March 5, 2023

A15: The Second Sunday in Lent, Year A (2023)

Will Willimon

Will Willimon has learned to love a lot of the characters in the Gospels, but not Nicodemus. What’s to love about this stuffy know-it-all who comes to Jesus at night in John 3:1-17, pretending to know more than he does? What we love is the way Jesus boggles the mind of this teacher of Israel, and how Nicodemus goes from saying “We know,” to saying, “How can this be?” But how much do any of us really know when it comes to Jesus? The Rev. Dr. William H. Willimon, Retired Bishop in the United Methodist Church, Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry at Duke Divinity School, one of the Most Effective Preachers in the English-Speaking World, admits that when it comes to Jesus what he really knows is what he learned as an eight-year-old: that “God so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son.”

Manuscript available: click HERE