Isaiah 6:1-7; Romans 11:33-36; St John 3:1-17
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Poor Nicodemus. One visit to Jesus by night and his name is forever associated with the night. With darkness. Even when he courageously and boldly asks Pilate for Jesus’ body after the crucifixion in order to give Him a burial worthy of a King, John the Evangelist has to remind us that the one doing this was Nicodemus, who earlier had come to Jesus by night (Jn 19:39).
Who wants to be associated with the night? You know that saying, “Not much good happens after midnight.” By night thieves break in and steal. By night rioters riot. By night looters loot and pillage. By night people get drunk. By night you stumble around. By night the sounds you paid no attention to during the day become foreboding. By night you have those nightmares about the man chasing you or that one about you being trapped.
Night is symbolic of evil. Its when the Evil One targets you with his best preaching. And he just leaves you feeling anxious, guilty and alone, with nothing but those nightmares of past sins. No wonder the poet Milton called Satan the “Prince of Darkness.” Because the night is his time. As Jesus said of His captors, I was with you day after day in the Temple and you did not lay hands on Me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness (Lk 22:53).
But its at night that Nicodemus cautiously goes to Jesus. Its quite fitting, actually, for at that time he was a child of the darkness. He was a leader in that dark world of Judaism. That dark world of religion by human effort. That dark world of religion without Jesus’ death and resurrection. He was the teacher of Israel, but he was in the dark, reading the Old Testament without reference to the One that it is all about: Jesus. He did not understand these things.
But into his darkness came Jesus. A Light shined in his darkness, we could say. And so Nicodemus went. Ever so cautiously. Ever so secretly. Ever so haltingly.
And even though you should know better, that is too often how you approach Jesus, too. You are not children of the night. You are children of the day. But your approach to Jesus isn’t what you would call bold and confident. And so you go as Nicodemus went. Not so sure that He is the Light. Not so sure He does mean only good for you. Not so sure He can be trusted. Not so sure that He is sufficient for your rescue and salvation.
And it shows. Guilt twists our lives like pretzels. We are so curved and contorted in on ourselves we have trouble seeing beyond our own navels, at those in need whom our Lord has placed in our path. Consider how guilt has affected your family, made you fearful and sapped your joy. You should know better. You are not children of the night, yet look at what you do when no one is looking. Look at how much we try to hide of ourselves!
We are not gross, manifest, reckless sinners. No. We are worse. We are refined sinners. Well practiced in deception and cover up. Maybe that’s what 17th Century theologian Blaise Pascal meant when he wrote, “Human life is nothing but perpetual illusion; there is nothing but mutual deception and flattery. No one talks about us in our presence as he would in our absence. Human relations are only based on mutual deception. Man is nothing but a disguise, falsehood and hypocrisy, both in himself and with regards to others. He does not want to be told the truth. he avoids telling it to others, and all these tendencies, so remote from justice and reason, are naturally rooted in his heart” (Pensees). You are children of the day, but our deeds associate us with the night and outer darkness of hell.
But a light shone for Nicodemus. And a light a shines for you. For there is One who has overcome our darkness. One who has broken through and liberated us. One in Three Persons, to be exact. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Blessed Holy Trinity, whom we worship and confess this day and everyday.
He specializes in associating with the darkness and overcoming it. For when the earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters, the Father spoke the Word, the eternal Logos, who lit up the darkness, Let there be light! And there was light. And He saw that it was good. Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. For voice of the Lord is powerful and full of majesty.
But then, in the fullness of time, He did even better. When the earth was full of man’s darkness, man’s deception, man’s damning deeds, God said, “Let there be Light.” In Him was life and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (Jn 1:4-5). And the Light who is the Word took on flesh and appeared in a manger in Bethlehem. It is in this way that God so loved the world.
Who wants to be associated with the night? Jesus does!
The One who dwells in unapproachable light comes down to associate with us in our darkness and to destroy the work of the Prince of Darkness, both without and within. He is the Light of the World and He does His best work at night.
It was at night when the Light took on flesh and appeared in a manger. It was by night when the Light was betrayed and handed over for your sins. It was in darkness that the Light was lifted up on a Cross, like the serpent in the wilderness, so that He could not only draw you from the darkness, but so that He could draw from you that dark mistrust and deception and kill it.
And it was also at night when Jesus rose from the dead, victorious over the power of death and darkness, so that His Light might be imparted to you. For men loved the darkness, because their works are evil (Jn 3:19). But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His Name, He gave the right to become children of God, children of the Light (Jn 1:12). You, dear children, are begotten from above by water and the Spirit and shall enter the Kingdom of Light.
His voice of absolution still reaches into your darkness and overcomes Satan’s accusing voice. His risen and glorified Body is given to you here so that you might boldly and confidently confess His great mercy all of your life.
For He has delivered you from the domain of darkness and transferred you to the Kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom there is redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He has bound Himself to you, His strong Trinitarian Name - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is the only sufficient cover-up for lives lived in opposition to the One who is Light. The cover-up of His Blood. Which fights “against the demon snares of sin, the vice that gives temptation force, the natural lusts that war within, the hostile foes that mar you course” (LSB 604:4).
Without Jesus you cannot see in the dark and you have to live scared. But with Jesus, begotten of the Father, proclaimed by the Holy Spirit, you have a Light which no darkness can overcome. God has done His best work at night so that you might be included in that group of special, spirit-filled people who live by faith in Jesus. Those whom He has gathered on earth and calls children of the day, as St Paul writes to the Thessalonians, Since we belong to the day, let us be sover, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For god has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with Him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing (1 Thess 5:8-11).
You are His new creation and He has made you to shine like stars in this crooked and dark generation. And you will one day inherit a creation to come where there is no more night, nor more darkness, for He has defied it. And all the light you will need is from the glory of the Lamb who was sacrificed for us.
For now that light shines on you from this font and from this pulpit and from this altar. And is your forever.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Poor Nicodemus. One visit to Jesus by night and his name is forever associated with the night. With darkness. Even when he courageously and boldly asks Pilate for Jesus’ body after the crucifixion in order to give Him a burial worthy of a King, John the Evangelist has to remind us that the one doing this was Nicodemus, who earlier had come to Jesus by night (Jn 19:39).
Who wants to be associated with the night? You know that saying, “Not much good happens after midnight.” By night thieves break in and steal. By night rioters riot. By night looters loot and pillage. By night people get drunk. By night you stumble around. By night the sounds you paid no attention to during the day become foreboding. By night you have those nightmares about the man chasing you or that one about you being trapped.
Night is symbolic of evil. Its when the Evil One targets you with his best preaching. And he just leaves you feeling anxious, guilty and alone, with nothing but those nightmares of past sins. No wonder the poet Milton called Satan the “Prince of Darkness.” Because the night is his time. As Jesus said of His captors, I was with you day after day in the Temple and you did not lay hands on Me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness (Lk 22:53).
But its at night that Nicodemus cautiously goes to Jesus. Its quite fitting, actually, for at that time he was a child of the darkness. He was a leader in that dark world of Judaism. That dark world of religion by human effort. That dark world of religion without Jesus’ death and resurrection. He was the teacher of Israel, but he was in the dark, reading the Old Testament without reference to the One that it is all about: Jesus. He did not understand these things.
But into his darkness came Jesus. A Light shined in his darkness, we could say. And so Nicodemus went. Ever so cautiously. Ever so secretly. Ever so haltingly.
And even though you should know better, that is too often how you approach Jesus, too. You are not children of the night. You are children of the day. But your approach to Jesus isn’t what you would call bold and confident. And so you go as Nicodemus went. Not so sure that He is the Light. Not so sure He does mean only good for you. Not so sure He can be trusted. Not so sure that He is sufficient for your rescue and salvation.
And it shows. Guilt twists our lives like pretzels. We are so curved and contorted in on ourselves we have trouble seeing beyond our own navels, at those in need whom our Lord has placed in our path. Consider how guilt has affected your family, made you fearful and sapped your joy. You should know better. You are not children of the night, yet look at what you do when no one is looking. Look at how much we try to hide of ourselves!
We are not gross, manifest, reckless sinners. No. We are worse. We are refined sinners. Well practiced in deception and cover up. Maybe that’s what 17th Century theologian Blaise Pascal meant when he wrote, “Human life is nothing but perpetual illusion; there is nothing but mutual deception and flattery. No one talks about us in our presence as he would in our absence. Human relations are only based on mutual deception. Man is nothing but a disguise, falsehood and hypocrisy, both in himself and with regards to others. He does not want to be told the truth. he avoids telling it to others, and all these tendencies, so remote from justice and reason, are naturally rooted in his heart” (Pensees). You are children of the day, but our deeds associate us with the night and outer darkness of hell.
But a light shone for Nicodemus. And a light a shines for you. For there is One who has overcome our darkness. One who has broken through and liberated us. One in Three Persons, to be exact. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Blessed Holy Trinity, whom we worship and confess this day and everyday.
He specializes in associating with the darkness and overcoming it. For when the earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters, the Father spoke the Word, the eternal Logos, who lit up the darkness, Let there be light! And there was light. And He saw that it was good. Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. For voice of the Lord is powerful and full of majesty.
But then, in the fullness of time, He did even better. When the earth was full of man’s darkness, man’s deception, man’s damning deeds, God said, “Let there be Light.” In Him was life and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (Jn 1:4-5). And the Light who is the Word took on flesh and appeared in a manger in Bethlehem. It is in this way that God so loved the world.
Who wants to be associated with the night? Jesus does!
The One who dwells in unapproachable light comes down to associate with us in our darkness and to destroy the work of the Prince of Darkness, both without and within. He is the Light of the World and He does His best work at night.
It was at night when the Light took on flesh and appeared in a manger. It was by night when the Light was betrayed and handed over for your sins. It was in darkness that the Light was lifted up on a Cross, like the serpent in the wilderness, so that He could not only draw you from the darkness, but so that He could draw from you that dark mistrust and deception and kill it.
And it was also at night when Jesus rose from the dead, victorious over the power of death and darkness, so that His Light might be imparted to you. For men loved the darkness, because their works are evil (Jn 3:19). But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His Name, He gave the right to become children of God, children of the Light (Jn 1:12). You, dear children, are begotten from above by water and the Spirit and shall enter the Kingdom of Light.
His voice of absolution still reaches into your darkness and overcomes Satan’s accusing voice. His risen and glorified Body is given to you here so that you might boldly and confidently confess His great mercy all of your life.
For He has delivered you from the domain of darkness and transferred you to the Kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom there is redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He has bound Himself to you, His strong Trinitarian Name - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is the only sufficient cover-up for lives lived in opposition to the One who is Light. The cover-up of His Blood. Which fights “against the demon snares of sin, the vice that gives temptation force, the natural lusts that war within, the hostile foes that mar you course” (LSB 604:4).
Without Jesus you cannot see in the dark and you have to live scared. But with Jesus, begotten of the Father, proclaimed by the Holy Spirit, you have a Light which no darkness can overcome. God has done His best work at night so that you might be included in that group of special, spirit-filled people who live by faith in Jesus. Those whom He has gathered on earth and calls children of the day, as St Paul writes to the Thessalonians, Since we belong to the day, let us be sover, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For god has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with Him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing (1 Thess 5:8-11).
You are His new creation and He has made you to shine like stars in this crooked and dark generation. And you will one day inherit a creation to come where there is no more night, nor more darkness, for He has defied it. And all the light you will need is from the glory of the Lamb who was sacrificed for us.
For now that light shines on you from this font and from this pulpit and from this altar. And is your forever.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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