26 May SUNDAY, MAY 26, 2024
According to Isaiah’s vision, “As the seraphim were in attendance to the Lord on the throne, they flew above using two of three pairs of wings to cover their faces and feet. I suppose they weren’t to look at the Lord directly or risk a dangling foot or toe daring to tread on the Lord below.
From the outset, the temple room is full: of angels and flowing yards of kingly material flowing from the Lord’s heavenly robe. The earth is full of God’s glory, according to the seraphim who call one to another? The thresholds shake and the room is full of smoke. Isaiah’s vision is vivid and surreal which makes me kind of wonder if Isaiah ate pizza for dinner before going to bed. He recalls for us what his unconscious mind wished to express to him.
Isaiah was overwhelmed by a sense of being unclean himself among people who are unclean in an area of the body where humans spend more time cleaning than any other part: our mouths. What other part of the body warrants its own set of cleaning tools: specially designed brushes, picks, gum stimulators, floss, pastes, gels,and rinses. “Woe is me,” Isaiah says. “I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips.” I just went to the dentist where the hygienist polished each and every tooth.
Isaiah is humbled by two things: his own admission of unworthiness and the fact that his eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts! Immediately a seraph performs a ritual: a symbolic act full of meaning for the participants, a ritual which remedies Isaiah’s plight: sin and guilt. Immediately after that, the voice of the Lord himself speaks saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”
Without hesitation, Isaiah shouts, “Here am I; send me!” Having just seen a couple of stage plays, Moana at the high school and South Pacific at the Fulton in Lancaster, it occurs to me that Isaiah’s complete transformational story is told in only one act, in just one spectacular scene in which a few character types cast in their respective roles accomplish everything.
The psalmist ascribes to the LORD, glory and strength, beauty and holiness. The powerful voice of the LORD is everywhere: upon the waters, in the forests, where there are mountains, valleys, calves and oxen. It bursts forth in lightning to shake the wilderness.
In the temple all cry, “Glory,” as the LORD sits enthroned as King, above the flood forevermore. Finally, the psalmist prays, “O LORD, give strength and the blessings of peace to your people.” The people need what Isaiah needed: deliverance and encouragement so that in an instant the people have full confidence in what they have received from God. Fully delivered from their previous burdens, they are immediately enabled to respond voluntarily to a spoken need coming from the voice of the LORD on high.
The purpose of the second reading is to strengthen that confidence. It’s a reminder that we are led by the very Spirit of God. We are children of God, adopted and transformed by the very same Spirit. The Spirit who is one part, an equal part of a triune almighty God. That spirit bears witness with our spirit to convince us that we are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, so that if partake or participate in his suffering, we may also be glorified with him.
We did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, to fall back into the place Isaiah was: feeling unworthy, unclean, ashamed or overwhelmed by personal sin, the sins of all people like us or living among us. With this as a backdrop, let’s examine the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus.
What do we know of Nicodemus? He’s a Pharisee and leader of the Jews. He belongs to a sect and is a strict follower of Hebrew tradition and its multitudinous religious laws. He’s a member of the Sanhedrin, a Jewish governing body. Nicodemus acknowledges Jesus as a teacher who has come from God. Why? Because “no one can do these signs” ( which so far had amounted to changing water into wine at a wedding in Cana, cleansing the temple of money changers: those found selling oxen, sheep, and pigeons there, and his claim to raise up the temple of his body in three days after it being destroyed) apart from the presence of God.”
Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night which could mean either that he wants this rendezvous to remain hidden from the sight of others or that Nicodemus himself is experiencing a type of spiritual darkness. Interestingly, he didn’t ask a question right off the bat, he delivered a statement, a testimonial of sorts. He admits to observing Jesus thus far and not much more other than being curious. So Jesus delivers a statement of his own meant to draw out Nicodemus’ deeper longings.
“Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Has Nicodemus said anything about wanting to see the kingdom of God? How did Jesus know he would even care? Because everything a Pharisee did was an attempt to draw nearer to God, to achieve purity, become less sinful and less like people all around them. Here Isaiah and Nicodemus stand in the same place before the LORD. They wish to see the King but feel impossibly unworthy and unable to respond to his voice.
Nicodemus thinks only of what his mind is able to conceive: of re-entering the place he inhabited before birth, of his own current age and limitations. Jesus offers clarification. “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.” Now, Jesus goes beyond seeing. He talks about entering the sacred room of the temple where Isaiah stands, the inner sanctum full of angelic beings, the very kingdom of God.
Jesus makes a critical distinction between what is born of flesh versus what is born of Spirit. He draws Nicodemus’ attention to what is above and what may be experienced though it remains unseen: the wind. We’re always dealing with the wind down by the river when we walk. Sometimes it blows more up above through Riverfront Park and sometimes it blows more along the sidewalk near the water. It blows harder through openings beneath the bridges where tunnels form and most often from north to south.
The wind blows where it chooses. You hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from or where it goes. That’s true. Steve, Sophie and I hear the wind make the water from the river slap up against the edges of the concrete steps and bridge pillars. We feel the wind blow against our faces, into our ears, up our jacket sleeves and waistbands, but we don’t see its place of origin or know its final destination. It’s a mystery, unable to be controlled, unable to be harnessed even by a large wind turbine erected upon the highest mountain range except as it passes clean through the air from above.
Nicodemus says, “How can these things be?” Jesus asks, “How can you not understand these things and call yourself a teacher of Israel?” Jesus was probably speaking of “spiritual rebirth, which cleanses from sin, brings spiritual transformation and renewal.” Just as anyone can experience the wind, anyone can experience what Isaiah and Nicodemus do, transformation through a ritual that is much more than symbolic in nature. The experience of the Holy Spirit actually changes who you are and who you think you are. It changes what you are capable of and/or willing to do.
Jesus uses the analogy of wind to help Nicodemus and us to overcome doubt so we may fully believe even if we cannot fully understand. Jesus speaks to what he knows and has seen and tries to connect us to himself and earth to heaven. He draws a line between the two, pointing upward while saying I came from heaven to earth and I’ll ascend back there after being lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. I say this so that whoever believes in the Son of Man may have eternal life.
One more thing Isaiah and Nicodemus have in common is the ability to name and confess their fears aloud. Doing so in the presence of God causes them to lose their power and by hearing them said aloud, we give ourselves perspective regarding what’s keeping us from believing that we are worthy to be claimed by God as children, able to hear or answer God’s voice, serve God or gain eternal life.
To people trapped in their circumstances, caught up in visions imagined by their subconscious or delivered to them by God, hidden in literal or figurative darkness by choice or otherwise, to those who are presently confused, quaking in fear of judgment or failure, hearing audible voices calling one to another, suffering in any way, in other words, to a world full of hurting, frightened people, Jesus offers these great words of comfort.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
The Son that stood before Nicodemus and the seraphim who flew above the throne of the LORD God were present for one purpose, transformation: becoming made new, being delivered from fear of self-condemnation or condemnation by God, from guilt related to sin and all of the doubt and mystery that surrounds death.
Through the presence of the Holy Spirit in us and with us we may know and give our own testimony of being born again from above. Just as sure as we can experience the wind, we can experience the Spirit for one Greek word translates as either.
Where have you heard the wind or felt it upon your skin? A favorite silly game I play with Sophie is to put my ear close to her nose and say, “Tell me a secret.” It’s a game from my childhood that my mom would play. Sometimes, we’d whisper, “I love you,” in each other’s ear and sometimes we’d pretend to relay entire sentences by whispering nonsense.
Nonetheless, drawing close to my mother’s ear or having her draw near to mine was an intimate act of connection. It demonstrated my mother’s willingness to play along with me, to pretend to share a secret message because we share something special between us, always. For the most part, I only hear the sound of Sophie sniffing in my ear, perhaps wondering if there’s anything new or interesting to be had, but the sound of her short breaths coming in and going out of her little nostrils is enough to remind me that God is near.
That God desires that kind of closeness with us, an intimacy of sharing, a secret mystery, some silly fun, the whisper of air being exchanged from God’s Holy Spirit to our lungs, our soul, our essence. Let us pray.
Holy, holy, holy are you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Continue to breathe upon us so that we experience you firsthand, become confident and are transformed by the hearing of your voice and the touch of angelic beings. We humbly draw near to you, declaring our fears out loud and asking for deliverance. In your holy name we pray, Amen.