| "Listen, please, to some magnificent poetry:
"Thou waitest for the spark from heaven! and we,
Light half-believers of our casual creeds,
Who never deeply felt, nor clearly willed,
Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds,
Whose vague resolves never have been fulfilled;
For whom each year we see
Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new,
Who hesitate and falter life away,
And lose tomorrow the ground won to-day-
Ah! do not we, wanderer! await it too?"
Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), "The Scholar-Gipsy," lines 171-180
-that spark from heaven.
Nowadays, whenever I reflect on that stanza from a poem by Matthew Arnold, a stanza about "half-believers" awaiting a "spark from heaven," I associate it with Nicodemus and that nighttime visit of his to Jesus just recounted in today's Second Lesson. In case you haven't been noticing over the past six years, I love the poetry of the 19th-century author Matthew Arnold, and I've loved it ever since I first encountered it during my freshman year in college, in a course entitled "Introduction to Liberal Studies." Actually, when I recall the title of that formative course, in which, by the way, Margaret and I met for the first time, I can't help but wonder if that course is the reason the two of us have been "liberals" from our college days right up 'til now. Who knows! Anyway, when last week I reopened the dog-eared pages of the slim, hundred-page volume of Arnold's poetry assigned to us forty-five years ago (Matthew Arnold, Selected Poems, ed. E. K. Brown, New York: Appleton-Century Crofts, 1951), I discovered by reading the notes I'd written in the margins how much even then I'd valued Arnold's great elegiac poem "The Scholar-Gipsy," first published in 1853. I noticed that, in a departure from my usual custom when reading, I'd underlined not just one or, at most, two lines in a stanza but all ten lines of Stanza 18 (p. 72), the one I read to you a moment ago. I am aware, of course, that I really like those lines today. But I was surprised to discover that I had already really liked those lines so long ago. Arnold shows himself in his poetry to have been a melancholy, anxious young intellectual, the same kind of person I imagine Nicodemus to have been-melancholy, anxious, young, intellectual. Now, Matthew Arnold's father had died when Matthew was just nineteen years old, and for long thereafter Matthew continued to brood about death, writing a whole series of elegies over the next twenty years. The poem "The Scholar-Gipsy" is part of that series, although, unlike most of Arnold's other elegies, it offers not a reflection on the death of a specific individual but rather a reflection on a death-dealing element in the spiritual atmosphere of his time. Elsewhere in the poem, Arnold calls this death-dealing element the "strange disease of modern life, With its sick hurry, its divided aims, Its heads o'ertaxed, its palsied hearts." (lines 203-205) The atmosphere of Arnold's time sounds a lot like that of our own, doesn't it-with a pace of life so quick that it's sick, with purposes in life so diverse that they stand at odds with one another, with such an exaggerated emphasis on brainpower and such a diminished emphasis on heartpower. Now, it is "this strange disease of modern life" that the protagonist of Arnold's poem, the Scholar-Gipsy, has succeeded in fleeing. This Oxford don of an era earlier than Arnold's was a scholar who had left behind him the city and the university and had instead spent his years wandering o'er hill and field in a lifestyle that was quite unlike Arnold's or ours, but, at least in my opinion, amazingly like Jesus's-well, with these three intriguing differences. First, Arnold's Scholar-Gipsy went forth into the countryside as a student, whereas Jesus went forth as a teacher. Second, Arnold's Scholar-Gipsy heeded the poet's plea to stay distant from the likes of Arnold and his contemporaries, lest he, like them, become distracted and timid, lest he, like them, become a person of unclear aims and faded youth. (cf. lines 225, 226-230) But, in contrast, the wandering rabbi Jesus heeded no such pleading and maintained no such distance between himself and those of differing mind. On the contrary, Jesus sought out the lost and alienated, and was willing to risk close contact with anybody. So, that's the second intriguing difference. And the third is this. Arnold's Scholar-Gipsy was wandering in quest of "the spark from heaven," whereas Jesus was not, you see. For in truth Jesus was already full of "the spark from heaven," by which I mean he was already full of God's Holy Spirit. So it came about, in the days of the wandering rabbi Jesus, that a "half-believer" named Nicodemus came to speak with him- to speak with the scholar-gipsy of that day. And Nicodemus came to this wandering rabbi, Jesus, dissatisfied with what he already knew, like Arnold, and searching for some "spark from heaven." Now, I call Nicodemus a "half-believer" because, according to our Gospel lesson, he came to seek out Jesus only under cover of night, not amidst the full light of day. No, Nicodemus, it seems, was as yet unwilling to have others see him talking with Jesus. The Gospel of John paints no initial character portrait of Nicodemus, beyond what we can glean from this conversation of his in chap. 3. But I've long imagined Nicodemus to have been much like the man that, in this poem, Arnold describes himself to have been. I've long imagined Nicodemus to have been not only, as I said, a melancholy, anxious young intellectual, but also a man "Who never deeply felt [because of a paralysis of heart], nor clearly willed [because of divided aims], Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds, Whose vague resolves never have been fulfilled; For whom each year we see Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new, Who hesitate(s) and falter(s) life away, And lose(s) tomorrow the ground won to-day." Well, whatever his character, this man Nicodemus has already heard a lot about Jesus, and he's already prepared to profess that this gipsy is a rabbi-or as he puts it, "a teacher who has come from God." Yes, Nicodemus is a half-believer, or as John might put it, "a believer by night." But when Nicodemus comes and speaks directly with Jesus, he winds up understanding practically nothing he hears. Jesus talks mysteriously about "being born again." Or is it about "being born from above"? You see, Jesus's words can mean either or both of those things, but Nicodemus presumes him to have meant the former, "being born again." But how can a person be born twice? Nicodemus, listening with the ears of a literalist, can make no sense of this concept, so he asks, "Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" And he's thinking, "Of course not. How ludicrous!" But the gipsy-rabbi goes on to say that he was intending to mean both that a person needs to be born "from above" and that a person needs to be born "again"-by which, ever since then, Christians have understood Jesus to have been saying that a person, having been born physically, must then be reborn spiritually, by receiving from above what Arnold has called "the spark from heaven." For God has loved the world to such an extent as to give God's only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life, a life begun through a rebirth from above, a rebirth sparked by the same Spirit that filled Jesus himself. Well, from this initial encounter with Jesus in the 3rd chapter of John, Nicodemus goes away confused and befuddled. Yet, here's the good news. By the end of the gospel, in chapter 19 (vss. 38-42), this confused half-believer, this befuddled believer by night becomesa steadfast full-believer, a believer both by night and by day. You see, through the mysterious blowing of the same Spirit that was in Jesus-whence and whither it blows no person can anticipate-Nicodemus's confusion is overcome. This man who first came to Jesus under cover of nightnow at the end comes with Joseph of Arimathea in the full light of day, as a public disciple. He comes to claim bravely the crucified body of Jesus. He comes to prepare it graciously for burial, and to place it reverently in the tomb. That, you see, was Nicodemus's journey from chap. 3 to chap. 19. But what about our journey toward discipleship? Well, I am praying that our journey toward discipleship during this season of Lent will very much resemble Nicodemus's. Perhaps Ash Wednesday found us, like him, as at best half-believers, believers by night, with few, including ourselves, knowing for certain whether or not we are followers of Jesus. But I am praying that come the end of Lent, come Good Friday, the same Spirit that was in Jesus and that in time came to Nicodemus will have healed us, too, of what Arnold calls the "strange disease of modern life, With its sick hurry, its divided aims, Its heads o'ertaxed, its palsied hearts." I am praying that come the culmination of our Lent we, like Nicodemus, will be feeling our faith deeply and willing our deeds clearly, fulfilling our lives through a firm allegiance to Christ rather than faltering our lives away. I am praying that come this Good Friday afternoon we will be found at the foot of the cross, at Jesus's side by day, not just by night. I am praying that in the days of Lent ahead we will be opening ourselves to receiving God's gift of the spark from heaven, the gift of the transforming power of the same mysteriously blowing Spirit that was in Jesus and that in time came to Nicodemus. And I am praying that through the gift of that spark we, too, may become persons whose gracious deeds of love mark us both by night and by day, mark us as followers of Jesus. Amen |
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