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[Sermon] In the Space Between

Pastor Hector Garfias-Toledo



Faith rarely grows in comfort; it grows in the space between certainty and promise. Nicodemus steps into the night, and Abram steps into the unknown. Both encounter a God who does not shame their questions but meets them within them. Liminal spaces unsettle us, yet they are workshops of grace where false identities fall away. Here, God’s love reshapes who we are. We are not abandoned in the fracture—we are transformed within it.


Sermon Transcript

From YouTube's automatic captions, lightly edited by AI for readability.


Grace to you and peace from God our Father—Aba—mother, father, parent, creator—and the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior and our Lord. And we said, amen.

 

I was telling yesterday that it is becoming now like a, like a, just a usual thing to do every weekend to come and to say, “Here we are. We are starting a new war.” It is really disappointing to me, and I feel that it really disrupts me when I come, knowing that these things are happening in the world, and we come to this place. When we know that in another part of the world children, families, people—ordinary people, regular people, people working, people eating, people dreaming and hoping—cannot continue their lives. And maybe that’s when I feel maybe like Nicodemus, to go to Jesus and to say, “Lord, I know who you are. You are the Messiah. You are the mighty king. You are the one who came to restore the world. Can you just please tell me what in the world is going on? Can you tell me why you cannot stop this?

 

Can you tell me what I need to do, or I can do, for this?”

 

And then Jesus will come with another question for me and not let me lead, but lead me where he finds me.

 

In this journey we are taking one more step in this Lenten season as we continue to recognize the shards and the scars in our lives. The question for me then is, as I was saying a moment ago, what do we do with them? How do they shape the way that I see myself, the way that we see ourselves, the way that we see each other, but also the way that we see each other and one another in relationship to God?

 

So I will take you a moment—I will ask you to take a moment—and to remember the two stories. These are stories that we have heard, for those of you who have been part of our congregation or of the Christian community for a long time. How many times have you heard the story of Nicodemus? How many times have you heard the story of Abraham? Well, because of that, I would like to ask you just to take a moment, and I would like to ask you: Who do you identify with in this story? Take a moment. Who do you identify with—Abraham or Nicodemus?

 

I assume that you are thinking hard. That’s why I’m drinking water, to give you time.

 

Now, since you were thinking very hard, I would like to ask you: Turn to someone—someone who you do not know well—and tell who you identify with in these stories. Take a moment. You have a few minutes. Find someone that you don’t know well.

 

Now tell why you identify with that specific character in the story.

 

Okay, now here comes the moment of the truth. I need one or two people who will say who you identify with. Nicodemus. Nicodemus. Abram. Abram. Okay, we are tied. Okay. John says, “Raise your hand if you identify with Nicodemus.” If you are comfortable, raise your hand. If not, that’s fine. Those who identify with Abraham.

 

Now, confession time. Why come in the dark? Huh? I come because it’s in the darkness. In the darkness. So you’re a night person. You can hide. Okay. It’s the questioning of why and how and how can it be. And in this case, why would you let these things happen? The question of the why, right? And if you notice, most of us—that’s a very powerful question for us, because the question why really connects with the idea of having knowledge about something so that we can understand better. And if we understand better, then we have, to some degree, some control, right?

 

But I believe you will agree with me that this question—what you were talking about, what you just said a moment ago—it is in those in-between moments or liminal spaces where we gain new awareness and experience transition and growth, but also our understanding expands, and not necessarily about knowledge. Our society, our Western society, is shaped by knowledge, by intellectual knowledge. Our society measures people for how much a person knows. Who of you are familiar with SATs? Confession—numbers. Give me the numbers.

 

Give me what we have. And we know how politicians play with this. When one politician from the southern state of the northern border of Mexico—between Oregon and Mexico, I’m not going to say the state—but this governor was making himself proud on how low his SAT was, to compare with the African-American community. A shaming, unfortunately. And I say shame because last Sunday—really, of the African-American community—I can compare with you that I’m just an ordinary person like you because I have a low SAT.

 

Also, we know that we measure ourselves by other indicators like IQs. Confession again—numbers. Where’s your IQ?

 

The earthly creatures that we were talking about—the man and the woman—and later we know their names, Adam and Eve, prayed for knowledge, right? And remember the tree of knowledge. And when they ate the fruit, they realized that acquiring the knowledge that they wanted—that would give them control—what they brought on themselves was shame and separation.

 

C.S. Lewis says, “You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life or death to you. You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life or death to you.”

 

Nicodemus knew a lot. He was a Pharisee, a leader, a Jew. He felt that he was separate—I mean, set apart—for a specific purpose in this world and in the religious community. And then he comes and says, “Rabbi, we know. We know who you are, where you come from. So let me ask you a question.” And maybe he intended to already set an agenda before Jesus, to control him. But Jesus engaged him, this representative of the system that opposed Jesus’ message. And Jesus doesn’t shame him, doesn’t dismiss him for his lack of understanding, but meets him in the darkness and offers a paradoxical teaching about being born from above, or being born anew, and leads him into this liminal space for transformation and a new understanding of God’s relationship with him, with the world, and with the entire creation.

 

These liminal spaces that you and I experience, like Nicodemus, are spaces that can be scary because in the liminal spaces, these spaces demand honesty, vulnerability, and willingness to expand our understanding and wrestle with realities that are new or that are foreign to us. These spaces of liminality are not necessarily a punishment or a place where God wants to crush us. But these are the workshops of grace where God dismantles our false layers, our false selves, and rebuilds us from the inside out, grounded in the reality that you and I and everyone in the world and in all creation is known and loved.

 

I do not know if Nicodemus came with an agenda or with a real desire, an honest desire, to really engage in a relationship with Jesus. But he asks the skeptical questions, and yet the honest questions. Maybe he wanted a better grasp of who God is. But what he comes to learn is that he is grasped by the love of God—a shift from achieving knowledge to a receptive state of being known and reborn. And this is the ultimate act of vulnerability: allowing God to redefine our very origin and identity.

 

Maybe this is where we are now, today. Because maybe the very reason that you are here, that I am here, is because you and I are coming with our hearts and our vulnerabilities, asking God, or Jesus, “If you are our Lord, why do I need to go through this? Why am I in this situation? Why is this situation making things so difficult for me to live, in my relationship, to support this person, to love those who do not love me, or to understand what is happening in this world?”

 

Maybe today we feel that we are in the darkness, and we are coming to Jesus, and the voice that we hear is, “Stop trying to know God and begin to allow yourselves to be known by God.” We become aware of our constant yearnings for meaning, purpose, and belonging. The Scripture tells us that Jesus tells Nicodemus, “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world may be saved through him.”

 

Abram was called to leave the family and step into the not yet, stripped of his identity. This person who was childless and nomadic is made vulnerable and utterly dependent on the promise. Nicodemus leaves the familiarity, the familiar light of the temple, and steps into the night, stripping himself of this authority and is made vulnerable by his questions.

 

In both cases, in both spaces, God is not waiting at the finish line with a checklist. God in Jesus is present in the liminal space. How Jesus embraces Nicodemus in his darkness, and how God’s call embraced Abraham in his uncertainty—the embrace is total and unconditional. It doesn’t require Nicodemus to first understand or Abraham to first have a child to be accepted. In this liminal experience is transformative power. The very power of being loved that creates the born-from-above experience is what happens to them and to us.

 

Jesus embraces us as we are. But once again, I remind you, my siblings in Christ, the Lord Jesus never leaves us as he finds us.

 

And this is the good news. God’s reckless grace is the very foundation of their reality, calling us not to a perfect performance, but to a trusting, vulnerable, and transformative relationship in which we are assured today that we are known, that we belong, and that we are made whole in the golden grace of God that works in the darkest places of our lives. And this is good news, and for that we thank God. Amen.

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