Second Sunday in Lent | March 1st, 2026 | The Right Reverend Bishop Phil LaBelle
“So there was this person,” St. John the Evangelist tells us, “named Nicodemus, who was a Pharisee, a ruler of the Jews.” And with that single sentence we learn a lot about good ol’ Nick. He’s smart and religious, and, after he utters his own first statement, we learn that he’s also faithful and inquiring about the things of God. He’s taken by what he’s heard about Jesus. But he’s also hedging a bit. He comes to talk to Jesus, yes, but he grabs an appointment after night has fallen. He doesn’t choose to meet Jesus at the local coffee shop mid-afternoon. Not a chance. He comes quietly, in the shadows, to a clandestine place to suss all this out, to see who Jesus really is.
“Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with that person.” We’re not told who this “we” is in his sentence. Potentially Nicodemus is using the “royal we” that some leaders do, or maybe he just means those who have seen the miraculous works of Jesus—those signs like turning water into wine—and taken an interest in following him. Certainly he’s not referring to the Pharisees as a whole who already have some issues with Jesus. But he is seeing himself as part of a larger group, a collection of people who are wondering about Jesus.
As a former composition and rhetoric major, I think our gospeler was being strategic in his selection of the plural. I think John has Nicodemus speak for all of us. That Nicodemus is us. We all know that Jesus is someone who has to be from God. But we also have a tendency to hedge our own bets. To not go all in. To creep under the cover of darkness to learn a bit more, to ask a few more questions, to find out the entirety of the truth before we fully commit.
And that’s when Jesus does what he always does, and begins speaking in metaphors. “No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” It’s enough to send Nicodemus down a rabbit hole. “What, what? Born a second time? Does that mean we have to find our mothers, climb back into their wombs, and then head over to Labor and Delivery once again?” I mean, c’mon Jesus, give us the straight talk and not these metaphorical shenanigans which are for the birds.
But Jesus doesn’t take the bait. He doubles down. “No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Nicodemus simply responds, “How can this be?”
Nicodemus just wants to keep things under his control. (As do we.) He comes to Jesus in the middle of the night so he can maintain secrecy. He doesn’t even ask a question of Jesus, but simply says, “You can’t be doing these things if you weren’t from God,” but there’s an implied, “Right?” attached to that sentence. And then when Jesus responds by talking about being born anew, Nicodemus makes a ridiculous rejoinder. He’s trying to take control of the conversation once more. And Jesus simply says that to be born once again means to be born of the Spirit, and the Spirit is just like the wind, blowing wherever it wills. Not only that, you can hear the sound of it in the trees or coming around buildings or out in the open fields, but you can’t tell where it’s coming from or where it’s going. So is everyone born of the Spirit.
Putting it another way, you need to let go of your perceived sense of control, because the Spirit’s gonna do what the Spirit’s gonna do. As theologian C.K. Barrett put it, “The Spirit, like the wind, is entirely beyond the control and comprehension of [humankind]; it breathes into this world from another.” But we like being in control. It makes things feel safer.
Oliver Burkeman released a book sixteen months ago titled Meditations for Mortals, subtitled Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts. It’s one of those books that includes a reading a day for just under a month, with the intention that you read it slowly, as it’s a bit too much to take in all at once. Even if you think otherwise, Day One sets you straight with its title, “It’s Worse Than You Think.” The “It” Burkeman refers to is the uncontrollable nature of life. It really is chaotic. We all embrace the illusion that somehow we can tame it, but it’s really just like trying to tame the wind. Burkeman writes, “Our problem, it turns out, was never that we hadn’t yet found the right way to achieve control over life, or safety from life. Our real problem was imagining that any of that might be possible in the first place for finite humans, who, after all, just find themselves unavoidable in life, with all the limitations and feeling of claustrophobia and lack of escape routes that entails.” His advice is to let it go. To open our hands. To perhaps turn our faces into a gentle breeze and just relish it, knowing there’s not a thing we can do ourselves to change the course of the wind.
Jesus himself points to the need to give up control when he mentions that serpent being raised up in the wilderness by Moses. You may remember that story from the book of Numbers. The Hebrew people are upset after having been set free from their slavery in Egypt and now finding themselves hungry and thirsty in the wilderness, so they curse God and Moses. God finds this a bit infuriating, and so God sends a whole bed of poisonous snakes to attack them. The people cry out to God and repent, and then God tells Moses to craft a bronze snake and set it on a pole. Moses was then told to lift up that pole, and whoever had been bitten and looked up at it would be healed. But they had to look up. They had to admit that they weren’t in control. If they refused, well, they kept getting sicker. That serpent on the pole is the symbol of modern medicine, reminding us that if we choose to become well, we have to place our trust in the hands of another.
Theologian Francis Maloney writes, “Nicodemus’ difficulties come from his inability to reach beyond what he can measure, control, and understand. He could not grasp that the only way to full acceptance of Jesus was to recognize that he offered a gift ‘from above.’” Nicodemus had to come out from the shadows of the dark where it was safe for him, and enter into the light. Jesus himself hints at this in the part of his conversation with Nicodemus that we didn’t read this morning. He says, “Those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”
The great thing about Jesus is that he doesn’t give up on us. While this encounter with Nicodemus doesn’t end with him saying, “Jesus, I want to be born anew!” he does reappear twice more in John’s gospel which shows his gradual movement toward the light. The first time, in chapter 7, he is sitting among the council of religious leaders who are discussing arresting Jesus. Nicodemus speaks up and asks if their law allowed for a person to be judged without a hearing. “Surely, you’re not from Galilee, are you,” they asked incredulously. Because why else would you support Jesus?
And then Nicodemus appears in John 19 after Jesus’ crucifixion. It is there, while it is still light out, that he helps Joseph of Arimathea remove Jesus’ body from the cross and place it in a new tomb, bringing along a large mixture of myrrh and aloes to prepare Jesus’ body for burial. It is at that moment that he lets go of his own control, when he is born of the Spirit who swirls around where she likes bringing the grace of God to all who desire it.
As we make our Lenten journeys, both as individuals and also as this faith community, it’s hard to fully let go of control and to trust God. We’ve been hurst at times in the past when we’ve become vulnerable and opened ourselves up. Yet Jesus simply reminds us that unless we trust, unless we allow ourselves to be born of the Spirit through a process we cannot control, then we will not see the kingdom of God. Perhaps like Nicodemus we just need time. Time to look more attentively for the miraculous signs of Jesus. To listen more closely to his teachings. To draw near when he enters his final days. To be there at the cross when he will look down in compassion on his executioners and offer forgiveness. Perhaps there, when we will see our own need of forgiveness most acutely, we will fully unclench our fists and hold out our hands to this one who deeply loves us. When we fully trust in this one who came to bring not condemnation but salvation. May it be so. Amen.