Image: Nicodemus Coming to Christ, Henry Ossawa Tanner, late 19th century
This week, we take a detour from Matthew’s Gospel to travel in John’s Gospel until Palm Sunday. There will be a lot of classic stories of faith: the Samaritan woman at the well, the healing of the man born blind, and the raising of Lazarus.
But today, we have a strange story of the half-faith of Nicodemus. Nicodemus, we might say, is a lot like many good church people who try to live out their faith in daily life. He is a powerful man, with a seat on the Jewish high council, but that power has not diminished his desire to follow God’s law. And he tries to live out that law, believing that in keeping it, he will receive the reward of the righteous.
But then Jesus shows up. In John chapter 2, Jesus changed the water to wine at the wedding at Cana. That story has clearly spread. In addition, Jesus created a disturbance in the Temple, demanding the merchants “stop making (his) Father’s house a marketplace”. When asked about the sign he would do to back up his authority for doing this, he replies: “Destroy this temple and I will raise it up again in three days.” Nicodemus wants to see Jesus, but he’s frightened of the potential consequences. He could lose his position, his privilege, maybe even his life.
So, he goes to Jesus under cover of darkness. And his first words are telling: “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher sent by God, for no one could do these signs you do unless God were with him.” Right away, this tells us that Nicodemus sees Jesus merely as a gifted teacher with miraculous powers. He seems to believe that Jesus will expound the law for him. Maybe he’ll give him the right system, the right method for achieving a reward from God. In other words, he may see Jesus as a self-help religious guru who will get him on the right path.
Good thing we’re not like him, right? Of course we are! Since the serpent tricked our first parents, people have been hoodwinked by bad actors who prey on our desperation. They promise to solve all our problems. All we have to do is follow this diet plan, go to that gym, vote for a particular politician, send some money to that preacher, lock up or kill those people (whoever “those people” happen to be). Once we do those things, we’re promised smooth sailing ahead. But of course, it never turns out that way. Our misplaced faith has unintended consequences, sometimes deadly ones.
Case in point: Victor Klemperer, a Jewish German academic, penned a detailed diary about his experience in the Third Reich. He focused especially on the deep, tragic faith of those who believed in Hitler and Nazism. To illustrate, Klemperer told the story of a working-class woman at the university named Paula von B. Upon the elevation of Hitler to chancellor in 1933, she came into Klemperer’s office radiantly happy. When Klemperer asked why she felt that way, she responded, “The Führer has brought us home again….You must recognize that I belong entirely to the Führer.” When he asked in what she lay her confidence in Hitler, she said, “Where all certainties come from: faith.”[1] There are few things more destructive than misplaced faith. Even Nicodemus’s misplaced faith in Jesus is not going to be the faith that saves. Jesus is not just another self-help guru. He is not just another teacher. He isn’t even just another miracle worker. Jesus is the revelation of God’s love for the world, the Son of God who came to save us through the power of his cross. Faith that receives Jesus this way is the faith that saves.
But there’s a catch: we can’t manufacture that faith. It comes from the Holy Spirit, who gives us a new birth. This isn’t meant in the crude literal way that Nicodemus thinks, though. (Never let it be said that the Bible lacks a sense of humor.) Rather, Jesus here in the early chapters of John’s Gospel is talking about baptism in water and the Holy Spirit. This baptism forms saving faith in us. But such faith is not achieved through our own efforts. It isn’t attained through a religious program of discipline, prayer, fasting, giving, and other good works. We can’t will ourselves to such faith. No preacher, no matter how charismatic, Biblically-grounded, well-read, or (dare I say) handsome can create that faith within us. It is the Spirit’s sole choice to create that faith, through the proclamation of that Word and the administration of the Word of God through Holy Baptism.
Now, we might find this offensive. We would like to think that we’re in control of our own destiny, that we get to choose who to follow. But with Jesus, it’s the other way around. Later in John’s Gospel, Jesus will make this plain to his disciples: “You did not choose me, but I chose you.” The choice is always God’s to make.
And God’s choice has been to love his fallen world, hellbent on going its own way. And the way God showed that love to us is by sending his Son, Jesus Christ to us, so that we may not be destroyed by the constant seductions of false prophets and idols, but have eternal life in him. And there’s even more good news. God in Jesus Christ through their Spirit chooses us to be his faithful people. Those of us who are baptized: at that baptismal font or one like it, Jesus Christ himself in the person of the pastor poured water over our heads and said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” You were marked with the cross of Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit forever. Those of you who are not: the water and Word are here for you, too. You, too, are chosen by God. And if you doubt it, consider this: Am I part of the world? If you are, then you are part of God’s beloved creation, invited to receive this gift of faith. You are invited not to choose, but to be chosen. You are invited to stand under the sign of the cross, rather than the false signs and banners that divide our world by politics, ideology, or nationality. You are invited to be adopted as God’s own child, destined to grow into the image of his beloved Son Jesus. And you are invited to freedom: freedom from all misplaced faith. Because we know that Jesus Christ is our way, our truth, and our life. In his face, we see our living, loving Lord. Amen.
© 2026, David M. Fleener. Permission granted to copy and adapt original material herein for non-commercial purposes.
[1] Victor Klemperer, The Language of the Third Reich: LTI – Lingua Tertii Imperii; A Philologist’s Notebook, trans. Martin Bradley (New York: Continuum Impacts, 2006), 105-106.