Born Again
John
3: 1-17 (NRSV)
Now
there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by
night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from
God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.”
Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God
without being born from above.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born
after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and
be born?” Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom
of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is
flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I
said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses,
and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where
it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to
him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel,
and yet you do not understand these things? Very truly, I tell you, we speak of
what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our
testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how
can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into
heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted
up, that whoever 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 may not perish but may have eternal life.
“Indeed,
God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that
the world might be saved through him.”
What does it really mean to
be “born again”?
While I was preparing to
preach this Sunday, this was the question of the week for me—what does it mean
to be born again?
I spent the week asking
myself this because this phrase, “born again”, which is so rich with meaning,
comes to our tradition because of this morning’s Gospel story from John, about
Nicodemus.
So what does it mean to be
born again?
I don’t know about you, but,
for a long time, that phrase, “born again”, didn’t mean very much to me. It
didn’t feel like it applied to me.
Depending on what kind of
church tradition you grew up in, this phrase, “born again”, could have meant
lots of different things to you. People at the church I grew up in rarely, if
ever, used these words, this way, and so, for me, it really wasn’t until I went
to college that I first heard some of my friends and classmates call themselves
“born again”, or “born-again-Christians”.
Now, most of those friends
of mine grew up in churches that were, let’s say just a touch more evangelical
than our tradition tends to be, and when I asked one of those friends what it
meant to them when they said they were “born again”, they would usually
elaborate by telling me about their story of being “saved”—the exact moment when
they gave their heart to Christ and became a true Christian.
One story, one moment. One
testimony to share for all to hear. One powerful, absolutely beautiful way to
share your love for God.
But is this the only way to
use these words, “born again”? I don’t think so. We, God’s children, receive so
much more from our Creator in our new births than we can possibly fit into just
one story.
But, for some, that one
story might tell another person everything they need to know about Jesus.
That’s the story of our
friend Nicodemus, who John introduces us to in this morning’s Gospel lesson.
What do we know about our
friend, Nicodemus? Not a whole lot. He doesn’t make an appearance in any of the
other three Gospels, Matthew, Mark, or Luke. Only John tells his story. And all
John says about Nicodemus is that he is ‘a Pharisee”, and “a leader of the
Jews”.
So we don’t know much about
who this man, Nicodemus, was in society. Who he was in the eyes of other
people. Who he was to his friends, or his family.
But we do hear about who
Nicodemus was as a man of faith.
John tells us that Nicodemus
came to meet with Jesus “by night”. Now, if Matthew, Mark, or Luke had written
about Nicodemus, and if they had written that Nicodemus came to meet Jesus “by
night”, then I would simply take those words at face value—I would assume that
all they meant was to convey to the reader what time of day it was. I would
take them literally.
But John is different. When
John says that something happened “at night”, he never just means “at night”.
He never just means “after the sun went down”, or “after dinner time”. He’s
never just trying to tell us what time it was. It’s the way John tells the
story of Jesus’ ministry to us—John loved to use images of light and dark. What
John is really telling us is that Nicodemus is coming to Jesus in spiritual darkness. What he’s really
telling us is that Nicodemus is afraid, ashamed, and maybe too embarrassed to
come to Jesus in the light of day, so he’s meeting him in secret. What he’s really telling us is that Nicodemus needs to see the light. Pay attention, John tells us, Jesus is about to bring the light.
And yet, for a man who’s “in
the dark”, Nicodemus at least knows how to ask the right questions. Think about
all the other times we’ve seen throughout the Gospels when a Pharisee comes to
talk to Jesus. In nearly every one of those situations, we’re seeing a Pharisee
confront Jesus about some minor point
of the Law that he’s not acting in line with.
This man, Nicodemus, is the
leader of these people, so, based on that piece of information, I might expect
that, if he requested an audience with Jesus, that we would see him break out a
whole list of grievances with him. I might expect Nicodemus, a leader among the
Pharisees, to read Jesus the riot act about how often he bends the rules in
what little we’ve seen in just two previous chapters of his ministry.
But does Nicodemus do that?
No. He doesn’t have a single critical thing to say about Jesus. At least not
now, when they’re alone in the dark. Maybe the night protects him—he doesn’t
have to keep up appearances now. He can say what he really wants to say. And he
can be honest about how he really feels. He says that he knows that Jesus has come from God, because of the signs that he
has seen himself.
And yet Jesus tells him, in
the many words that are to follow, that even though Nicodemus has come a long
way, he hasn’t come anywhere near far enough. He’s only pointing out
surface-level things. He’s seeing in Jesus what any person can. If he wants to see
more, if he wants to know more, if wants to really understand, then he needs to be reborn.
Born again. And we’re back
to our original question—what does that mean?
To Jesus, that means two
things. The Greek phrase that John used in the oldest manuscripts of this
Gospel means both “born again”, and “born from above”.
Both. So Jesus is telling us
we don’t need to just be born into the world we live in, to just be born into a
body, into human flesh. We need to be born out of the Holy Spirit—we need to be
born into God’s family.
Born again.
So what does that mean? If
someone asked you if you were “born again”, what would you say? If you use
those words to describe yourself, what do they mean?
I don’t think there’s any
one thing that those words need to mean, if Jesus has so touched your heart
that you describe yourself as “born again”. But to be “born again” means to
have more than just a surface-level relationship with Jesus, like Nicodemus had
before he came to talk to him.
When John Wesley, the
founder of what became our United Methodist Church, talked about being “born
again”, what he taught was that we all get a clean slate with Christ—we all can
have our pasts forgiven if we ask. But that’s only the first step of the
journey. That’s what Wesley called “justification”. That happens once, and it’s
done. But, once we’re justified, we spend the rest of our lives in Christ being
“sanctified”—that is, making our selves stronger, healthier, more holy people.
We’re all “born again”. All
of us. We’re all forgiven, and we’re all redeemed to God. God gives to each one
of us who asks for it a clean slate. Like a newborn, you can start anew, with
no baggage from yesterday weighing you down. All you have to do is ask, and you
can start over. There’s no shortage of second chances.
So the real question isn’t
about being “born again”. The real question is, you’ve got your second
chance—what are you going to do with it?
This season of Lent is the
perfect season to spend asking yourself that question. This is the perfect time
to spend thinking about what you want to change about yourself, what you want
to do differently, what mistakes you want to stop making, what good you want to
start doing. Who you want to be, and who you want to reach with God’s love.
Nicodemus only makes two
appearances in John’s Gospel. Know where the other one is? At the cross, in the
light of day, for everyone to see, tending to Jesus.
May this Lenten journey take
us all to the cross, and to the light.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment