12-Step Eucharist Nicodemus and Darkness Lent 2A Saint Mark’s, March 3, 2026
In a small but evocative detail, John tells us that Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night.
Intellectual Curiosity leads Nicodemus to Jesus, while fear of losing his position of authority brings him after dark. Nicodemus acknowledges Jesus’ authority/ established by Jesus’ works,/but then he challenges the teaching Jesus offers him and argues that it is impossible. Jesus subtly questions whether Nicodemus actually wants to see, or if he prefers to stay in the dark.
However,/ darkness and hesitancy in this story can also be inviting. In Learning to Walk in the Dark, Barbara Brown Taylor observes that “new life starts in darkness. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb,/ new life starts in the dark.” There is a nurturing quality to darkness that holds space for beginnings and transformations. The hiddenness of darkness makes it a relatively safe home for vulnerability.
In the darkness, Nicodemus can hesitate and ask questions and not pretend to know all the answers. He can set aside his authoritative position in the community and confess that he does not understand it all. Darkness is a space that can make it easier to embrace the vulnerability necessary for Nicodemus to experience the birthing of a new Spirit within him.
Nicodemus will not be able to logic or think his way into the new life, new birth, Jesus is inviting him into. The familiar life where Nicodemus perceives, teaches, and judges truth/ is not the one where he will be able to see this new kingdom of God. He needs to connect to a life from above, one that requires faith. This is the connection in darkness to new birth and the wind. The ultimate invitation to Nicodemus is to respond to Jesus’s invitation to trust something he cannot see or completely understand.
Jesus explains to Nicodemus/ in what has become one of the most famous verses in all scripture/ that anyone who believes in him will have eternal life. This is the heart of Jesus’ teaching: a call to trust/ a love /that is greater than any love we have ever known.
Jesus calls for trust from a person who approaches by night, seeking the safety of the shadows. Jesus calls for trust from a person who wants to apply the logic of the flesh/ to the life born of the Spirit. Trusting Jesus is ultimately at the center of the life he comes to proclaim. In the dark,/ we have to trust what we cannot see, and that is where new birth, new life, resurrection, begins./
Trust is essential in our Christian spiritual journey, but especially for people seeking recovery. We reach out in our darkness to people who offer us promises of hope, as we are unable to see how to escape from our life of darkness and addiction. There, in those meeting rooms, we embrace vulnerability that leads to new beginnings and growth, and a new life, a new birth in the resurrection,/ now/ and eternally.
Serena Rice, “In the Lectionary, March 1, Lent 2 A, John 3:1-17,” The Christian Century, February 23, 2026.