JOHN: HEARING IS BELIEVING
Gospel of John, Chapter 3
In his one-on-one conversation with Jesus, in the dark of night and spirit, Nicodemus the Law-keeper has heard the astonishing news that seeing the Kingdom of God will not be achieved by more obedience to regulations. Starting over with a new heart will not be accomplished by more compliance to the elders’ traditions. Obtaining God’s blessing will not be earned by more Law-keeping. Jesus has told him that his (and everyone’s) need to be born again happens simply by believing: “that everyone who believes may have eternal life” (verse 15).
Believe is the word from the Word. Faith.1 Accepting that it is true. Relying on. Depending on. Trusting.
Believing has several layers of intensity. We may believe that the sun will rise in the morning, but that is not something that makes much difference within our hearts. We work with it by a pattern of sleeping and waking. It is true, we accept it, and that is just the way it is; we take it for granted. We may believe that actually the earth revolves around the sun, giving the appearance of rising and setting so that is just the language we use, and that the sun is approximately 93 million miles away from the earth, and that its surface temperature is about 9,900oF while its core is 28,000,000oF. Yes, that is all true, we believe it, but most of us do not get too caught up in those facts. Some people do – the specialists – the astronomers and astrophysicists . They find such data very motivating and spend much time and effort on them. The rest of us simply remember some of the interesting information about the sun – yes, we believe it – and go on with daily living and continue to talk about the sun rising and setting.
The believing to which Jesus called Nicodemus has more depth, more force to it, I think. 
I will have to change my analogy: instead of the sun, an 18-wheeler. If I approach an intersection in my car and see the 18-wheeler also approaching from my right at high speed, I believe I had better slam on the brakes; it will make a difference, a life-or-death difference. The believing that will take Nicodemus back to start is more like that than our belief that the sun will rise: grabbing hold of life-changing truth – completely relying on, utterly depending on, intensely trusting.
Nicodemus was already believing that way. He was not a faithless man. Remember, he was a Law-keeper. He was believing in the Law. He was trusting that obeying the Law and the traditions would get him into the Kingdom of God and make him a good, righteous person worthy of God’s favor and blessing. So he was trying very hard to keep the Law. Jesus was obviously pointing him in a different direction. Nic’s problem was not the lack of faith, but what he had his faith in, what he was believing in. It makes a difference who/what you believe.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Nic, you can stop trying to earn your way into the Kingdom by obeying the Law. Simply believe in the Son of God. Trust him to love you. Trust him for your start over. Whoever believes in Jesus will be born again.
Now, do not stop there. Jesus didn’t. Don’t stop before you get to the end of the conversation. There is more, and it is vitally important.
Many people think that there is not much to it: Jesus comes, dies on the cross and rises from the dead, and all we have to do is believe – so simple, so easy. But wait. Jesus tells Nicodemus what really happens: “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed” (John 3:19-20 NIV).
See that word “verdict.” Other English translations have “condemnation” or “judgment” – the root word meaning is “decision.” It is our word “crisis.” One meaning of crisis is “a stage in a sequence of events at which the trend of all future events, especially for better or for worse, is determined; turning point.”2
When Jesus comes into the world and dies on the cross and offers to take you into his kingdom and give you a new heart, you face a crisis, a crucial decision. You have to decide on something that will be a turning point and make the difference for your future.
Jesus the Messiah the Son of God is the light that came into the dark world (John 1:9; 3:19). To be born again, to start over and be part of God’s kingdom, you have to come out of the darkness into the light. But, no, we don’t want to do that because we know what will happen: our evil deeds will be exposed. In the light someone will see our failure and shame; worse: God will see. And we are so afraid of that. We are afraid for the things that are wrong with us to be brought out in the open. Afraid of the guilt, afraid of the defeat, afraid of disapproval and condemnation. So people hate the light; they stay in the dark where you cannot see how bad your old heart is, cannot see how much you are hurting, cannot see how desperate you are to be free and become better. People think if believing in Jesus means exposing my wrongness and weakness, then I just won’t do it. Some people just continue to carry a heavy load of guilt and remain in the dark. Some people assert there is nothing much wrong with them and stay in the dark. Some people persist in the attempt to fix themselves with Law-keeping and keep on in the dark. And some people try to believe without coming out of the dark. They try to believe in the Son of God (but it is just like believing the sun rises) so they can go to Heaven without turning their lives over to him. People want to keep the bad stuff in the dark, hidden, unseen. They will not come into the light to start over.
But, in the dark, we can hear. We hear something else. Jesus tells us how it can be: “But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God” (verse 21). When you live by what is true, when you act on the basis of reality, you come into the light with your evil. Truth: you know the evil is there in you, but you need to come out of the dark. So, you come to Jesus with everything that is wrong with you. You come to Jesus with all the ways you have been hurt and all the ways you have been trying to maintain yourself. You bring it all into the light, offer it to the Son of God.
I bring him my evil, everything that is hurting me – my anger, my self-centeredness, my pride, my fear – and I know he hates it; I know he despises my evil. I bring it all to him. He hates it, yet he takes it as his own. That is what Jesus being lifted up on the cross (verse 14) is all about. He takes my evil. He does not merely take the punishment for my evil. He takes my evil as his own (Isaiah 53:6)! He hates it, he despises it, it repulses him, yet my old heart becomes his old heart. Whatever I am willing to bring into the light, whatever I am willing to bring to Jesus, he takes it as his own and kills it on the cross.
So, when I am in the light instead of the darkness, I can see, but I don’t see my wrongness and weakness; I don’t see my failure and guilt. All of that is dead. I see what “has been done through God.” I see life. I see grace and truth. I see love and blessing. I see forgiveness and acceptance. I see rightness and wholeness. I see power and wisdom. I see freedom and joy. Finally, I begin to see the Kingdom of God.
When you come into the light with your wrongness and weakness, you become born again. Jesus takes away the evil, so you go back to nothing. You start over. Only this time you have the Spirit of God working in you. This time you are in God’s Kingdom. This time you know God. You start over and this time you have a new, good heart. You are like a newborn baby, ready and able to grow and learn.
So, we have hope. If there is a chance to start over, then we are not stuck with what we’ve got. We are not stuck with our wrongs and failures. We are not stuck with our weaknesses and limitations. We are not stuck with our addictions and routines. We are not stuck with trying to make it on our own or with the boring and senseless ways of a world still in the dark. We have hope. We have promise. We have confidence. There is light at the end of the tunnel, and that light is the glory of the Kingdom of Jesus the Messiah. When you start over by faith in Christ, you start to live in his Kingdom, in God’s culture. So you have the possibility for shedding your guilt and condemnation and becoming the person God created you to be – his image, his child, his partner. You have the possibility for letting go of your self-centeredness and taking up a life of genuine love. You can break out of your fear and self-protection and live in freedom and joy. When you start over in the Kingdom of God your marriage and family can be shaped by God’s kind of goodness and rightness and most of all by God’s kind of love. Even your job and your school and your daily responsibilities can have holy, transcendent purposes. Your decisions can be chances to receive God’s wisdom and guidance. In the Kingdom, your struggles and challenges and needs can be opportunities to experience God’s presence, love, power, provision, and blessing. There is hope.
Not by obeying the Law and the traditions of the previous (and current) generations. You will not see the Kingdom in a religion that bases God’s relationship with humanity on Law. You cannot become more acceptable and pleasing to God by keeping commandments. You cannot become qualified or stay qualified for God’s favor by living up to anyone’s moral or religious expectations. I hope that lets you breathe easy, relax, be still, rest. God already loves you to the point that he sent his Son in the flesh into the world to die for you with your evil so you can start over in his Kingdom. That is yours now and forever. You just need to believe in the Son – trust him, depend on him, rely on him, lean into him. Believe enough to come out of the dark into his light.
Martin Luther (1483-1546) was a monk who tried desperately to be good enough for God. He confessed his sins repeatedly, taught theology, and diligently followed the rules. Yet he lived in terror and despair and had begun to hate the God who seemed to demand the impossible. Finally, one day, reading Paul’s letter to the Romans, specifically chapter 1, verse 17, Luther’s whole world changed. He explained what happened: “I grasped that the righteousness of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise.”
Footnotes
1 Our English words “believe” and “faith” are used to translate different forms of the same word in the Greek language in which the New Testament was written. Basically, “believe” is the verb form and “faith” is the noun form. (In the Gospel of John, only the verb is used; believing is something you do.) There is no difference in meaning. “Faith” equals “believe.” If you get on an airplane and believe that it will actually fly through the air and arrive safely at your destination, you are boarding the plane by faith.
2 Dictionary.com