It’s fair to say, I think, that our society today is becoming more and more an unbelieving society that’s skeptical about God and Jesus Christ. Does God really exist? Did Jesus Christ really exist. Are the stories we hear about him in the gospels true? Why belong to a church anyway?

Let’s remember, first of all, that there’s nothing wrong with questions. People have asked questions about God from the beginning, because God is beyond what our minds can know. Jesus’ disciples did not understand him. They continually asked him questions. Mary questioned the angel, “How can this be?”

We learn by asking questions. We build up our faith by questions. Healthy questioning can help us know God more.

But listen to our first reading today. “In those days the princes, priests and people mocked the messengers of God, despised his warnings, and scoffed at his prophets.” (2 Chronicles 36, 16) Their questioning wasn’t healthy and their unheallthy questioning brought destruction and exile.

In our gospel reading Nicodemus comes to Jesus with questions, but he comes at night. He’s a Pharisee, a member of the ruling class of his time. He seems afraid to come to Jesus openly because of what his friends and others will think and what it may cost him as a member of the ruling class.

There’s a lot of fear like that today, isn’t there? Like Nicodemus people are afraid what their friends will say. In a world where religion is dismissed as irrelevant or meaningless, you can be looked down upon, and so people give up searching opening into the mystery of God. It become a night search.

The surprising thing our readings today tell us is that God doesn’t give up us. God doesn’t give up on an unbelieving society or reluctant believers like Nicodemus.

Listen again to our reading from John’s gospel.
Jesus said to Nicodemus:
“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him might not perish
but might have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world might be saved through him.”

God doesn’t give up on us. That’s because God loves us. We see God’s love in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.