Today's Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 7 verses 51 through 52:
51‘Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?’ 52They replied, ‘Surely you are not also from Galilee, are you? Search and you will see that no prophet is to arise from Galilee.’
This coming Sunday Nicodemus appears in the Lectionary readings and so today is a kind of sneak peek at what I'm going to try to say then. Thus far, I'm planning to speak about William Sloane Coffin, Watergate, and the Rattlesnake Roundup in Sweetwater. I'd say that makes for a pretty wide-ranging group of references. I hope you'll tune in.
Nicodemus was between a rock and a hard place. He knew Jesus was from God, yet he also worried over what it would cost to follow Him. He worried over what he would have to give up. He fretted about the future. And rightfully so, he didn't want to end up on a cross himself.
Jesus described what Nicodemus was going through as a kind of birth. "You must be born again," He said. This meant he had to "come out" as a follower of Christ. But doing so was very risky and unsafe. It was downright dangerous. Silence was complicity, yet speaking was self-condemnation. That's a tough choice. No wonder Nicodemus came to Jesus "by night".
Being born again is tough stuff. It's hard work and it often costs us something -- relationships, reputation, our job, our job security. It's scary as Hell -- literally!
But unless we be born again something inside us will continue to die. It will probably die slowly, and painfully, day by day, until it is dead.
Nicodemus did not die. He struggled, he groaned, he grimaced, and he was silent too long. But something inside him was still alive. And in the end, he let it live.
I hope we will too.
Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.
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