The world is a different place at night.
Celestial bodies that cannot be seen during the day begin to shine and twinkle into visibility at night. Creatures that remain hidden during the light of day creep forth to hunt and feed. City streets begin to quiet down, and the flow of automobiles starts to ebb, replaced by the rumble of an occasional street sweeper and other odd-shaped vehicles that clean sidewalks, and haul trash away, and repair curbs and potholes. Night shift workers punch in, and houses become quiet as parents put their children to bed, and lights go off, and shadows lengthen
The world is a different place at night.
The earth seems to use the time of night to catch it’s breath, and while it does, humanity sleeps and dreams and prays and thinks and ponders questions that can only be asked in the quiet of the night.
I remember once attending a youth group sleepover, and some time in the wee hours of the morning needing to go on a search for some rambunctious teenagers who’d decided it would be fun to break out and sneak outside. As I stepped into the cold dark well-past-midnight air, I saw them huddled together behind a bush, wondering if I would see and catch them. I did. But as I was catching them, my eyes glanced down the street three or four houses to the parsonage where we lived. A light was on in the living room. And I knew that my wife was up in these small hours of nighttime feeding our new baby. And even though we were separated by some distance, I think I joined the musings of my wife’s mind as I imagined her holding the baby in her arms, rocking her, and pondering questions about the future. What will her life be like? What will she become? How can we be the parents she needs us to be?
People ask lots of deep questions at night.
Have you ever laid on your back at night and looked up at the stars? Questions arise about the immensity of the universe, and the smallness of our lives in comparison, and we wonder about life, and death, and God. The night seems to provoke some of our deepest questions.
And so in the Gospel of John we are told that Nicodemus – a devout Pharisee, one of the leading religious figures of the day – went out to see Jesus….at night. You see, even the most righteous people, the most theologically attuned people, the most faithful people, the most intellectually refined people, have night questions. To have a faith that is always as clear and certain as daylight is to have no faith at all, for faith is a lifelong journey into a reality much larger than ourselves. Those who think they understand it best, actually understand it least. And those whose hearts are full of questions are those who are closest to the true meaning of faith.
Nicodemus is part of a religious system that purports to have all the answers, and yet this night, his heart has nothing but questions. And so he goes to find Jesus by night.
And it is interesting to me that Jesus anticipates his main question, as though he knows already the struggle going on in Nicodemus’ heart. Here he is – a leader of the religious community, one of the most righteous among the righteous – and yet Nicodemus knows in his heart-of-hearts that his religion is a dead end street. He preaches about the kingdom of heaven, but the kingdom of heaven is a long ways off in his life. Nicodemus calls others to a religious life that claims to lead to wholeness, but knows that he himself is a broken and empty man.
It’s a frightening moment when you come to the end of your religious rope.
And so Nicodemus waits until after dark. And then in the shadows of the night, he finds Jesus. And Jesus already knows his nighttime question:
“How can I experience the power of God in my life?”
And that is the question for all of us, isn’t it?
If you’re going through one of those moments described as a dark night of the soul, when your heart is crying out for God, but God seems nowhere to be found, you start asking questions like Nicodemus asked. Or, if you’re one of the families in our church who are caring for loved ones with Alzheimer’s, or those wrestling with Parkinson’s disease, or parents trying to raise children in this confusing world, or those facing the challenge of starting a new life in retirement, or those worrying about the test results due back this week, or those who are working everyday in the community with people whose lives are torn apart by sexual abuse, or alcoholism, or chronic poverty, or mental illness – you may well find yourself – like Nicodemus – crying out, in one way or another, for God. Not for religion mind you, but for God himself. Not for religious principles, but for a Divine Presence. Not for a theological system, but for a Living Savior.
Like Nicodemus, we have night questions. “How can I find the power of God to face life as it comes to me?”
And Jesus’ famous answer to Nicodemus’ nighttime question is fascinating.
How can you find the power of God? Well, you can’t. There’s nothing you can believe. Nothing you can say. There’s nothing you can do to bring God’s power into your life.
The only one who can make you alive to God….is God! It’s like a birth from above! It’s completely out of your control!
Psalm 121 paints a beautiful picture of what Jesus was talking about. Pilgrims are going up into the mountains of Judea for the holy days– to Jerusalem which is located on Mount Zion. Can you picture them as they ascend higher and higher into the hills? And as they go, they sing this psalm:
“I lift up my eyes unto the hills…”
And those hills rising up before them are a metaphor of our lives. There are times when it seems like we’re surrounded by insurmountable mountains. Problems and worries and challenges and all sorts of human troubles seem to be on every side. Tragedy and illness and unfairness and injustice and all sorts of human disappointment rise up and encircle us. The path seems too steep, and we know we need help! And so as they look up at the mountains of Judea encircling them, the pilgrims sing the question:
“From whence cometh my help?”
And the sung response comes back:
“My help cometh from the Lord… who MADE these mountains!!!”
In other words, there is Someone greater than the mountains you are facing! The One who created the stars above and the earth below – the Creator of the Universe – will help you! God Himself has pledged to be with you as you journey into the hills of life!
You see, faith is all about trusting in God’s ability to bring you safely through!
Years ago at the Stetson University Pastor’s School, Walter Brueggemann, the famous Old Testament scholar, gave a wonderful lecture about God and God’s creation. His main point was that the world God created is a beautiful thing that is well able to live on and sustain itself without our needing to be in control of it. And his message was that you and I need to learn to let go of life a little bit, and to trust God to make it work for us.
So Walter Bruggemann re-told the Genesis story in a neat way:
Just like you and I, when we build something with our own hands, God got very excited when everything was ready at the end of the six days of creation. In six wonderful steps, God had put together everything needed for creation to thrive and prosper – the rotation on the planets was just right, the placement of the galaxies right where they needed to be, the heat and cold were in perfect balance, the chemical compounds were just as they should be, and all living things were ordered in such a way that life was even able to reproduce itself. And now that everything was complete, the time had come for God to step back, to let it go, to see if the world would hold together and work the way He intended it to. So God spins the cosmos into life!!!
Then God rested. He stood back and watched. Would this delicately balanced and intricately shaped world of creation be able to nurture and sustain itself?
As Brueggemann asked that question, he paused for a long moment. Those of us who think we need to be the General Managers of the Universe felt a bit convicted of our sin as we imagined God stepping back and letting go to see if creation would work on its own.
Then, in the middle of that long dramatic pause, something funny happened.
A cell phone rang!
Some one of us in the audience was getting a call! And now, with God Himself having stepped back and let go to see if the world would work without micro-managing it, the question in that lecture hall became: Could the person in the audience whose phone was ringing avoid the urge to believe that life could not possibly go on if he didn’t answer that call right then?
And in that moment of almost embarrassing silence, with every eye scouring the room to see whose phone it was, the man sitting next to me reached into his pocket, pulled out the ringing cell phone, put it to his ear – and as 300 people watched – sheepishly said, “Hello?”
Many of us find it difficult to let go of life for even a moment.
And yet that is where true faith begins.
Dear friends, the only way to discover the power of God in your life is to trust God in the face of every mountain looming before you. There is no doubt about it, no question at all. The One who created this fantastic universe is at work in those mountains of your life. As the Psalmist says, He will not let your foot slip, He will not fall asleep on you, He will keep you safe, and give you shade from both the sun and the moon, He will protect you from the destructiveness of evil, and will take care of you in life and in death.
And moments will come in the midst of life when you will become aware that God has come – like the wind – into your life!
Our family found that to be especially true as we sat years ago in the family waiting area of a Massachusetts hospital where our first grandchild was being born. His mother was so very sick with pre-eclampsia and her situation had become very critical. The baby, at just 30-weeks gestation, was so tiny and struggling to breathe with very immature lungs. His father, our son, was stretching himself to the limit as he cared for his wife at one end of the hospital, and for his newborn son in the NICU on the other. And we – the grandparent brigade – were overwhelmed with worry.
How they – and we – needed God’s help!
And God came to us.
God came in the form of the prayers of many, prayers we felt so very keenly as we waited those long hours. We give thanks for all those bringing the presence of God to us that way. And God came to us in a dozen other ways – not the least of which was in the life of our son who, at some point when we weren’t looking, seemed to suddenly grow into a real man. Without any training at all, he just seemed to become who and what he needed to be for his wife and his child in that moment of time. It was as though a new birth had come to him.
Jesus told Nicodemus that God comes like the wind. You don’t know where the wind comes from, you don’t know where it’s going. You just all of a sudden realize that a breeze is blowing on your life! And it’s good!!
So it’s okay to step back from trying to control life all the time. You don’t have to despair if life seems to have turned against you. The One who created this perfect world is at work in you! God loves you! And through life or death, He will not let you down – either by day – or by night!
During this season of Lent we will see the truth of this in the life of Jesus. Keep your eye on him as he journeys on to the Cross.
And like Jesus, go and live your life this week for all it’s worth!
Trust God with your life!
Put down your cell phone and experience the power of God!
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