March 1, 2026
What wakes you up at night? What keeps you awake, tossing and turning? Or maybe you’re one of the lucky ones who sleep soundly throughout the night. Next weekend, prepare to lose one hour of sleep when we change our clocks. Certainly time zone changes or sleep patterns affect our sleep.
Turns out that nighttime is pretty important. We need that time in the darkness of the night for our bodies to create melatonin, which helps keep us in balance. Our brains are actually working hard at night: that’s when the brain is busy rejuvenating, building new cells and strengthening connections between the left and right hemispheres.
I wonder about Nicodemus and what was keeping him up in the middle of the night. Why wasn’t he sleeping, allowing his body to rest and his brain to rejuvenate? Why come to Jesus in the middle of the night to ask questions? Nicodemus couldn’t use the Daylight Saving Time change as an excuse to be up in the night.
Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a person of religious authority, one who is known to trust God and live rightly according to the law. And yet, with all this knowledge and religious experience, he still had concerns, restlessness — doubts and concerns about the presence of God — questions about life and birth and death.
Nicodemus was not the only person to meet Jesus in the middle of the night. Many of us have done the same. Often it is in the darkness, in the middle of the night, that we wrestle with our own questions about the presence of God and seek signs and answers from the Holy One.
In the book Learning to Walk in the Dark, Professor Barbara Brown Taylor writes that “new life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.” The hiddenness of darkness makes it a relatively safe context for vulnerability. In the darkness, Nicodemus can hesitate and ask questions to which he does not know the answers. He can set aside his authoritative position in the community and confess that he does not understand.
Pastor Mary Lunti writes, “Nicodemus lives in everyone who has ever come up against the limits of reason: In the illness or death of a child, in the powerlessness of addiction, in the panic that no one will ever love us the way we want or deserve to be loved. Nicodemus lives in all of us who have seen our dreams, careers, or relationships derailed, who have lived with the blank dullness of depression. We, like Nicodemus, seek answers and signs as we despair over the human condition… and as we face our own mortality.”
We read this text in a time of political and social concerns and even at times confusion, questioning what and when is justice for Iran, Mexico, Venezuela, immigrants, victims of violence, Gaza, and all those living in limbo and uncertainty. And the uncertainty affects our mental health, often leaving us feeling in the dark or confused about our nation or our calling. And we read this text here in Lent, when the days are getting longer as we intentionally and spiritually take stock of who we are, what we have, and how God is at work.
Jesus answers Nicodemus’s questions with what has become the most famous Bible verse. Martin Luther called John 3:16 “the gospel in miniature,” The good news in one short verse. Many signs and curbs read simply John 3:16: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”
But moving too quickly can make believing difficult. Before jumping to the answers, it is important to sit with Nicodemus and ask questions, examining our lives, living in uncertainty and darkness.
In the account of Nicodemus’s visit by night, the rare word of John’s Gospel of believing is used twice. Belief in this context means trusting or putting one’s faith in another. Jesus explains to Nicodemus that anyone who believes in him will have eternal life. This is the heart of Jesus’ teaching: a call to trust, maybe and especially when uncertain and challenged.
In the dark, we have to believe and trust what we cannot see, and that is where new life begins.
Born again? How can that be? Can no one go back into their mother’s womb? Jesus says, ” You’ll be born anew. The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. — This mysterious language and imagery have often been tied to Baptism when we are born again.
One bumper sticker reads: “Born okay the first time.” We may not use the concept of being born again often, but we do have second chances after forgiveness and reconciliation. We are not stuck forever in our own mess. We are made new each day, a gift to live fully in the light of Christ, who shines in the midst of our deepest darkness. The light that does not fail but will shine even when we least expect it. Because “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but so that the world might be saved through him.” That’s John 3:17. God intends good for us. God promises to redeem the world.
Facing our doubts and fears, the lengthening of days and light gives meaning to our spiritual and emotional lives, sometimes even bringing them to Jesus in the middle of the night while resting in the promises of God’s saving grace. The dawn will come. There is a new day. New life is always there with Christ. In our darkest nights and most joyful days, we learn a fierce, bold trust to lead us in joy to serve, give, and witness as Christ’s light, peace, joy, and justice shine through us.