There’s a particular kind of question that only surfaces after dark.
During the day, you’re busy. Distracted. Managing the image you present to the world. But somewhere around 2 AM, when sleep won’t come and the house is quiet, the questions you’ve been outrunning finally catch up.
Is this really what I believe, or just what I was taught to believe?
Why do I feel so disconnected from the faith that’s supposed to give me peace?
What if I’ve been going through the motions for years and everyone can tell?
These aren’t casual questions. They’re the kind you don’t bring up at coffee hour after worship. The kind you hesitate to voice even to a spouse or close friend. Because admitting you have them feels like admitting failure. Like you should have figured this out by now.
So you carry them alone. In the dark. Hoping they’ll eventually go away.
They don’t.
And maybe that’s not a problem to be solved. Maybe those questions that surface at night are invitations—not signs that your faith is failing, but signals that your soul is ready for something deeper than what you’ve been settling for.
Today we begin a four-week journey called “From Darkness to Light.” Through encounters in John’s Gospel, we’ll explore how people move from confusion to clarity, from hiddenness to hope, from blindness to sight. Each week we’ll meet someone whose life was transformed by encountering Jesus—and discover how that same transformation is available to us. We begin with a man who came to Jesus under cover of night, carrying questions he was afraid to ask in public.
His story might feel more familiar than you expect. I’ve sat with people where the beeping monitors create a strange kind of permission—permission to finally say what we’ve been hiding.
Picture a man in his seventies. He’s served in a church for decades. Taught Sunday school, chaired committees, showed up every single week. Everyone assumes his faith is bedrock solid. He’s the one others look to when they need spiritual encouragement.
But now, facing surgery in the morning, he grips the bed rail and says what he’s never told anyone: “Pastor, I’m not sure I actually believe any of this. I’ve been going through the motions for forty years, and I don’t know if it’s real.”
The room gets quiet. The confession hangs in the air between us.
And here’s what I’ve learned in moments like that: the admission isn’t the end of faith. It’s often the beginning. All those years of showing up, serving, hoping it would become real—that wasn’t fakery. That was someone searching in the only way he knew how.
Honesty is where transformation starts.
John’s Gospel stages this encounter with deliberate care. Nicodemus comes “at night”—and while that’s a simple detail about timing, John never wastes words. Throughout this Gospel, darkness represents spiritual blindness, hiddenness, and distance from truth. Nicodemus approaches Jesus shrouded in the very thing he’s seeking to escape.
His opening statement reveals the tension: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God.” He speaks for others—“we know”—hedging his personal investment. He acknowledges Jesus as legitimate but stops short of commitment. It’s the posture of someone testing the water without getting wet.
Jesus refuses to play along. Instead of accepting the compliment, he cuts to the heart of what Nicodemus actually needs: “Unless someone is born anew, it’s not possible to see God’s kingdom.” The Greek word anothen carries a double meaning—“again” and “from above.” Jesus is saying: You can’t get there from here. Your credentials won’t help. Your knowledge won’t save you. You need something you cannot manufacture yourself.
Nicodemus responds with confusion, taking Jesus literally. But his question—“How is it possible?”—is the question of someone who wants this to be true but can’t imagine how. He’s not dismissing Jesus; he’s asking for a path forward.
The passage builds to the famous declaration: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.” But notice the context. These words aren’t shouted to crowds—they’re spoken to one searching man in the dark. The most famous verse in scripture emerges from a private conversation with someone who wasn’t sure what he believed.
That’s where transformation often begins—not in certainty, but in honest searching.
And that’s why Methodist theology holds space for Nicodemus. John Wesley spoke of prevenient grace—God’s love working in us before we ever recognize it. Every question that surfaces at 2 AM, every restlessness with surface-level faith, every hunger for something more—that’s grace already at work, drawing us toward the light.
Wesley himself knew the journey from religious performance to genuine faith. On May 24, 1738, at a meeting on Aldersgate Street in London, he felt his heart “strangely warmed” and finally trusted Christ for his own salvation. Wesley had been a priest for years, had crossed an ocean as a missionary, had studied scripture exhaustively. Yet he lacked the personal assurance Nicodemus was seeking.
Methodist theology honors both dramatic conversions and gradual awakenings. The decision doesn’t require a specific emotional experience—just honest willingness to receive what only God can give: new birth from above.
Nicodemus’s nighttime visit maps onto three kinds of decision points people face today.
Some are considering initial commitment. You’ve attended church, maybe for years. You know the songs, the rhythms, the expectations. But you’ve never personally said yes to following Jesus. It’s always been your family’s faith, your spouse’s faith, the faith you inherited. What would it mean to make it your own? The fear is real: What if I can’t live up to it? What if I fail? What if it doesn’t work?
Others need to recommit after distance. Life got busy or painful or complicated. You drifted. Maybe there was a crisis of doubt, a church hurt, a season where God felt absent. Now you wonder if the door is still open. You carry shame about the years away, embarrassment about starting over. Here’s what you need to know: God never stopped pursuing you. Coming back isn’t failure—it’s faithfulness.
Still others sense a call to deeper commitment. You’re already following Jesus, but something feels incomplete. There’s an area of your life you’ve protected from God’s claim—a relationship, a habit, a fear, your finances. Maybe you give, but cautiously. Generously in theory, but hedging in practice. You’ve been a Nicodemus Christian: sincere but cautious, believing but hedging. What would it mean to hold nothing back?
Each of these decision points shares something in common: they require moving from darkness into light. Not because light is comfortable—exposure never is—but because that’s where life is found.
The good news is that God is already pursuing you.
You didn’t wake up with those questions on your own. You didn’t stumble into spiritual hunger by accident. The very restlessness that keeps you up at night—that’s God’s Spirit, moving like wind you can’t see, drawing you toward something you can’t manufacture yourself.
Nicodemus thought he was seeking Jesus. But Jesus was waiting for him. The Teacher was ready with words that would echo across centuries, spoken first to one confused man in the dark: “God so loved the world…”
Your decision isn’t the starting point of God’s love—God has been wooing you all along. Your “yes” is response to an invitation that’s been standing open longer than you knew.
And here’s the beautiful part: you don’t have to have it all figured out. The decision doesn’t require perfection. It requires honesty. It requires showing up—even at night, even with doubts, even unsure of what you believe. Jesus doesn’t demand certainty. He offers new birth. And that’s a gift only grace can give.
So what does that look like in practice? As United Methodists, we make five promises when we join the church: to support the church with our prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness. This week, we focus on prayers—talking with God. Nicodemus brought his questions to Jesus in honest conversation, and that’s exactly what prayer can be.
Start a night prayer practice this week. Before sleep, tell God one thing you’re genuinely uncertain about—no polished language required, just honesty. Read John 3 slowly, one paragraph per day, sitting with Nicodemus’s questions and Jesus’s answers. Write down what you’ve been afraid to ask, naming your questions on paper as an act of trust. And find one person to share an honest question with this week.
Consider joining a Grace Group during Lent—a small community where you can bring your real questions and grow alongside others who are honest about their faith journey.
As we begin this four-week “From Darkness to Light” journey, we’re also preparing to make our annual giving commitments. You’ll receive a commitment card the week of February 3, and we’ll dedicate our commitments together on February 15. Between now and then, bring your questions about generosity to God with the same honesty Nicodemus finally found. What would it mean to bring your whole life—including your resources—into the light?
Nicodemus came to Jesus in darkness, carrying questions he couldn’t ask in daylight. He discovered that God doesn’t demand certainty—God welcomes honesty. As we continue this journey, remember: the questions surfacing in your soul aren’t obstacles to faith. They’re invitations. Bring them into the light. Transformation is waiting there.
Will you pray with me?
God who meets us in the night, receive our hidden questions. By your Spirit, birth something new in us. Lead us into your light. Amen.
AI tools assisted with drafting and research for this sermon, working within a theological framework I developed for preaching at McPherson First UMC. Scripture selection, theological direction, and final content remain my pastoral responsibility.
Rev. Andrew Conard 