Loved Beyond Measure

Nicodemus is not the kind of bloke you immediately warm to. He’s not one of the Bible’s ‘national treasures’, like Zaccheus, Lazarus or Martha.. But St. John tells us that in this meeting with this man,  Jesus reveals something about God, which still has the power to shock, 21 centuries later.

Nicodemus is an intellectual, a leader a man used to debating the finer points of theology. But there is something about what Jesus does that has challenged his thinking: ‘No-one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.’ (v2). Jesus has already told his disciples that the kingdom of heaven is about what they do rather than what they say (Matt 21:28-31 as just one example), and now he challenges this great thinker to do something in order to find God: it is about ‘being born of water and the Spirit.’ (v.5) Nicodemus thinks it is an exercise in theological reflection: ‘How can anyone be born after having grown old?’ (v.4) He misses the fact that ‘being’ is a continuous process. Old, young, broken, vigorous, we must all take the initiative that Christ offers us to ‘repent and believe’, as John the Baptist asked of us in Advent. It is not a once-only occasion, this conversion of the heart. It is part of a journey. Because the human heart has been known to get it wrong and God, patient and strong, will always offer us more than one chance.

Water and the Spirit brings to mind the time when we are asked whether we ‘turn to Christ.’ The question is as pertinent now as it ever was. Life often seems to get in the way. People we love have a habit of letting us down, our bodies wear out when we least expect it, good people suffer terrible misfortunes. We are left bereft, weak and confused. Or maybe life is too good, too busy or too mundane and we are left careless, exhausted and confused.

There is no excuse that will work. As Nicodemus is ready to leave, Jesus ends his conversation with the most powerful statement of all: ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish ....’ (v.16)

Lent is not about giving things up or trying to be a better person. Jesus is moved to tell Nicodemus that he is loved beyond any measure of what he expected. At Jesus’ own baptism the world was told ‘this is my beloved.’ Do we have any idea how much we are loved by God?

Tessa Kuin Lawton is an assistant curate in Bampton with Clanfield, Oxfordshire.