Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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Nicodemus comes to Jesus "by night." There is a double meaning in that. It could mean either that he came "under cover of darkness," "stealthily" (because this important man, this "ruler of the Jews" couldn't afford to be seen with Jesus), or it could mean that he came in the dark night of his soul, (Darkness in John's Gospel always symbolizes the absence of God.), or both. He comes to Jesus and makes a concession (even a confession) of sorts: "We know you're God-sent, or you couldn't do the miracles." And Jesus replies (in John Wesley's paraphrase), "Yes, but that knowledge will not avail thee unless thou be born again." It's not enough. It's not enough to know Jesus by his reputation, or even by his miracles. Something has to happen in you, if you want to see the kingdom. You have to change. You have to be "born again." Which brings us to the second double meaning in this story, and the most important: the word for "again" also means "from above." There is no English equivalent, so (unfortunately) translators have to choose. But Jesus picked the word precisely because it had two meanings, because he wanted Nicodemus to grasp both ideas at the same time: "You must be born again ("anew"), from above." We need to hold both ideas in our minds, because without both the story makes no sense. There is humor here. Nicodemus isn't dumb. But he is stumped because he hears only the one meaning of the word, "again," "a second time." He interprets that physically instead of spiritually, and asks -- it seems stupidly -- if he, an old man, should be expected to re-enter his mother's womb, etc. Some Christians today, also, see only the one meaning, the same one Nicodemus saw, the one that refers to timing ("again," "anew," "a second time"), and these Christians often make being born again a slogan, a litmus test of faith. "A Christian must be reborn," they say, "in a dramatic, personal conversion experience, or he's not a Christian." Well that is half a truth. The other half, the other meaning of the word, stresses not the timing of our rebirth but its source: we must be born "from above." We have a physical birth, and then we have a spiritual birth. Bodies must be born in order to grow and be free. Our spirits, too, must be born, given life and freedom in God, if we are to be whole people. Then Jesus tries another image: we must be born "of water and the spirit," he says. But "water," too, has a double meaning. For Nicodemus it would have meant simply natural childbirth (a baby -- as the ancient eye saw it -- is born "in water," comes when its mother's water breaks), but for Christians being born "of water" has always meant baptism. Both can be true, but for today we need to back up and see it through Nicodemus' eyes. Once again, looking at it without all its theological accretions, Jesus is saying simply that there is a physical birth and a spiritual birth. And that second birth, the birth from above, is necessary unto salvation. "…no one can see the Kingdom of God" without it. Another double meaning in this wonderful story: "The wind blows every which way," Jesus says. "You hear it, but you don't know where it's from or where it goes." The word for "wind," here, also means "spirit." The Spirit of God, Jesus is saying, unlike the earthly realities we come to know in our first births, realities we think we can control and predict -- the Spirit of God is unpredictable. We can't control it the way we try to control nature. We "can't get a handle" on it. We don't like that about the Spirit of God. Once again, there are earthly meanings: darkness, childbirth, wind -- and spiritual meanings -- human lostness, rebirth (symbolized by baptism), and the unpredictability of the Spirit of God. In preparing for today, I remembered it was Father's Day, and wondered what the Nicodemus story, with its emphasis on being born again (from above), might have to say about fathers. And it dawned on me that the whole question here is, "Who is my father?" I am born the first time to a biological father (as we like to say), but when I am born again (spiritually) another father is involved, my Father in heaven. If they did a DNA test on some part of my body, they could prove who my earthly father was. But, if DNA tests were possible on my spirit, who would that father prove to be? Or has the Spirit ever really been born within me? If not, there's no question of paternity. There is also no question of eternal life. For "what is born of the flesh is flesh…" "I tell you this, brethren," Paul wrote, "flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, neither can the perishable inherit the imperishable." It's the spiritual part of us that inherits the Kingdom, and that spiritual part has to be born, set free. When we ignore our spirits we deny our humanness and, before long, we begin to live like the animals. United Methodist Bishop Ruediger Minor, formerly bishop of East Germany and now of all the former Soviet Union, tells of the last days of communism. Two years before the Berlin wall fell, the Communist Party held a meeting in Moscow, to reinforce the official ideology among the faithful. As part of the program, a communist professor gave a forty-five minute speech about why atheism was a necessary part of communist thought. When he finished, most of the delegates stood there with their arms folded -- only a smattering of applause. Then a Russian Orthodox priest was given five minutes to respond to the professor. "I won't need five minutes," he said, and in a soft voice said, "Christ is Risen." And the audience shouted back the traditional orthodox response: "He is risen indeed!" And again, louder: "Christ is risen." "He is risen indeed!" And then, at the top of his voice, "Christ is risen." "He is risen indeed." And, Bishop Minor says, the professor walked off the stage his head down. It was clear that his world was falling apart. Once again the Galilean had won. The ugliest truth about communism is that it ignored the human spirit. So that after seventy years of living like animals, the people were starved for spiritual things (for they knew they were more than animals). We all know that. Something in us is eternal. And that something needs to be born, needs to be freed up. It cannot be contained. And when it is born, who knows where it will lead. The spirit is like that. That's what Jesus was saying to Nicodemus. This second birth, this birth of the Spirit, this waking up of the spirit within us, may occur dramatically in a conversion experience or in quieter ways. We shouldn't worry so much about how it happens. But we should takes pains to be sure that it does happen. "Verily, verily I say unto thee, unless a man be born again, he shall not see the Kingdom of God." If you think that the idea of conversion (of being born again, of new life, and so forth) is passe, and that people don't yearn for it desperately even today, watch television. The ads and infomercials are full of conversion-type promises, promises to take these unsatisfactory lives of ours and make them wonderful. That's the conversion hope, isn't it? That we might be made new men and women through something beyond ourselves, that we might slip the chains of our pasts. On television we are promised new lives through exercise programs (or some new exercise machine that tones up every muscle and then folds into the closet when not in use). We are promised new lives through astrology and psychic friends, through diets, through natural foods and medications, through courses that will teach us the financial secrets that rich people have known all along and tried to keep from us, and so forth. Apparently, in our search for better lives, we (like the Queen of Hearts) will "believe a thousand impossible things before breakfast." And the ad men know it. But I am here to tell you that the only conversion that really works is the birth of God's Spirit within us. When that happens, people do shake the past and find new lives. Names are changed. Nicodemus knew a lot about Jesus, knew a lot about the history and traditions of the Jews. (Jesus calls him "a teacher of Israel.") But the Master looked at him and knew right away that he had never allowed the Spirit of God to be born in his heart. He had resisted that second birth, that birth of the Spirit within him, for the very reason Jesus cites: that the Spirit's actions sometimes seem arbitrary, even capricious, and important people can't submit to that. They have to be in control. But the essence of the Godly life is that God is in control. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. It is he that hath make us, and not we ourselves." There is a wonderful freedom in allowing God to drive the car. But we hate to give up the wheel. It will surprise us what a good driver God is. We are never so safe as when we are in his hands. Will you let the Spirit of God be born in you, or (if it has already been born there) will you re-discover it, and care for it and nurture it, for this precious thing is what separates you from the animals, puts your past behind you once and for all, and gives you the freedom of a Christian.