Lent 2 – Nicodemus & Vertical Imagery
Sermon Preached by Reverend Tracey Gracey on Sunday, 1 March 2026
John 3:1-17
Why did Nicodemus come to Jesus at night?
Perhaps he did not want to be seen.
Perhaps the night gave him cover to ask what he could not ask in public or perhaps the night was when he could seek answers to the deeper questions of life.
Nicodemus is not an outsider to faith.
He is a Pharisee.
A teacher.
A leader.
He knows scripture.
He knows tradition.
He believes God is at work.
And he comes already believing something.
And he begins, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God.”
Notice the we.
It is not just Nicodemus who is questioning, wondering and feeling unsettled. He comes carrying the questions of a community.
He has come on behalf of others searching for clarity.
This story is often interpreted as someone moving from unbelief to belief. But that is not really Nicodemus’ story.
It is the story of a faithful person discovering how to deepen their faith.
John Shea, a Catholic theologian, offers a helpful image for what may be happening in this encounter.
Shea speaks of what he calls “vertical imagery” as a way of describing how spiritual life flows.
Imagine a vertical line.
At the highest level is the life of God – Spirit – moving toward us.
At the deepest place within us is the soul, our openness to that life.
In the middle is the mind — our thinking, our beliefs, our interpretations.
And below that is the body and the world — how we live, act, embody faith.
The mind sits in the middle.
The mind becomes the gatekeeper.
Shea says the mind must learn to open to the flow of Spirit and allow what comes from above to move through us into the way we live.
That movement from above needs understanding to become action.
If the mind is open, something new can move through us,
a new way of seeing,
a loosening of fear,
a compassion we did not expect,
a courage to act differently.
If the mind is closed, everything new gets squeezed into religious assumptions and practices, which can show up as quiet resistance.
A need for everything to make sense first.
A reluctance to let God be larger than our definitions.
Not because God stops inviting us into new life,
not because God withdraws, but because we filter what is given through what we already think we know.
And this may be exactly what is happening with Nicodemus.
Nicodemus is a religious scholar.
His mind is full of theology.
Full of learning.
Full of established assumptions about how God works.
Which is why Jesus seeks to open his mind by speaking of being born from above.
The Greek word Jesus uses – Anothen [AH-NO-THEN] can mean both “born again” and “born from above.”
Nicodemus’ mind immediately shuts down by literally interpreting what Jesus says:
“How can a man enter his mother’s womb?”
It is not a foolish question.
It is a mind trying to protect what has always felt certain.
Birth is not something we achieve.
It is something we receive.
Nicodemus hears starting over,
whilst Jesus invites him to receive life that comes from beyond him.
A life shaped not simply by effort or knowledge – but by God.
A life rooted in mystery.
And then Jesus says something even more unsettling.
“The wind blows where it chooses.”
In Greek, the same word means wind and Spirit.
You hear it. You feel it.
But you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.
So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.
The wind cannot be controlled.
It cannot be contained.
It cannot be engineered.
And Jesus is saying: neither can the Spirit.
Life from above is not something we master.
It is something we receive.
This is where mystery begins.
with Jesus speaking about new birth, Spirit and wind
And then comes:
“For God so loved the world…”
That “for” matters.
It means: This is why new birth is possible.
This is why life from above comes.
This is what the wind is carrying.
If we hold John Shea’s imagery alongside this verse:
At the highest level — the life of God.
What is moving toward us?
Love.
“For God so loved the world…”
The movement from above is not judgment first.
It is love.
The soul’s openness is not met with demand —
but with gift.
The mind that opens discovers not condemnation —
but generosity.
And the body and world are shaped by that same love.
In Nicodemus’ case, his mind initially resists.
But the story does not end there.
Later in John’s Gospel, he cautiously speaks up and defends Jesus:
“Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing?”
And at the very end of the Gospel — when most disciples have disappeared — Nicodemus appears again.
This time in public. Bringing spices for Jesus’ burial.
The man who came in darkness now stands beside the cross.
John never tells us when Nicodemus finally understood.
We can only assume that somewhere along the journey, something shifted.
His mind softened.
His certainty loosened.
The gate opened.
And perhaps this is our Lenten invitation
To notice the movement from above.
To pay attention to the deepest place within us where the soul remains open.
To become aware of the middle space, our minds and whether they are open or closed.
And to allow what comes from God to shape how we live in the world.
So that we too may come out of the night
and find ourselves standing beside the cross,
not because we have mastered the mystery,
but because we have allowed the life from above to move through us.
Amen.