Lent 2A: So Close to Seeing – by Rev. Jeffrey Tooke
In preparing for our Gospel today, I was struck by something a bit unexpected. This is a passage that I’ve read many times over the years, with familiar words and phrases, but this time, two lines caught my attention in a new way.
The first comes early in Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus. Jesus says,
“Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” I realized how easily I’ve skimmed past that word: see. We usually hear this passage in terms of entering the kingdom–who gets in, how you get there–but Jesus begins somewhere else entirely.
He talks about seeing the kingdom.
Later, Jesus says again, “We speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen.” Once more, the emphasis isn’t on crossing a boundary or passing a test. It’s about vision. About perception. To see is to notice. To recognize. To become aware of what is already present. And Jesus seems to be saying that unless we are born from above, unless something in us is transformed, we won’t be able to see the kingdom that is already right here, right now.
Then Nicodemus says something else that caught my attention. He tells Jesus, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God.”
We know. Who is “we”?
Nicodemus isn’t speaking only for himself. He seems to represent a group of people: religious leaders, insiders, people who think they already understand what God is doing. And they recognize something true about Jesus. They’re not blind, but they’re not quite seeing clearly either.
Once I noticed all this, the language of seeing and the collective “we know”, the whole conversation began to shift for me. It’s almost as if Jesus is saying to Nicodemus, “You’re close. You’re so close. But you’re still not seeing fully.”
Then we come to perhaps the most famous line in all of Scripture: “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’ve seen this verse on banners at sporting events, on signs held up in crowds. It’s often used as a kind of litmus test: a dividing line. In or out. Saved or not saved. Pass or fail.
And it’s true that parts of this Gospel can sound very either/or, very binary. But I don’t think that’s the lens Jesus is inviting us to use.
So, let’s keep reading. Let’s add the very next verse where Jesus says: “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
Now everything changes.
God did not send Jesus to condemn the world. Not to divide it.Not to sort people into categories of insiders and outsiders. God sent Jesus to dwell in the world–to enter fully into human life, into flesh and blood, into joy and suffering and into love and loss.
That dwelling–that incarnation–is how salvation happens.
This is the lens we need if we’re going to see the kingdom. We can’t stop at “God so loved the world.” We have to keep going. We have to see that this love is not conditional, not exclusive, not reserved for a few.
Jesus did not come to condemn anyone. There is no either/or with Jesus.
There is no in or out. With Jesus, we are all in. Every one of us.
And I think that when we truly see the kingdom, we realize that it begins right here, right now, and that it rules no one out.
Nicodemus was close. So close.
And Jesus is saying the same thing to us. If we allow our vision to be transformed, if we look through the full lens of God’s love, we will see it too.
So, I’ll leave you with the question that Jesus places before us: Can you see the kingdom?