Year A

John 3:1-17

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

Grace for the Journey

Victor Hugo’s masterpiece, Les Miserables, a beautiful rich story was a study in contrasts of two men who have been touched by grace and forgiveness. Jean Valjean, the main character, was forgiven by a priest for stealing two silver candlesticks. This touch of grace and forgiveness changed his life. He was converted, and the remainder of his life was a reflection of the grace and forgiveness he experienced from the priest. The other individual was Javert, the police officer who continued to pursue Valjean over the theft. When Javert was caught in a life or death situation, Valjean freed him, forgave him, and granted him life.

Javert, a man of unbending rules and stern prejudice, could not cope with forgiveness. The man who had every reason to hate him instead forgave him and then gave to Javert his life. Because he could not accept that forgiveness, Javert committed suicide by throwing himself into the River Seine. It’s not always easy to accept another person’s forgiveness especially when it requires us to truly forgive that person. Each of us, when touched by God’s grace and forgiveness, will either become a reflection of that grace or will choose the road of self-destruction when we fail to forgive others.

This Lenten season is just beginning and as we well know, it is a time for deeper reflection, for taking stock, for seeking God’s forgiveness and grace in our lives so we are able to truly forgive others and move on to wholeness and healing for our lives. This work makes us ready and able to fully participate in the joy of Easter Sunday. As is true of any beginning, the road seems to stretch out far ahead of us and we are perhaps tempted to speed down it without much thought, or to just stay put where we are and not do the hard work that Lent calls us to. Today’s readings are intended as a reminder to us that the journey is worth all the inconvenience and trouble.

Our Lenten journey is worth the work because it is a symbol of our lives as we experience them: lives marked by hardship, by monotony, sometimes by pain and suffering, by changes, by the need to forgive and be forgiven and the need to grow. It’s important to our faith that we grow in our knowledge and love of a God who loves us, forgives us and calls us to walk this 40 day journey with Jesus and beyond because if we do not put our faith and trust in God we can be left feeling stuck and unchallenged. In God’s call to Abram to “leave your land,” in the psalms assurance of traveling mercies, and even in Jesus’ promise that those born from above will be blown by the wind of the Spirit, we hear the call to walk this Lenten journey with God.

As Abram sat alone one night the Lord God came to him and called him to this journey. Abram had no children, but the Lord promised to make him into a great nation. Abram at that time was not out looking for a suitable place to move to when the Lord decided to transplant him to Canaan. But it seemed that the Lord’s greatest plans for him were still yet to come. Abram believed God, and obeyed God. He trusted God’s promise to him and went to where God sent him. God’s call to Abram and his faithful response is the starting point of Israel’s history. After 2,000 years, his descendants have numbered in the millions.

One of the descendants on Abram’s family tree was Nicodemus who appeared on the scene many generations after Abram. Nicodemus a pious, knowledgeable, leader of his people receives his call to walk this journey with the Lord in today’s very familiar story. Today’s text is the first of four readings from the gospel of John during this Lenten season, and it presents us with two key themes found in John’s gospel-darkness and light. For John, darkness suggests confusion and uncertainty, evil-the enemy of light. In contrast to the darkness, Jesus identifies himself as the light, and thereby the cure for both the darkness of the world and the darkness in which a soul may live.

Nicodemus emerges out of the night’s darkness, seeking light from the teacher he believes to be sent from God. Jesus tells him one must be born anew of the Spirit in order to see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus, of course, doesn’t comprehend what Jesus is saying to him. He’s not on the same page with the spiritual truths Jesus is conveying. His misunderstanding of this new birth has him looking back to the womb, while Jesus is pointing forward to the kingdom. A spiritual kingdom, that can be summarized by the words in verse 16 “Everyone who believes in Jesus will not perish but will have eternal life.” Jesus wants Nicodemus to believe in, have faith in and trust, the light- Jesus and life that comes from above; an eternal love from God that has not boundaries or limitations. We know this as grace.

It is this choice between the darkness of this world and the light of eternity that Jesus is calling Nicodemus to that night. There is good evidence that Nicodemus chooses the light and the journey that led him to become a disciple of Jesus. For after Jesus’ crucifixion, he comes out of the darkness again into the light to ask for the body of Jesus and he and Joseph of Arimethea bury Jesus’ body in the empty tomb. Nicodemus’ journey led him to be touched by God’s grace and forgiveness. He became a reflection of that grace in his life. Paul today in his letter to the Romans turns to the example of Abram or Abraham to present his understanding of grace.

Abraham believed God, and because of his belief in what God said, Abraham was credited with righteousness. It wasn’t just that Abraham believed “in God,” as in belief that “God exists,” Abraham believed what God said and to the journey that God called him to. It was his belief and the faith he demonstrated in that belief that made him righteous before God. Not his works or attempts to impress God, but only by following through on believing what God told him and doing it. Yet, he was made right with God, not because of what he did but as a gift of love, of grace from God.

In last Friday’s meditation “Free Gift” from the book of Lenten meditations “The Joy of Salvation,” that I hope you all have a copy of and are using on your Lenten journey, the quote used from the late Henry Nouwen taken from his book “With Open Hands,” says “Perhaps the challenge of the gospel lies precisely in the invitation to accept a gift for which we can give nothing in return. For the gift is the life breath of God, the Spirit poured out on us through Jesus Christ.” There are no strings attached to God’s most precious gift of grace that God offers to all people-eternal life with God in heaven, which we receive through our faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. It is free to us but was costly for God. It cost God the life of his Son.

So we can take the easy road this Lent and not do the hard work of deeper reflection, of taking stock, of seeking God’s forgiveness and grace in our lives so we are able to truly forgive others and realize wholeness and healing in our lives, and God will still love us. Yet, what seems to be clear from our text’s today is that what Abram, Nicodemus, the disciples and those of us here today are being called to do is to leave behind what is rather obvious, into an unclear and unspecific future. If we are willing to allow the light of the Spirit to fill our sails and guide our ships, we cannot predict where that wind will take us. Yet, what we do know for sure is that wherever and whatever God’s call has for us we can except that that future is with the Lord. Accept God’s gift of grace and forgiveness on your Lenten journey with a grateful heart and a life of thanks-living.