a different man.” “Ah, that’s wonderful! I hope you have enough money to provide for you on your way.” “Yes, God be praised,” said the monk. “I’ve been able to save thirty pounds for the trip.”

The man then hesitantly responded, “Can I ask you something crazy, Father? I have a wife and hungry children at home. I’m searching everywhere for food to keep them from starving. Would you consider giving me your thirty pounds, walking three times around me, then kneel and go back into your monastery?” The monk thought for a long moment, scratching the ground with his staff. Then (with a divine absurdity) he took the money from this sack, gave the whole of it to the man, walked three times around him, knelt, and returned back through the gates of the monastery.

He came home a new man, of course, having recognized the beggar as Christ himself—not far away at the Holy Sepulchre, but just outside his monastery door, in a place he’d never have thought sacred. He’d discovered a great desert truth—that the holy is where you least expect it, that the desire for the trip is its own fulfillment, that he’d been drawn all along to transformation, not tourism. He greeted the old yew tree in the cloister yard, took a deep breath, and returned to his work.

That monk has stayed with me all week. I am inspired by his selfless generosity, as he let go of the trip he had dreamt of for so long in order to help the man right outside his gate. One could certainly learn something about Christian charity from him. But what I am most moved by is his desire to be transformed. He was looking for Christ, and the transformation that followed was even more than he imagined it would be. He came to see Christ in the man right in front of him, and his heart was changed forever.

Nicodemus came under the cover of night to find Christ. He had heard Jesus’s astonishing teaching, and wanted to know more. Like the monk, I imagine that he, too, had planned his journey carefully and thought he knew how it would go. But it was nothing like what he had planned. As we overhear Jesus and Nicodemus talking, we are flooded with strange images. There is wind blowing where it will. Rebirth from above by water and the Spirit. And a third cryptic image: "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.”

It’s no wonder that Nicodemus struggled to understand. Take the words, “You must be born from above.” Rebirth is a strange idea. We tend to assume that Jesus is talking about our baptisms, about being saved through that ritual. I think Nicodemus would have heard something different. The prophet Ezekiel (chapter 36) foretold a time when God would gather Israel back together and give them a new heart. “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean… I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; …you will be my people, and I will be your God.” This isn’t just about individual baptism. Jesus is talking about God doing a new thing, finally fulfilling Ezekiel’s vision (Bibleworm Podcast, episode 323).

Nicodemus would also have known the story of Moses lifting up the serpent in the wildness. The Israelites were being bitten by poisonous snakes. So Moses made a bronze serpent and lifted it up on a pole so that they could look at it and live. In other words, looking directly at the thing that was killing them could save them. Jesus draws a parallel from that event to his own crucifixion. The very thing that killed him - the reality of human sin culminating in the violent power of the Roman Empire - is something we have to look at in order to free ourselves from it. The worst parts of human nature must be brought out of the shadows into the light, because it is only by looking at them honestly that we can be healed from them (Bibleworm). As ever, John’s gospel has layers upon layers of meaning. Human truths and divine ones merge into a universe of meaning far greater than anything we or Nicodemus ever imagined.

That would be more than enough for a teacher of Israel to take in on one night, but there was something more. Jesus continued: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.” God loved the world enough to send Jesus to us, to know God through him, and to have eternal life. Here, too, is a vast constellation of meaning, too big for one sermon. But we can at least begin to imagine our own lives without perishing in the wilderness of sin and without loneliness in a world without God.

If your head is spinning a bit, you can blame the preacher. I imagine Nicodemus’ head was spinning, too. He sometimes gets a bad wrap for his lack of understanding, but I think we ought to be rather like him. We seek Jesus out with questions we hardly know how to ask, which have answers that are bigger than we can understand. Which brings me back to the story of the monk who thought he would find Christ in the Holy Land. Like Nicodemus, he was hoping for an encounter with Jesus, and hoping to be changed. He planned the journey carefully, imagining how it would go. And it went nothing like that. His transformation was greater than anything he could have imagined. He came to see Christ in his neighbor, glimpsing the holy just a few feet away from his front door. I think that must be what it’s like to have eternal life now, which Jesus promises is waiting for all of us. Whoever you are, from a teacher of Israel to a monk or a beggar, all it takes is a desire for transformation for any of us to stumble upon the Gospel, that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”

For the story of the monk, see Belden C. Lane, The Great Conversation: Nature and the Care of the Soul (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2019), 146-7.