John 3:1-17 What
Wondrous Love
Have you held a newborn baby
in your arms?
A baby that
is so, so small. A tiny body that needs to be cradled.
A wobbly
little head that needs support.
A fresh face, sometimes with
eyes looking out into the world,
sometimes with eyes squeezed shut.
And baby skin! So soft. Baby skin even smells sweet.
Such a miracle, this helpless
human who is totally dependent on mommy and daddy, loving arms wrapped around
this tiny baby.
Nicodemus had probably
experienced the miracle of birth as part of his own family.
He was an upstanding leader
of the Jews, after all.
More than likely he had sons
and daughters.
He was older now, and it had
been years since one of his own had been a baby.
But Nicodemus understood the
facts of life -- where babies came from.
What he could not understand
was this talk from this teacher
who had come from God --
talk of being born again.
He is a teacher of
and years of study behind him. Usually he feels like he’s in control.
Usually he is in control. But
not tonight.
He comes to Jesus by night,
maybe to avoid the questions of his fellow Pharisees, maybe to get a chance to
speak to Jesus alone, away from the crowds.
In any case, before long, he
is confused, befuddled even, by what Jesus has said.
He is looking for answers; but Jesus wants to take him deeper than
just answers.
“Very truly, I tell you no
one can see the
born anothen.” That’s the
word that appears in the Greek. Anothen.
Some Bibles translate it as
being born again.
Others translate it as being
born from above.
It’s not either/or. It’s both/and. The trouble is we don’t have an English
equivalent to this Greek word
which means both
“born from above” and “born again.”
This is about a new place and a new time. This is a birth that is not like human
birth.
But Nicodemus misses the
point entirely.
Using this word that has
double meanings,
Jesus is trying to take
Nicodemus to the deep end of the pool,
away from the signs and miracles that have attracted the
attention
of the religious authorities so far, and into a deeper
understanding of who God is.
But Nicodemus stays in the
wading pool.
“How can anyone be born after
having grown old?
Can one enter a second time
into the mother’s womb and be born?” He
questions Jesus.
We can smirk at poor
Nicodemus and his misunderstanding.
But ironically enough, we
contemporary Christians aren’t much better in understanding this phrase “born
again.” We too, miss the full range of meanings that Jesus intended.
“Born again” has come to be
used as a sort of a password -
into the right religious groups, the right belief system,
or even into eternal life.
But the phrase “born again”
is not a password.
And just to help us clear
away any misunderstandings--
from this point forward, I will only say born again if I
also say born from above.
It’s not either/or, it is
both/and. This idea of born again/born
from above is not just a moment of conversion,
although it may include that for some people. Born again/born from above does not have to
do with
a particular denomination or church, although we may
find born again/born from above Christians in any setting. Being born again/born from above is not the
door into a way of life,
it is the way of life.
Being born again/born from
above is about a deep and trusting relationship with
the way, the truth, and the life -- Jesus
Christ.
But Nicodemus gets stuck with
the idea of physical birth.
Even though the conversation
isn’t going very far,
Jesus tries once again to
take Nicodemus to the deep end of the pool.
He uses another Greek word
with double meanings -- pneuma --
which means wind and Spirit.
Like the wind which we cannot
know and control,
the Spirit also comes into our lives in ways
we cannot invite or predict, control or manage.
That is what it means to be
born of the Spirit.
The great grace of being born again/born from above is that it is not up to us.
But Nicodemus once again has
been left behind in the shallow end.
How can these things be? He asks.
What was in his voice? Amazement? Resistance? Arrogance?
We don’t know. But at this point, Jesus leaves Nicodemus
behind.
In the scripture, beginning
with verse 11,
Nicodemus recedes into the
background and Jesus,
who up to this point has been talking to Nicodemus,
now begins to talk to the Pharisees and to all of
us.
It is God’s purpose through
Jesus Christ descending from heaven
and being lifted up on the cross that we have this new
life - eternal life.
But eternal life in John’s
gospel does not just focus on living forever in heaven.
Eternal life is not in some distant future but begins
when we put our trust in Jesus and let him
guide our lives.
It’s a way to describe life as lived in the unending
presence of God.
It’s life lived as a child of God, beginning
right now.
How can this be? we might wonder as Nicodemus did.
Jesus answers our questions
in verses 16 and 17
and what a wondrous answer it is:
“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.”
This verse has been called
the gospel in miniature.
It’s John 3:16, seen on more
billboards
and at more football games than any other Bible
verse.
Although the word gospel
means good news,
unfortunately this verse is not always heard as good news.
That’s because some
Christians use John 3:16 as a hammer,
threatening to bludgeon anyone who strays from a certain
interpretation or set of beliefs.
John
John
It is a text that gives
life.
This past year I’ve read a
book that I’ve been thinking about for months now.
I’ve shared it with some of
you. I’ve even heard the author speak.
It’s called “Unbinding the
Gospel” and it’s subtitled “Real Life Evangelism.”
In this book, the author,
Martha Grace Reese boldly urges congregations like ours
to stop being afraid of evangelism and start sharing
the joy of a relationship with God with people who don’t
have that.
She says that faith sharing
must focus on relationships,
not bringing in more young people or helping our church
grow.
Evangelism must be motivated
by growing love-
Love of God, of church, and
of others. (Unbinding the Gospel, p. 4-5)
That’s what John
Yet too often good
intentioned church people have used both
the phrase “born again” and John 3:16 as some kind of
litmus test
for “how good of a Christian are you?”
But God’s love is inclusive,
not exclusive.
We must be cautious about thinking that we know the limits of
God’s grace,
either for ourselves or for others. For God’s ways are not our ways.
God’s spirit is always moving
and changing lives.
Listen again to John 3:16
combined with
but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
Can you hear the great grace
offered through Jesus Christ?
Our evangelism needs to be motivated not by judgment
but by love--
a desire to share our love of God and
God’s love with others.
For Nicodemus that night, a
relationship with God was the last thing on his mind.
He trusted all right - his
knowledge, his intellect, his ability to stay in
control of his life.
A relationship with God would
have required him to let go of all that, to yield to God’s spirit, to surrender
to God’s will, to be led by that power.
For Nicodemus and for us,
that kind of surrender is the hardest -- and the easiest -- spiritual task
we’ll ever face.
Jesus isn’t asking us for a “yes” from our minds that
have mastered all.
Jesus is asking for a “yes” from our hearts that have
surrendered all.
Maybe the best way to
understand who God is and what he wants from us
is not to intellectualize it too much. In the first
chapter of John we read that all who receive Jesus,
all who believe in his name, become children of God.
After all, Jesus didn’t
invite Nicodemus into new life by telling him
he needed to be elected, selected, or promoted. Nicodemus didn’t need to be nominated,
ordained, or commissioned. He needed to be reborn - born again/born
from above.
Maybe the best way to
understand this passage from John’s Gospel
is go back again to the image of a baby.
A friend of mine has a baby
who just had her first birthday.
Recently this baby was sick
for a week or so, as babies sometimes are.
This mommy, as mommies
sometimes do, was worried sick about the baby,
even after seeing the dr and getting
medicine and doing all the right things.
The baby didn’t sleep well
for several days. And neither did the
mom.
One night the coughing and
wheezing got so bad, that my friend spent the night sleeping on the floor,
right next to the baby’s crib, closing her eyes once in a while, just so she
could be close by.
It can be the same way with
dads. Not too long ago, Dave and I
climbed
which we’ve been doing recently. It was a Saturday morning, and there were
lots of families out.
One of the things I noticed
that morning was a dad, climbing down the mountain with his wife and 3 young
children. 2 of the children were old
enough to walk and run on their own,
but in the arms of the dad, was a little baby - I don’t
know how old -
because the baby was swaddled in a blanket. It’s a steep
walk, going down stone mountain,
so that dad carefully picked his way down the mountain,
step by step,
cradling that bundle of baby securely in his arms.
To be born again/born from above is to have this new
birth, this new life as a child of God.
Can you imagine yourself in
that place? Can you become like a little
child, held in the arms of God?
Can you trust God in the way
babies trust their parents - completely and totally dependent on them?
For God so loved the world
that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him might be held in the arms of God forever. Amen.