John 3:1-16
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We meet Nicodemus the Pharisee at night and he is so the crusty rigid character from the romantic comedy stock plots that I love so much. Just think Harrison Ford as the stoic older brother in the remake of Sabrina or Meg Ryan as the rigid heroine in French Kiss…Nicodemus comes to call on Jesus cloaked in formality, reeking of the good ole boy network. He knows the rules of the religious game, he’s invested is whole life into living and promoting them. He is comfortably ensconced in the establishment.
But we should be careful here, because John is intentional in telling us that Nicodemus is not just a stiff suit. While he has certainly become entrenched in his worldview, at his core, he loves the God he worships. As he sat in his place of privilege and power, he has seen the healings, he has reviewed Jesus’ teachings, and his heart has caught scent of the God who had knit him together in his mother’s womb.
He wanted to know more, but it’s embarrassing when you are the expert witness to admit that need, so he came under the cover of darkness. And again to give Nic the respect that he deserves, he addresses Jesus as a peer – Rabbi; we know that you are a teacher from God.
Now, I imagine that Nic was expecting Jesus to return the collegial favor, to acknowledge with respect, the Pharisaic tradition and commitment to living a life that pleased God and I imagine that Nic expected Jesus to invite him to sip some brandy and smoke a cigar have a seat in the leather armchairs by a crackling fire, engage in a lively debate about the intricacies of the law and what God desires from us. He knew that as a leader of the Pharisees he was already driving the Lexus SUV of spirituality, but he was hoping that Jesus would bestow on him a sticker for the carpool lane.
Well that whole fantasy screeched to a stop when Jesus replies to Nic’s amiable greeting by questioning Nic’s credentials – your Pharisee Club card means nothing, -no one has eyes to see the presence of God if they haven’t been “born from above”.
Now, just an exegetical note here. The original Greek in the Gospel of John is deceptively simple. Grammatically its pretty straightforward, but John is a poet who loves drama and he works in overarching themes of light and dark, he uses words loaded with double meaning…A lot of it gets squished out in the translation. For example, here, born from above also means born a second time. When reading John it’s a good policy to keep all the meanings in the mix as we seek to understand the text.
So Nic is probably sputtering a bit, but he’s come this far and he knows that he can spar with the best of them, so he takes the bait, but only half of it, Born again? To crawl back in to my mother’s womb? Is that the only way someone can come into God’s presence? Impossible – physically impossible!
Jesus pushes back, he puts both aspects back on the table, yes, a rebirth at every level – no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and spirit.
Another double meaning from John, Spirit, which could be understood as the wind on a blustery day or spirit/breath of God.
Nic is on to Jesus by this point, so which do you mean - spirit like wind? Or spirit like holy Spirit of God?
Jesus says, yes that’s exactly what I mean.
God is utterly out of your sphere of influence. There is no way to earn a place in God’s presence. There is not a sacrifice that buys God’s good will. There isn’t even a map for how to get to God. It’s only a birth that can bring you into God’s presence.
It’s fascinating to me that Jesus invokes the birth image – we begin life in such comfort. Our mother’s womb providing all the warmth, nourishment, and safety that we need. And then when our growth is completed, violent contractions break the waters of our little world and thrust us through a very small opening into a cold, hostile place. Yet until we leave our mother’s womb we are unable to grow into the beings that God created us to be. So at all of the levels of the meaning for ‘water’ – the water of the semen, or the water of the amniotic fluid or the waters of our baptism – to be born of water is a transformation that ushers in the possibility of new life and growth.
By definition, we pass through the birth canal with nothing, everything is stripped away and we enter the world a pure and concentrated version of the whole of who we were created to be. Nicodemus has come to Jesus that night with his hands and heart gripping the security of his title, his spiritual accomplishments, and his position of privilege with God and people.
You’ve got to surrender it all, Jesus is telling him, because those things that you are holding on to do nothing to help you know God. It’s all about surrendering your self to the unpredictable, dependable love of God. The wind blows where it chooses.
By this time its dawning on Nic that the brandy and cigars aren’t going to materialize and his curiosity has been worn a bit threadbare by Jesus’ declarations. “How can this be?”
“How can it not be? Replies Jesus, you are a teacher of Israel, you should know this!"
Then the fire lit room fades and Jesus turns to face the wider community (I told you that John was a poet) “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”
For the earlier readers of the Gospel of John, this was something less of a jump than it is for us. They were all familiar with the Old Testament story recorded in the book of Numbers when the Israelites had been out wandering in the dessert, they were frustrated about the delayed entry into the promised land, they were sick and tired of manna, manna, manna. They started whining to Moses, whining to God about the lack of water and no good food and God sent poisonous snakes and the Bible tells us that the snakes bit the people and many of them died. So, they came to their senses and repented – “we were wrong to speak against God, and against you.” Please pray that God will take the snakes away.
So it's interesting, God didn’t take away the snakes, but instead God instructed Moses to make a bronze snake and put it on a pole, and anyone who got a snake bite, could look at the bronze snake and they would live. Jewish tradition reflected extensively on this passage and come to understand it to mean that the bronze snake didn’t have a venom-warding magic in and of itself, rather, the bronze snake reminded the people of God’s presence with them and that presence is what brought them healing and life.
Jesus is explaining how he fits in to the picture. He too will be lifted up as a reminder of God’s grace filled presence. And in looking to him, we will find our salvation – we will find our healing.
So, to play out the parallel, Jesus is not saying that all will be predictable and manageable once we are born again/from above, once we are born of water, wind and spirit. God didn’t take away the poisonous snakes and God isn’t going to sort out the dangers and challenges in life on this side of the womb. But, Jesus says, I am the living proof that God has come to dwell among you. When you lay your eyes on me, you can remember that God is walking with you and will come into your life with zero % predictability but 100% reliability.
It’s just like the movie genre I love so dearly. The crusty older brother in Sabrina and the rigid obsessive girlfriend in French Kiss find themselves with an invitation to live their lives with a new freedom. The rules and structure, which they clung to for protection and guidance, are rendered useless in the face of the turbulent birth canal of love. So they chose to take the uncharted path, setting aside the map, they are guided by a new sense of who they were created to be.
We’re right there with good ole’ Nicodemus, expecting a “well done, old chap” from Jesus. True, we are less locked in to the religious laws of the Pharisees, but we cling (maybe unconsciously) to our own rules about what wins God’s love and gets us a back stage pass. We’re pretty sure about whom God wants in the White House. We know what vocabulary to use to be sure that we are registered as “good people”. We go to church, we know where to sit and when to stand – we are so much on the inside, we can’t imagine being on the outside.
It’s a surprise when Jesus discounts our credibility and says that we need to set it all aside and be transformed by the love that created us. And that it’s all beyond our ability to control or manipulate it.
Getting born isn’t something that babies seek, they just know its time, and certainly the mother doesn’t have the final word in the birth process either. As people seeking God, how do we get reborn?
It’s entering into the process where what we see as protecting us gets stripped away and in that new vulnerability we find our selves securely rooted in God.
It’s a little like going through security at LAX. In the roped off line waiting to go through, you snake back and forth through the line, some people in suits with matching bags, tourists in flip flops shockingly underdressed for the winter weather, snowbirds with passport pouches around their necks. But then, right before the metal detector, everyone casts off their baggage, shoes, coats, laptops, their identity. Everyone passes through the narrow arch with socking feet and empty hands. Just who they are. A little like being born.
The Gospel of John doesn’t tell us what Nic decided to do. We don’t know if he went back to his life as usual, or if he left his encounter with Jesus and lived differently? It’s an open question.
Jesus is telling us in this morning’s text that it is all out of our control (the wind blows were it chooses). Yet, that doesn’t mean that we are off the hook. To be born again, to be born from above, to be born of water, spirit, wind…takes some intentionality. how do we seek God’s presence? How do we receive new birth? What are we clinging to so tightly that we can’t fit through the birth canal? It parses out differently for each of us, but with reflection we can begin to name those things that we grasp so tightly imagining that they will entitle us to a place with God. And after we name them, we can work on setting them aside.
Those are all questions to take home with us. In the meantime,
Seek out those who are recently born. Gaze into their little newborn faces and see their trust in you, the wholeness of who they are wrapped up in a little bundle. Know that when God’s eyes fall upon your face, God receives you into God’s heart of infinite love.
Amen.
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