Lent 3

 Lent 3 2026

Psalm 42, John 3.1-15

I expect quite a few of you, like me, come from the generation that was expected at school to memorise all sorts of things – from mathematical formulae to large chunks of poetry. Most of the maths has evaporated from my mind, alas, but I can still, with a following wind, recite Portia’s speech from the Merchant of Venice – the quality of mercy is not strained etc.. Hymns and songs often etch themselves into our memories too. I have often found, when taking services in care homes, that residents who don’t remember much else can are word perfect on their favourite hymns.  

It’s not just words that we learn “by heart” though. How many skills have we picked up over the years which seemed hard when we first did them, but eventually became second nature to us? It may be plastering a wall, knitting, playing a musical instrument or operating a computer – it will be different for each of us – but there are some things we may not even have to think about anymore, which we do by muscle memory. We’ve learned them by heart. 

“By heart” is an interesting phrase. It implies that these things have, in a sense, become part of us. We can’t forget them, even if we try; they have become woven into our being.

In our readings today, we meet people who are thinking about what they have “learned by heart” and what they might still need to learn.

The Psalmist writes of his longing for God. We don’t know what has happened, but it’s clear that things aren’t going well for him. He feels oppressed by his enemy; and he feels as if God has forgotten him. And yet, at the same time, he can’t leave behind the habit of prayer, the memory of God’s love, the times when he has found hope and joy in God before. These are the things that are in his spiritual “muscle memory”. He may feel abandoned, but he has taken deep into himself over the years, learned by heart, the knowledge that God isn’t like that; he doesn’t abandon people. “My soul is cast down within me” he says, “therefore I remember you – that’s God… “Hope in God,” he tells himself, “for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.” 

The Psalm doesn’t deny or soft-pedal the reality of tough times, which come to all of us. We feel how we feel, and we don’t need to pretend to be happy when we’re not. But it reminds us that the God who we felt close to in the good times is the same God now, and still loves us, even if we feel as if he’s far away. “By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life”. 

The very fact that the Psalmist cries out to God, thirsts for him, reminds him – and us - that God is still real and still matters to him. He is the God of his life. The things he has learned “by heart” about God hold him when the events he is going through threaten to overwhelm him. 

In the Gospel reading, we meet a man who has also learned things “by heart”, but now he is having to re-evaluate them completely – sometimes we have learned by heart things that don’t turn out to be helpful, negative messages about ourselves, prejudices about others. He comes to Jesus “in the dark”. That doesn’t just tell us about the time of day, but that this is a man who doesn’t want to be seen, who feels confused and doesn’t want to admit it. The world he thought he knew, the assumptions he has made about life and about faith, don’t seem to make sense to him anymore and that is hard for him to acknowledge. 

He, Nicodemus, is a respected religious expert, someone who is supposed to know what’s what, and who thought he did. Jesus is a carpenter from the backwater village of Nazareth, with no qualifications to his name, no training, no background. And yet Nicodemus sees something in him that he can’t deny is of God. He calls Jesus “teacher”; he knows there is something he needs to learn from him, but perhaps doesn’t realise how radical that will be. Jesus tells him that he needs to start again, to be born “from above” or born anew, depending on your translation, to open himself to a new vision of the world, to learn “by heart” a new understanding of God. Unless he does that, says Jesus, he won’t be able to “see the kingdom of God”. Jesus isn’t talking about Nicodemus getting a ticket to heaven when he dies; seeing the kingdom of God is about being aware of what God is doing right there, right then in Jesus.

Nicodemus knows he is missing something, like the deer that thirsts for the flowing waters in the Psalm, but finding it will take time. There will be a journey to make. Being born takes time. Learning something by heart takes time. Getting to that point where something new is second nature isn’t an instant business. 

At the end of his encounter with Jesus, Nicodemus goes away without having made any commitment. But we will meet him again, first in chapter 7 of John’s Gospel when other Pharisees are plotting against Jesus. Nicodemus challenges them, saying that Jesus should at least be given a fair hearing. And then, after Jesus dies, Nicodemus finally comes out of the shadows, bringing spices and ointment to anoint Jesus’s body, assisting at his burial. It’s taken him several years, but Nicodemus has made his choice; he has let his heart be changed by the Spirit of God. The fact that the Gospel writer names him suggests that the change was permanent, that he did, in time “learn by heart” the way of Christ and become a member of the Christian community, valued by them, his story told, his name known. 

In our Lenten series of sermons on healing, today’s theme is the healing of the spirit. It’s a healing that starts when we acknowledge our thirst for God, like the deer that longs for the flowing streams, but it needs to continue from that point, allowing that thirst to take us on a journey, learning by heart a new way as we go, which will leads us to the water that never fails. 

Amen