John 3:1-8

11/02/08
John 3:1-8
Hudson UMC

We come today to the beginning of what is quite possibly the single most famous passage in the entire Bible. We are beginning our three-week journey through the incredible and challenging conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus the Pharisee. You will likely hear many familiar verses and ideas; I pray that, as we work our way through it, you would see it in new light and see how each of us can learn from the things that Jesus tells this religious leader.

The very first words of our passage read, “Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews”. I think that this is incredibly important and cannot be glossed over without losing a lot of the message. Nicodemus was not your average guy off the street, he was not a person who simply went to the synagogue because he thought it was a good idea or it was what everyone else was doing. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a leader of the Jews. We could think of him as a member of the spiritually elite, we could think of him as a pastor, we could think of him as a fine and upstanding member of the city counsel. The point that I am trying to make is that this is not a wicked man. He was not out at the bars getting drunk every weekend, he was not cheating on his wife, he was not doing anything that we would consider to be “bad”. He was a Pharisee. He probably fasted twice a week, he taught in the synagogue, he maintained a very strict life, strictly observing the Law of Moses and the words of the prophets. Based on a kind of objective moralistic view, he probably did as much or more good, religious things than anyone in this room and probably avoided evil as well as anyone in our modern society. I am driving this home because we need to understand this to understand what Jesus says to him.

We read that this Nicodemus came to Jesus “by night”. Now, we live in an age of electricity where we do all kinds of things at nights; we even have church meetings at night. Because we have light at our command, we don’t think anything of interacting with each other at any time of day. In fact, in college, for someone to come and visit at eleven o’clock at night is not completely unheard of. However, in a time before streetlights and flashlights, the setting of the sun had a profound impact on how people lived and when they met together. When John tells us that Nicodemus came to visit Jesus by night, it tells us a lot. It tells us mainly that he did not want to be seen going to Jesus. He wanted to speak with this new teacher, but he did not want his peers to know about it. I think that it would do us well to consider this embarrassment to be seen with Jesus; it is important to think about. There once was a time in my life when I did not want anyone to know that I went to church. I didn’t talk about Jesus to anyone. It was so bad that the only time I felt that I was able to do anything close to “sharing my faith” was when someone in a mocking tone asked me “Do you know Jesus”, I timidly answered, “yes”. Whether you realize it or not, especially among the younger generations, there are a lot of people like Nicodemus; people who want to talk to Jesus and learn from Him, but don’t really want anyone else to know about it. I’ve been there and I could bet that there are some others in the congregation who have either been there as well or perhaps are still there.

If we wanted, we could find all kinds of verses in the Bible that talk about it being a bad thing to be ashamed of Christ and to not want to boldly bear His name, but I want to draw your attention to something. Though Nicodemus is either ashamed or afraid, though he is not yet willing to join himself to Christ’s ministry, though there are all kinds of deficiencies in his faith, I want you to notice that Jesus, in spite of all this, does not turn him away. Now, if Nicodemus had been following Him for a while, it might have been different, but Jesus has compassion even on those of weak faith.

Nicodemus does not really ask Jesus a question but simply refers to Him, as others have, as “Rabbi”, which means teacher. Jesus responds, not by answering a question, for no question has been asked, but by telling Nicodemus something about himself. He says, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” The traditional reading is to be born again, but the Greek can be translated either way. Jesus often uses words with double meanings in the Gospel of John. The fact of the matter is that both ways of thinking about it illustrate what Jesus is saying and cast light on each other. I will be using the phrases “born again” and “born from above” interchangeably.

We have all probably heard the idea of being born again or born from above before and we all probably have ideas about what it means and this is probably impacted by people we know who have used the phrase. The bottom line is that Jesus is saying in no uncertain terms that not a single human being is able to see the kingdom of God simply by nature. The physical or natural birth is not enough to truly understand the ways of God. Maybe once, long ago in some idealistic and forgotten past, it was indeed possible to understand the ways of God simply on the basis of creation, but those days are long gone. All of humanity has been tainted by sin so that we cannot see the kingdom of God on our own. However, the fact that Nicodemus is coming to Jesus shows that he is longing for something more; it is almost as if he is aware of the kingdom of God and is yearning to see it for himself and this in itself is an example of the grace of God already at work in the heart of Nicodemus, this Pharisee. The grace that Nicodemus has already received has stirred his heart to the point where he has been able to notice Jesus, to discern that Jesus has something he needs, and it has driven him to meet with Him, but it can do no more. He can come face-to-face with the second person of the Trinity on the earth and incarnate, but cannot take one more step without a larger, more all encompassing change.

What Jesus is saying is that this Pharisee, this guy who has done so much work to promote morality, to live the right kind of life and to follow all the rules of the Law, is not good enough to see the kingdom of God, and indeed cannot be good enough to see it. Understand, though, that when I say this, I am not calling Nicodemus an evil man; he wasn’t. What I am saying is that all of his morality was not enough to bring him into the kingdom of God, though he was face to face with Jesus Himself. Imagine having a conversation with someone who has never been born about the things of life. It simply does not matter how good that person is at being someone who has not yet been born, until they are made alive, until they can encounter life for themselves, they will not, they can not, understand the things of physical life. The case is exactly the same with spiritual life. Jesus, God who has become man, who is in continual fellowship with the Holy Spirit of God, is living the spiritual life; He is already participating in eternal life. However, Nicodemus has not yet been born of water and the spirit, as Jesus points out. What Jesus is saying is that, no matter what He teaches this Pharisee, no matter how many excellent principles of morality He expounds to him, no matter how much discipline he recommends, since Nicodemus is not yet alive to God, he will never and can never understand. He must be born again, he must be born from above.

Nicodemus is very confused, as we might imagine. He asks the question that many of us would ask if we were in his shoes. “How can anyone be born after having grown old?” If the first birth we experience was not enough and we need another one, how does that happen? None of us can be physically born again and Jesus is not suggesting that we try. The image of a new birth, of being born from above is not meant to make us try to think about ways we can recreate the birth experience, but to dig deeper. Think about it, even if we were able to be physically born again, that would not help us because that does not involve anything spiritual at all. The idea of birth means two big things. First, it means that there is a complete and radical change. The experience of the person who is born is radically different than the one who is not yet born. If Nicodemus were to be born from above, it is meant to impact every single aspect of his life, he would be a radically different person because he would be as different from how he was before that new birth as he was after he was born from how he was before he was born. The second major thing is that this happens in a moment. There is a time before he is born from above and a time after this new birth, but the transition happens in a moment. It is true that there might be a long time where he grows and draws close to the new birth before it takes place, just like there is a long time before a baby is actually born, but there would be a moment when his life would change. Until this happens, Nicodemus might learn a thing or two about Jesus and His teaching, but would not be able to see the kingdom of God.

One of the difficulties of splitting this conversation up into three pieces is that there are important pieces to the puzzle that we won’t get to for a week or two. Our passage for this morning, though it tells us all the reasons why Nicodemus cannot see the kingdom of God, does not include how he might change this situation. This comes later. The point at this moment is that the way to see the kingdom of God is not in being a really good person; in fact, there are many people who begin to see the kingdom of God who had never done a single good thing before that moment and there are many people who do all kinds of good things who never see the kingdom of God, despite all their good works. Nicodemus was not brought any closer to the kingdom of God because he was a Pharisee, because he was educated, because he was a leader of the Jews or anything like that. I’m sure that he thought that all of that would help, but Jesus explains that this is not the case. The secret to seeing and discerning the kingdom of God, indeed the secret to eternal life is not a single thing we can do on our own, but is a gift of God.

As a preacher in the mainline of Protestantism, I would be remiss if I did not talk about how the idea of the new birth has been used in contemporary culture. As most of you are likely aware, there are many groups within the church who are very interested in this idea of the new birth, preferring to call themselves “Born Again Believers” instead of “Christians”. To traditional members of the mainline, this might seem confusing if not entirely misguided. In fact, I have met several people within Methodism that do not like talking about people as being “born again” at all because of the political and cultural charge the phrase has taken on in the last few decades. I want to try and explain why certain groups have made this shift in language.

People were growing up in a culture that called itself “Christian” and were surrounded by countless people who were all members of various churches and were involved in all kinds of religious activity, but were no more moral or good than anyone else they knew. When the time came that they encountered the Lord and started to read the Bible, they read passages like this that talk about a new life in Christ, being a “new creation” and loving the Lord our God with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength, looked around and saw that all the so-called Christians they had known all their lives were simply not living this way. Though so many people lived as though being a good American and being a good Christian were somehow one and the same, these people refused to believe that this was what God was talking about. So, to distinguish themselves from the mainstream of Christianity that did not allow their faith to govern the way they lived, they started saying that they were not “Christians”, because they considered that term to have lost its meaning, but called themselves instead, “Born Again Believers”.


However, the irony of history shows us that, before long, those who insisted on being called “Born Again Believers” started allowing their lives to blend in with the culture in only a slightly different way, becoming every bit a group of hypocrites as those they separated from. Another group rose out of it, disgusted that this term was now meaningless and began calling themselves “Spirit Filled” or “Full Gospel” believers, or saying that they are “Christ followers” and the cycle began again.

The problem with all of this is that we have allowed ourselves to get into a war of words, pitting Scriptural language against itself, claiming that somehow being a true Christian, being born again, being Spirit filled, being a “Christ follower” and believing the full gospel are somehow different things. Certainly the people who prefer these different terms are often quite different, but the New Testament speaks of all of them interchangeably. Brothers and sisters, if we have not been united to Christ by faith, if we cannot see the kingdom of God and if we are not participating even now in the eternal life of God, it simply does not matter what term we use to describe ourselves. Jesus is making the rubber meet the road with Nicodemus and, through him, with us. We can call ourselves anything we want, but Christ has called us to something far greater than just a self-imposed title meant to exclude those we think are not “dedicated” enough.

Today we are celebrating our lives together as well as the lives of the saints who have gone before us. If they could speak to us today, they would tell us to stop bickering about words, stop fooling ourselves. Nothing matters if we cannot see and live in the kingdom of God. In the life to come, we will not have divisions, we will not get to decide who can be called “Christian” and we will not get to define what it means to be “Born Again” for God. So, let us leave behind all of our manmade distinctions and unite together as redeemed sinners who are accepted in God, not because of anything we have brought to the table but because God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him might not perish but have eternal life. This is what matters. We do not have the hope and joy of Christ because of what we call ourselves, but because we are united to Christ through the Holy Spirit and participants in Christ’s own eternal life, just like the burning and shining lamps who have gone before us. Let us honor them by uniting together and praising God for the faith, hope and love that has been given to us so we might see the kingdom of God and be truly born from above. Let us pray.

AMEN