John 3:1-17
3 Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.[a]”
4 “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit[b] gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You[c] must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”[d]
9 “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
10 “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? 11 Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12 I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13 No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.[e] 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,[f] 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”[g]
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
What If You Truly Were Born Again?
The Congregational Church of Easton – May 26, 2024
As this morning’s reading says, “Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night . . .”
So begins one of the best known stories in Scripture . . . and also one of the most important. Nicodemus probably came under the cover of night because he was a member of the Jewish ruling council. How embarrassing it would be if it were discovered that a member of the Jewish ruling council was consulting with an itinerant teacher from Nazareth.
“Rabbi,” he says to Jesus, “we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
That’s quite a startling statement for a member of the ruling council to make “we know that you are a teacher who has come from God . . .”
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
I’d like you to hear those words as if for the first time. Forget your experiences with many so-called “born again” Christians. Let’s take Jesus’ words at face value: “No one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” What would that mean? What would that look like?
Nicodemus wonders the same thing, except he takes Jesus’ words literally: “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
Nicodemus and Jesus are speaking two different languages. Nicodemus is speaking the language of the flesh; Jesus is speaking the language of the Spirit. Jesus says to him,
Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.
Jesus is talking about a spiritual rebirth. And he says we cannot enter the kingdom of God unless we are born of water and the Spirit. Let’s agree for the time being that the water he is referring to is the water of Christian baptism. What does the Lord mean by being born of the Spirit?
It means we would become a new person. When we were born the first time we became a new person. Wouldn’t a rebirth imply that once again we would become a new person, that there would be big changes in our life?
The Reverend John Buchanan retired after 48 years as a Presbyterian pastor. He wrote an article in which he looked back over his half century of ministry. He remembered one Sunday service in which he was baptizing a four-year-old boy.
After the child had been baptized with water, John Buchanan, following the directions of the Presbyterian prayer book, put his hand on the little boy’s head and addressed him in Trinitarian language. He said, “You are a child of God, sealed by the Spirit in your baptism, and you belong to Jesus Christ forever.”
Unexpectedly, the little boy looked up and responded, “Uh-oh.”
It was an amusing moment, and people in the congregation laughed, but “it was [also] an appropriate response,” wrote Buchanan, “. . . a stunning theological affirmation” from the mouth of this child. That “uh-oh” was a recognition that everything had changed, that this boy would never be the same. (3)
Uh-oh is a proper response to a new birth. Someone once said, “We’re all in favor of progress provided we can have it without change.” Many Christians verbally give assent to the idea of becoming a new person in Christ, but very few of us want to pay the price that such change would entail.
In light of Christ’s life and teaching, what changes would likely take place if we were to experience the new birth that Jesus recommends to Nicodemus?
First of all, our lives have a new focus–an outward focus rather than an inward one. When we are born into this physical world, we are born grasping things to ourselves. The first movements of a baby’s hands are to clutch, to grasp, to hold. We are born into this world utterly self centered.
Even though babies are cute, cuddly, and loveable, we also must confront the fact that nature has fashioned the human infant to be utterly focused on its own needs. A new baby wants what it wants when it wants it. It doesn’t matter whether you are watching your favorite program on television or reading a newspaper, or doing some chore that badly needs to be done if a baby needs to be fed or to be changed, or even just to be held, that baby is going to let you know it, and will not let you rest until you have met its needs.
That drive toward oneself is essential, of course, for survival. The progress of maturity, of growth, is to learn to escape from being self centered to being able to accommodate others in the framework of one’s life. The natural process of the physical world is to start off self centered and then to learn to share.
But if we were to be born from above as new persons, we would have to go further than that, wouldn’t we? We would have to focus on others’ needs just as intently as we focus on our own.
When we see a young boy, we may say he is the spitting image of his father. Or a little girl we might say, she has the eyes of her mother. But how many people say about us, “He is as loving as his heavenly Father.” “She is as compassionate as her God?” And yet that is exactly how we are to live.
Such a transformation would be difficult for most of us. We are the me first generation. We have been taught to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, but the emphasis has been on ourselves. A new focus would say that we should love the Lord our God first, and we would love our neighbors equally as much as we love ourselves.
Secondly, if we were truly born again, we would have a new system of values. One of the things that happens to us when we grow up is that we obtain values from our families, from our teachers, and from our friends. That’s how values “happen.” We acquire them from the environment in which we live. If we were to experience a new birth, we would obtain a new system of values that would be acquired from our new saturation in the world of God.
No one can say exactly what those new values would be. When Jesus talked of the Kingdom and said things like “Blessed are the meek” and “Blessed are those who mourn,” we can only partially understand the full meaning of his words. Through the years pastors and theologians and teachers have tried to understand what he meant. But Jesus saw the world through a fresh pair of eyes. He truly saw the world through his Father’s eyes. He saw the world as God sees the world, and so we can only guess at the full meaning of the new values that Kingdom life would entail.
Many of the things we cherish most — our possessions, our nice homes, our affluent lifestyles would have less interest if we truly were born again. The things that this world could buy would dim in their glitter and glory. Our eyes would be fixed on a new world, a new heaven, a new earth.
There was an episode of the show, The Simpsons in which Homer Simpson is told by his doctor that he has only a few days to live. He is understandably frightened, but soon after this dire pronouncement, he shows remarkable fortitude.
Homer makes a list of all the things that he would like to do before he dies, and the list is full of things like ride in a blimp and tell off his boss. But the list also contains items like . . . making amends with the neighbor who he’s always borrowing things from but never returns them. Homer also realizes that not only has he not been a model neighbor. He also realizes he hasn’t been the best father to his children. So, he starts spending quality time with his son, and listens to his daughter play the saxophone instead of telling her to stop with all that racket. (5)
Wouldn’t such a shift in values take place with a new birth? We can’t say with precision what our new values would be. However, we do know some of the things that we value now would fade in significance.
Father Richard Rohr says,
We can recognize people who have had a second baptism in the Holy Spirit. They tend to be loving. They tend to be exciting. They want to serve others, and not just be served themselves. They forgive life itself for not being everything they once hoped for. They forgive their neighbors. They forgive themselves for not being as perfect as they would like to be.
A new outward focus and a new set of values. Finally, if we truly experienced a new birth, wouldn’t we have a new family? When you are born the first time into this world, you are born into a family. When you are born into the Kingdom of God you would have a new family. This would not be a family of the flesh, but a family of the Spirit.
Who would be your brothers and sisters? Jesus asked that question once, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:48-50).
When you experience a new birth, you acquire a new family. The Apostle Paul describes that new family: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). It sounds to me like every child of God is our brother and sister.
A sheriff and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Keys, lived over the county jail. One day Mrs. Keys, a kind woman, came down to call her husband.
As she turned back to go upstairs, she heard someone crying. Listening carefully, she found the sound coming from a tiny figure huddled in a dark corner of a cell. As her eyes became used to the darkness, she made out the form of a boy, perhaps eight or nine years old. “Son, what are you doing here?” she asked.
Frightened at the voice, the boy, whose name was Charley, turned away. After a pause, he came nearer to Mrs. Keys and saw that she was smiling. Charley poured out his story. In a fit of rage, he had shot a twelve-year-old girl, and he was now being held for murder.
“But what of your family?” the sheriff’s wife asked.
“Ain’t got none,” he said in a pitiful voice.
In an hour Mrs. Keys had permission from the local judge to move Charley from the cell block to their apartment above the jail. In two days, Mrs. Keys turned a frightened, half-animal into a well-dressed, smiling boy.
The Keys’ home became his home. At the trial, Charley was sentenced to reform school. “Can I come back here when I get done?” he asked in his pitiful voice.
“But son, you will want to go out on your own,” Mrs. Keys said, her love going out to the homeless boy. “And besides, you wouldn’t want to live over a jail.”
The boy looked around. “It ain’t jail,” he said, “it’s home.”
The sheriff’s wife gathered the boy into her arms. Her eyes shone with happiness as she said, “I need a son.” (6)
That boy became her son. When you look at children experiencing all kinds of hardship all over the world, can you see them as your sons and daughters?
If we were truly born again, we would be a new human being. We would have a new outward, as well as upward focus for our lives. We would have a new set of values. Many of the things we worry about now would seem trivial. And we would have a new family. Think how it would affect your life if everyone you met suddenly became a member of your family? Here’s a story about someone who has extended her family:
Every year ice skating instructor Elizabeth O’Donnell puts on a very special ice show. With years of experience in the Ice Capades, one would think that O’Donnell only teaches the “crème de la crème” of skating students. You’d be wrong. O’Donnell specializes in teaching physically and mentally disabled people to ice skate.
She taught ice skating the first few years after she left the Ice Capades, but she didn’t feel challenged. So, she created her own challenge: teaching the joys of ice skating to the blind. This proved so rewarding that Elizabeth founded the Skating Association for the Blind and Handicapped, now known as the “Gliding Stars.” Other ice-skating instructors began volunteering their time to her organization, and now more than 15,000 people with physical or mental disabilities have passed through their classes. Every year the students put on a show to demonstrate their new skills. (7)
Can you imagine how rewarding it is for O’Donnell to see young people who otherwise would never have the opportunity to shine – to see them in front of an audience as “stars” for a night? Can you imagine how rewarding it would be to you if you could look beyond your own life to invest yourself in others?
“No one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” A new outward focus, a new set of values, a new family. Are you ready for a second birth?
Let us pray. Holy One, thank you for the gift of your Spirit. Thank you for making it possible for us to be born anew with a new outward focus, a new set of values, and a new family. Amen.
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1. Adapted from a sermon by Dr. Randy L. Hyde, http://www.lectionary.org/Sermons/Hyde/John/John%2003.01-17,%20GospelNight.htm.
2. Choice Contemporary Stories & Illustrations For Preachers, Teachers & Writers (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1998), p. 51.
3. Rev. Dr. Thomas G. Long, http://day1.org/3823-the_start_of_the_trail.
4. http://www.aberdeenmethodist.info/Reichsermons/christian_love.pdf.
5. Lee A. Koontz, http://reflectious.com/2011/03/08/ashes-to-ashes-an-ash-wednesday-sermon/.
6. A. Dudley Dennison M.D., Shock It To Me Doctor! (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1970), p. 91.
7. http://glidingstars.org/odonnell.html.
ChristianGlobe Networks, Inc., Dynamic Preaching, by King Duncan
[1] Adapted from a sermon by King Duncan
