For at least the first 800 years of the church, adults were baptized at the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday. They spent three years before their baptism in constant classes and in programs doing works of charity for the poor and needy. They were seated in a special area in church and were dismissed after the sermon to attend their classes or “catechism.” They were not allowed to take communion until after baptism.

The interrogatory portion of the baptismal liturgy where the celebrant asks questions of the candidates or their sponsors, and the candidates and sponsors respond, is an ancient part of our liturgy dating back to the earliest days of the church.

When a new religion enters a region of the world, it does not just appear instantly and wipe out all the earlier religious belief. There is a very common process we call “syncretism”, where pre-existing religious beliefs are incorporated into the new religion. In the early days of the church in the Greco-Roman world, people believed that different directions on the compass had different spiritual meanings. Native Americans hold similar beliefs here. The east, the direction most church altars face, is the direction of the rising sun and is considered the direction of spiritual enlightenment by many world religions. In contrast, the west, the direction of the setting sun, is considered evil.

In the early church there were no pews for people to sit during the 2.5 hour services. When the priest asked the candidates if they rejected the devil and all the spiritual forces of evil that reject God, the baptismal candidates would turn around, face west, and spit, indicating their rejection of the devil.

Temptation is such a natural part of life. Many of you may remember the old Bill Cosby line where the child tells her mother that “The devil made me do it.” Even as adults our motivation for doing something tempting or not doing it connects directly to our image of God and our understanding of Jesus.

Some of us have difficulty getting the idea of God as judge and punisher out of our heads and hearts. Many people like this will endure week after week of “You are bad and going to hell if you don’t shape up” preaching. In this perspective, there is almost no room for Jesus, the cross, or forgiveness. Punishment is almost all self-inflicted.

Others of us have slow conversion experiences. We tend to look upon altar calls, televangelists, and stories of instant conversion with suspicion. We know that God in Jesus Christ loves us and forgives us. It can take months or years or even a lifetime before the knowledge in our heads works its way into our hearts; just like Nicodemus.

We are going to merge the wonderfully scripted Gospel you experienced of Jesus’ temptation with the story for this Sunday of Nicodemus.

Nicodemus, a Jewish leader, is intrigued by the reports he has heard about Jesus. “Could this Jesus be the one? He wondered. So Nicodemus arranges a time to see Jesus at night. He does not want to be seen by his fellow Jews as this might cast doubts on his leadership. But nighttime in the Gospel according to John is also a time of unbelief, ignorance, and temptation.

In their first encounter, Nicodemus interprets Jesus literally and he completely misses the idea how one can be born again or from above (the word translated “born again” is ambiguous and could equally be “born from above”). In his first attempt to get to know this enigmatic Jesus, Nicodemus fails and he disappears from the scene for a while.

In chapter 7, Nicodemus reappears and makes a somewhat hesitant defense of Jesus. He seems to have moved from doubt to possibility. At the end of the Gospel when Jesus is buried, Nicodemus accompanies Joseph of Arimathea with an exorbitant and very expensive quantity of spices for burial. Through this Gospel Nicodemus in three appearances moves from complete doubt to possibility to the position of a generous believer.

Is not the journey of Nicodemus the journey all of us make? We have baptized little Andrew but does that instantly guarantee that he will become a generous believer? What kind of upbringing does it take to make someone a generous believer and what difference does it make in the world anyway?

It takes not just a village to raise a child, it takes a whole community of generous believers; people who believe so strongly in the outrageous claims of the Bible that they willingly give money and give of themselves to other people they don’t even know. Why do they give this way? Because Jesus gave himself for us.

What difference does it make in a world with earthquakes, tsunamis and burning nuclear power plants? Because whether we live in Fukushima Japan or Muskogee Oklahoma, every one of us will one day sooner or later face the dark abyss with the sign posted next to it that says “No hope.” That dark place may be loss of a loved one, disease, accident, or just the process of getting older. In that place we may encounter other generous givers who will be helping us. In that dark place we will also encounter Jesus who will take our place.

Andrew’s Christian life will likely be more like Nicodemus, the slow awakening journey. The Gospel is our guide in this journey. It boils down to the title of a popular movie a few years ago. “Pay it forward.”