Jesus and Nicodemus: God Loves the Cosmos
Jesus and Nicodemus: God Loves the Cosmos
John 3:1-5, 9-11, 16
January 25, 2026
Rev. Cynthia Cochran-Carney, First Presbyterian Church of San Rafael, CA
1 There was a man of the Pharisee sect, Nicodemus, a prominent leader among the Jews. 2 Late one night he visited Jesus and said, "Rabbi, we all know you're a teacher straight from God. No one could do all the God-pointing, God-revealing acts you do if God weren't in on it." 3 Jesus said, "You're absolutely right. Take it from me: Unless a person is born from above, it's not possible to see what I'm pointing to - to God's kingdom." 4 "How can anyone," said Nicodemus, "be born who has already been born and grown up? You can't re-enter your mother's womb and be born again. What are you saying with this 'born-from-above' talk?" 5 Jesus said, "You're not listening. Let me say it again. Unless a person submits to this original creation - the 'wind hovering over the water' creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life - it's not possible to enter God's kingdom.
9 Nicodemus asked, "What do you mean by this? How does this happen?" 10 Jesus said, "You're a respected teacher of Israel and you don't know these basics? 11 Listen carefully. I'm speaking sober truth to you. I speak only of what I know by experience;
16 "This is how much God loved the world: God so loved the world as to give the Only Begotten One, that whoever believes may not die, but have eternal life. John 3:1-5, 9-11, 16 The Message
16 "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. NRSV
I like to hear about good movies you have watched lately or a good novel you have read. Something that feeds me is a good story. A good story gets a point across in a way that captures our imaginations and speaks to our hearts. That’s why Jesus used stories. …the story of the Pharisee Nicodemus and his late-night visit to Jesus. Jesus talks to Nicodemus about God and Spirit. While Nicodemus asks concrete questions, Jesus answers with imagery and metaphor, helplessly confusing poor Nicodemus.
But maybe that’s the lesson. There have always been ideas, thoughts, and experiences that are hard to put into words. That’s when people turn to poetry. Language that uses vivid imagery, that relies on metaphor, that contains a meaning and a message beyond the words themselves; words that stir the imagination, that have a quality of grace.
Nicodemus seems curious about this. “"Rabbi, we all know you're a teacher straight from God.” What does that mean? Whenever we speak about God, we are limited to metaphors and analogies. Many people carry around a picture of God in their imaginations. Others it is a metaphor or word – love, light, presence, mystery. Jesus called God “Abba,” which is like papa or daddy; many people are still very attached to the metaphor of father in their language about God.
I heard an indigenous lay pastor speak at a conference a few years ago. He prefers to speak of God as a wise grandmother. We can never claim that any one image or description of God captures the fullness of the Divine. I chose “Bring Many Names” as our final hymn today by Brian Wren. It invites us to imagine the holy one with different images and ways of moving in the world and our lives.
Does it matter? Yes. The way we talk about God and envision God profoundly influences everything else that we say about Christian life and faith. As my SFTS theology professor used to say, “Theology matters.”
As Rev. Joanne Whitt wrote in her sermon, it matters how we imagine God. Our chosen images can point to God’s power not as coercive but as creative, sacrificial, and empowering love.
So Nicodemus is pondering some deep questions and probably would not have liked the last hymn. He is a concrete, either/or, just the facts person and searching for something he can’t quite name. Maybe like many of us. I empathize with him.
Dear Nicodemus, this wise leader, respected teacher, sneaking out of his house hoping his neighbors don’t see him slink off into the darkness, searching out a slightly suspect, intriguing and dangerous, radical street-preacher, Jesus, about whom the rumors are swirling and whose words won’t leave Nicodemus alone.
As Rev. Kara Root describes in her sermon, I imagine him moving through the shadows, driven by a yearning he can’t understand or articulate. Feeling his way through the darkness, with that tangled ball of question pressing in on his heart, pondering the realities of loss and death.
And when he does get to Jesus, he can’t even form a question. Instead he says “Some of us think that you are from God...” hoping Jesus will pick it up from there. Jesus does, but infuriatingly, by introducing more confusing concepts, when he answers, No one can see the kingdom, the reign of God without being born from above.
Then Nicodemus asks outright, What does that mean?? How is that even possible?
Being born from above? Born anew? That does not make sense. Jesus goes on to describe time people did not recognize the reign of God that was present when they were with Moses. And then he says those famous words
"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.”
We see this reference on posters at football games and on the bottom of cups at In and Out. Confusing? Hopeful? Simple – believe and get into heaven? Not exactly.
Jesus talks of wind and water and spirit. He does not talk about what we need to do , but what God does, what God did, what God is already and always doing. For God so deeply and fully loves this world that this holy one, this Source of Love, came among us. …and whoever relaxes their being into the being of God will know real and abiding life.
In John, remember, believing is trusting. Same word. It’s not accepting a set of facts you can argue with Believing in Christ means opening up and leaning your whole self in, Trust, deepen, and you will find deep life and love forever.
Nicodemus comes as night, seeking, wondering. He seeks out Jesus – help me know what I am supposed to do. Me, Nicodemus. But Jesus says – you are part of a cosmic eternal story. God so loves this world. World in Greek is cosmos. God so loved the cosmos. Κοσμος (cosmos) is the Greek word we translate here as “world.”
God loves the world. That’s the whole world. And while that world was pretty big in John’s day—including Roman soldiers, “sinners,” pagans, Pharisees, people who went to the temple regularly and those who weren’t allowed in the temple, lepers and other “unclean” folk—today our world is even bigger. Nicodemus was not expecting that.
Today we are called to hear and trust those words.
God loves the cosmos and whole world.
All creatures great and small.
Refugees from Syria and Somalia who have resettled in our cities like Minneapolis
Our Hispanic, Latino and Latina friends and neighbors
LGBTQ persons
People with whom with disagree
The invitation is to see our moving in this deep story, and that God Is bringing life out of death, and hope from despair, and joy from sorrow, and healing from brokenness, and leading everything toward. Reclaiming the wholeness and shalom. Be born anew into that journey, God so loved the cosmos. You and the cosmos. All people. You love them too.
That is what I hope people experience as part of a church, this church, to be open to an ongoing deeper life and awareness and experience of Divine Mystery and Love.
As I thought about Nicodemus and being born anew and changing his map for living as a religious, spiritual person, I was transported back near 6 years ago. It was May 2020. The Covid pandemic was growing and we had stopped doing most of what made our lives normal and full. That May we embarked on an all church reading program that profound for me and for many. The Rebirthing of God: Christianity’s Struggle for New Beginnings by John Philip Newell. We invited people to start reading in May and then on June 3 and for 12 weeks, we met every week on Wednesdays on Zoom at 12:00 to talk about the chapters.
I pulled my copy off the bookshelf this week. And those chapters and those conversations spoke deeply to me. Together we wanted to open to some new life, rebirth and hope in our spiritual lives, our church and the world at a time it was hard to see. Here are words from the introduction.
I am writing from Iona, the birthplace of Christianity for Scotland in the sixth century. This island of Iona was a place of new beginnings for a whole nation and for many people well beyond the bounds of this land. Since then, it has been a place of pilgrimage. People come longing for healing for themselves and for their families and new beginnings.
In this book I invite us to imagine what new birth would look like in our lives individually and collectively. Specifically, I invite those of us who belong to the Christian household—to dream together of a reborn Christianity that might again carry great blessing for the world and usher in the emergence of a new well-being for the earth.
Julian of Norwich, the fourteenth-century Christian mystic, said most simply but most radically that we are not just made by God, we are made of God. We are not just fashioned from afar by a distant Creator. We are born from the very womb of the Divine. This is why Julian so loves to refer to God as Mother as well as Father.
Western Christianity in its most traditional forms is collapsing. Seismic shift. Churches are not the primary places for spiritual renewal. And the invitation. And as we read and discussed something new was born in us as a church. First chapter.
Ch. 1 Reconnecting with the Earth: The Cathedral of Earth, At the Heart of Matter Is the Heart of God; A Spirituality of Intimacy with the Natural World.
On Iona, The Abbey is enclosed. It has a roof and four strong walls. Jeffrey and I have been to Iona twice. Down the road is the Nunnery and it is open. It stands free to the elements. There is a yearning within us to come back into relationship with all things. The ancient Celts spoke of the cathedral of earth, sea, and sky. ….In New Harmony, Indiana, there is a modern place of prayer that addresses this same yearning. It’s called the Roofless Church.
As we discussed this chapter, an idea was born. What if we worshipped on the patio under the redwoods? I wrote that note on page 3. And the Spirit moved. A new expression of worship was born here Roofless Church. Our first outdoor service was Easter in April 2021. And we kept going until May we cautiously moved inside. But people said – let’s go back outside. So now we go every July.
Every chapter has spiritual wisdom for us today as we face threats of breakdown of democracy, brutality, and unethical treatment of immigrants and people of color.
• Ch. 2 Reconnecting with Compassion: A Revolution of the Spirit; The Courage to See; The Courage to Feel; The Courage to Act.
• Ch. 3 Reconnecting with the Light: The Light at the Center of Every Cell;
• Ch. 4 Reconnecting with the Journey: Journeying into Unknown Territory as pilgrims
• Ch. 5 Reconnecting with Spiritual Practice: A Contemplative Orientation;
Celebrated Kay Collette’s ministry and leadership. OWOS was born and bears fruit today
• Ch. 6 Reconnecting with Nonviolence: Response-Ability; Love-Force Not Brute Force;
• Ch. 7 Reconnecting with the Unconscious:
• Ch. 8 Reconnecting with Love: God Is Love; Saying Yes to the Heart of the Other; There Is No Distinction between Love and Justice.
How is the process of rebirthing and growing going for you?
In this season, do you have a practice that helps you reflect on where you are,
and where you have been and what gives you hope and courage?
What questions are visiting you in the dark?
In these uncertain times, there are signs of what a reawakened Christianity might look like. A deeper place of Divine presence and mystery. “You must be born anew,” says Jesus. It is the coming forth again of what is deepest in us. It is the rebirthing of God. Amen.
Resources
Rev. Joanne Whitt, “Why I Bother With the Trinity,” 5.20.24
https://solve-by-walking.com/2024/05/20/why-i-bother-with-the-trinity/
Rev. Kara Root, “Born Again and Again and.. “ 3.5.23
https://kara-root.blogspot.com/2023/03/born-again-and-again-and-again.html
John Philip Newell, The Rebirthing of God: Christianity's Struggle for New Beginnings.
(Woodstock, VT: SkyLight Paths Publishing, 2014)