The G4 Project - Day 5

The Light speaks at night

READING: John 3:1-21

SOUNDTRACK: the blissful quiet of a house before all are awake

It is the dark of night and he steals away, unnoticed by his peers. He comes in the dark of night.   Perhaps he does not want anyone to know what he is doing.  He is afraid of their sneers and judgment.  He has a burning, nagging question that just won’t go away. He wants to know if Jesus is the One.

His name is Nicodemus.  He is a member of the Jewish ruling council.

Finding Jesus, he begins with either honesty or flattery – not sure which. 

“Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him."

Jesus cuts to the chase.  And answers a question not yet verbally articulated by Nicodemus: What does God require for salvation?

His answer – now common verbage to us – was staggeringly perplexing to Nicodemus. So please indulge my attempt to paraphrase their interaction:

J: “Here it is plain and simple – if anyone wants to enter God’s kingdom, he has to be born all over again”

N: “Huh?  How does an old man like me be born a second time? How’s that even possible – I mean, people are born once.  There’s no biological way that can happen!”

J: “It’s true.  Unless you are born physically and spiritually – you’ll never see the Kingdom.  Flesh gives birth to the physical – but it takes Spirit to give birth spiritually.  You have yet to be born spiritually.  Look, this shouldn’t surprise you.  God’s Spirit moves wherever and however He chooses.  Just like the natural wind you can see the effects, but you don’t know were it came from or where it’s heading next.  Same thing is true of everyone who has been born spiritually – you see the effects of this spiritual wind.”

N:  “Huh?  I still don’t get it”

J:  “Seriously?  You’re one of the big wigs – one of the main teachers of all of Israel!  I’m telling you things I know - what I've seen firsthand, but you still won't accept my eyewitness account.  If you don’t get what I mean about earthly stuff – how are you going to understand heavenly stuff?  No human has ever been to heaven, except the One who came from heaven - the One who is talking to you about these matters.  And just like how Moses put a bronze snake on a stick in the desert so the people could be healed of the venom of the snake… remember that?  They could do nothing but trust that what God said would happen and that by simply believing they would be healed.  In a similar fashion, the Son of Man is going to be raised up (on a cross) – and all who put their trust in Him to be healed of their sin will have eternal life.”

“See God has such an immeasurable love that He sent His one and only unique Son, that everyone who places their trust in him exclusively won’t perish in the afterlife, but have everlasting, eternal life.  God wasn’t sending His Son into the world to pronounce judgment on it, but to save it through Him.  Whoever believes in the Son  does not need to fear condemnation, but Whoever rejects the Son is already condemned, because that person chooses not to trust in God’s way of salvation – His unique Son.  Here’s the judgment – God sent Light into the world to showcase God’s heart and character, to bring forgiveness, but people reject Him because they would rather wallow in their own darkness because the dark deeds have seduced their hearts.”

“Everyone who rejoices in their rejection of God won’t come to the Light, because His radiance clearly shows the ugliness of that rejection; they are afraid that this God-rejecting, self-exalting attitude will be seen for what it is – a distorted hollow sham. But whoever loves God’s truth and tries to walk in that Light gladly walks toward the Light so that people will see it is not them who are good – but the One they follow is working in them.”

You and I have the same need Nicodemus had - we need to know how to be rescued from our sins.


We have been bitten by the fangs of the Serpent and the venom of sin is killing us.  We need to look to Him who was lifted up and believe that His sacrifice will heal us.  Not our efforts.  


And we, like Nicodemus, need to be.. born all over again - a spiritual birth through Christ.

Powerful words spoken between two men in the darkness of night.  Powerful words, spoken by the Light. 

And now a poem from Longfellow.  See the connection?

THE SOUND OF THE SEA

The sea awoke at midnight from its sleep,

  And round the pebbly beaches far and wide

  I heard the first wave of the rising tide

  Rush onward with uninterrupted sweep;

A voice out of the silence of the deep,

  A sound mysteriously multiplied

  As of a cataract from the mountain's side,

  Or roar of winds upon a wooded steep.

So comes to us at times, from the unknown

  And inaccessible solitudes of being,

  The rushing of the sea-tides of the soul;

And inspirations, that we deem our own,

  Are some divine foreshadowing and foreseeing

  Of things beyond our reason or control.