Introduction
Just last week we were in Matthew’s Gospel. Over the last month we have been walking with Jesus on mountain tops, listening to his teachings, and confronted in the wilderness by testing. And now, almost without warning, the lectionary moves us into the Gospel of John for the heart of Lent.
John does not tell the story of Jesus the way Matthew, Mark, and Luke do. There are no parables in John. No Sermon on the Mount. No short proverbs. Instead, John gives us long conversations. Extended encounters. Deep theological dialogues where misunderstanding is not a mistake but part of the process.
Beginning this Sunday, we enter a remarkable stretch of John’s “greatest hits”:
Lent 2: Nicodemus in the night (John 3)
Lent 3: The Samaritan woman at the well (John 4)
Lent 4: The man born blind (John 9)
Lent 5: The raising of Lazarus (John 11)
These are not small moments. These are identity-shaping encounters. In each story, someone meets Jesus and is changed, though not always in the same way or at the same pace.
Themes of light and darkness, sight and blindness, life and death run throughout. But underneath all of them is something even more human: the struggle to recognize what God is doing when it challenges what we thought we knew.
And that is where Nicodemus meets us.
“We Know”
Nicodemus’ opening words: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God…”
It is an odd way to begin.
He comes at night, already signaling uncertainty, curiosity, maybe even hesitation, and yet he begins with confidence: we know.
That plural matters. He speaks as part of a group. As a Pharisee. As a leader of the Jews. As someone formed in a tradition deeply committed to study, debate, and faithful interpretation of the Law.
And it is important to describe this carefully to our people. Pharisaic tradition was not intellectual rigidity. It was vigorous conversation. It was argument for the sake of faithfulness. It assumed that truth was pursued through dialogue.
So Nicodemus is not ignorant. He is not closed-minded in the caricatured way we sometimes preach him. He is thoughtful. Serious. Devout.
And yet he begins with certainty. “We know.”
It is the kind of phrase we use when we feel something shifting underneath us.
When we sense our assumptions being challenged.
When a convincing argument unsettles us.
When curiosity threatens to move us somewhere new.
We often double down, don’t we? “We know.”
Nicodemus is curious, but he is also defending himself against his own curiosity.
And Jesus immediately disrupts that certainty. Now remember, Jesus in the Gospel of John is all knowing. We will see that next week with the woman at the well and Jesus knowing her history. And so, Jesus knows Nicodemus is uncertain in this moment. Leading with certainty out of anxiety or a feeling of intimidation. But Jesus doesn’t accept that certainty. Jesus does not affirm Nicodemus’ statement. He does not engage the polite theological exchange. He interrupts.
“No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”
The conversation immediately moves from shared knowledge to radical reorientation.
Nicodemus tries to keep the discussion within manageable categories. He literalizes the metaphor. He asks biological questions. He attempts to control the terms of the debate.
“How can anyone be born after having grown old?”
It is a reasonable question. But beneath it is resistance. He is trying to hear Jesus’ words in a way that can’t be possible (a literal physical birth) because if this is about spiritual new birth, then everything Nicodemus has built, his understanding, his religious identity, his authority, may not be sufficient.
And that is harder than asking a theological question. That is the possibility of changing one’s mind.
Changing Our Minds
Changing our minds is not simply an intellectual exercise. It is an existential threat to most of us.
If we must change our minds, then that must mean we were incomplete before. We may have been wrong. We must have misjudged. We must surrender something that once defined us.
In our current society, certainty is essential. We are encouraged to know exactly where we stand, politically, socially, theologically. We are sorted into tribes by clarity of conviction. The stronger the opinion, the stronger the identity.
And if anyone challenges that identity, the instinct is rarely curiosity.
It is defense.
We double down.
We gather supporting voices.
We protect the “we know.”
Nicodemus embodies that tension. He is drawn to Jesus. The signs have stirred something in him. But if Jesus is right, if the kingdom requires birth from above, water and Spirit, a reordering beyond inherited frameworks, then Nicodemus must be willing to be changed.
That is far more destabilizing than asking a question under cover of night. And it is why Lent, as a season of repentance, is more than a little “dangerous” or “threatening” for us. Repentance is not self-improvement. It is reorientation.
The Long Arc of a Changed Mind
Here is where preachers must widen the lens. This is not the end of Nicodemus’ story. John mentions him two more times.
In chapter 7, when religious leaders want to arrest Jesus, Nicodemus speaks up, cautiously. He does not confess belief. He does not declare Jesus Messiah. He simply insists on due process:
“Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing…” It is a small shift. But it is movement.
And then in chapter 19, after Jesus has been crucified, Nicodemus appears again. This time he brings an extravagant amount of burial spices, myrrh and aloes, to prepare Jesus’ body for burial.
No speech. No declaration. Just costly, public devotion. The man who once came at night now steps into the light of public association with a crucified Messiah.
Changing his mind did not happen in a moment. It unfolded slowly. Quietly. Incrementally.
And perhaps that is precisely the point.
Born From Above as Reorientation
We often preach this text primarily as a baptismal text. And it certainly resonates with water and Spirit imagery.
But perhaps another way to hear “born from above” this year is as ongoing reorientation.
The Spirit blows where it chooses. The wind cannot be controlled. It cannot be managed or systematized.
To be born from above is not merely to adopt a new belief. It is to surrender control over how God reshapes us. It is about turning, changing, seeing anew.
Nicodemus’ journey suggests that rebirth is less like flipping a switch and more like being slowly turned toward the light.
Preaching Possibilities
Repentance as Changing Our Minds
This Sunday may be an invitation to preach about the courage it takes to change our minds.
Not as weakness. Not as compromise. But as faithfulness.
Nicodemus reminds us that:
Curiosity is not betrayal.
Questions are not collapse.
Slow transformation is still transformation.
Many of us feel pressure to project certainty. To be sure. To have answers. To know exactly where we stand. To have perfect allegiance to our political parties, churches, family, or friends.
But the Gospel of John opens Lent by introducing us to a leader who begins with “we know,” and ends kneeling at the tomb of the crucified Christ.
That is not failure. That is the long process of formation.
Before Nicodemus understands, Jesus speaks of love. Before certainty, there is grace. “For God so loved the world…” The love of God precedes Nicodemus’ clarity. It precedes his defense. It even precedes his eventual devotion.
Perhaps being born from above is less about mastering new spiritual information and more about allowing God to soften our grip on the old.
Lent is a season for repentance, which at its root means turning. Reorientation. Changing direction. Perhaps even changing our minds.
Nicodemus shows us that such turning may begin in darkness, in defensiveness, in half-formed questions. But the Spirit is patient.
The wind blows where it wills.
And sometimes, the most faithful thing we can do is loosen our certainty long enough for God to reshape it into deeper trust.
Micah Krey 
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