JOHN 3 – YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN

Image: Jesus and Nicodemus – Jesus Mafa series, Cameroun – Vanderbilt University Divinity Library

 

INTRODUCTION

Today is the first Sunday after Pentecost, Trinity Sunday. Last Sunday the Holy Spirit came rushing in like a mighty wind from heaven and blew our minds – well it got the disciples pretty excited, talking in all sorts of languages, sharing the amazing news of the Gospel to all the folks gathered in Jerusalem on that day!

Trinity Sunday today: Father, Son and Holy Spirit – we live now, after Jesus’ Ascension, in the age of the Holy Spirit.

Today’s Gospel reading is the iconic John Chapter 3 verses 1-17, the account of Jesus’ secret night-time meeting with the Pharisee, Nicodemus – depicted in the beautiful painting by the Mafa people of Cameroon above. Here we see Jesus patiently teaching about the kingdom of God to a perplexed Nicodemus, whose hands are in a gesture of questioning.

There are two very famous parts of the passage: firstly, Jesus explains to Nicodemus about being born again: “Very truly, I tell you, no-one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit”— that’s verse 5 — then, of course, there’s verse 16 …… “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.”

Nicodemus is mystified by what Jesus has to tell him, and, so often, are we. “You must be born again”? Jesus seems to be speaking in riddles, metaphors, or is it a parable? So, today we’ll try to make sense of what Jesus is saying, in what is probably, many people would say, the most important passage in all the Gospels.

REFLECTION PART 1

John 3:1-17, the amazing little interaction, very early in his ministry, between Jesus and the Pharisee Nicodemus. So, who is Nicodemus, why is he here talking with Jesus, why does they meet secretly by night?

Nicodemus appears only in John’s Gospel—three times—firstly in Chapter 3, which we’ll listen to in a moment; then Chapter 7 (in a discussion about Jesus among the chief priests and the Pharisees); finally, in Chapter 19 (where Nicodemus helps Joseph of Arimathea lay Jesus’ body in a tomb). Joseph is the only other Pharisee mentioned by name anywhere in the Gospels.

The Pharisees and their cronies the Sadducees do nothing but attack and conspire against Jesus—they bear the brunt of Jesus’ approbation in the Gospel narrative, his amazing attack on the organized, established religion of the day—Nicodemus appears to be the only one who takes Jesus’ teachings to heart. Well might he, therefore, have sought a secret night-time meeting with Jesus’—he would probably have been terrified of being sprung by the other Pharisees talking to the renegade preacher.

So, let’s now listen to the first part of Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus.

GOSPEL READING PART 1: John 3:1-8
3:1 Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews.
3:2 He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.”
3:3 Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”
3:4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”
3:5 Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.
3:6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.
3:7 Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’
3:8 The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

REFLECTION PART 2

“Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.” What an amazing statement! But what can it possibly mean? Nicodemus certainly seems to be mystified – “Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?!” – and I’m not sure that what Jesus said after that left Nicodemus any the wiser – Jesus, as usual, seems to be speaking in riddles, metaphors, trying to jolt us into thinking in an entirely new way. Let’s see if we can work it out.

Now, “Born of water and Spirit ….”: we’re thinking, immediately, of Baptism, the Christian religious ritual we’re all very familiar with.

In fact, Jesus is meeting Nicodemus not long (just two chapters) after being baptized in water, in the Jordan River, by John the Baptist. John says of Jesus – this is John 1:33 – “The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the … Holy Spirit.” So, it looks like Jesus is instituting, explaining, a new form of Baptism!

Now, what’s the history of Baptism? Well, the famous discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls in 1947, threw light on a previously little-known Jewish sect called the Essenes – I’m sure you’ve heard of this—and it looks like the Baptism that John the Baptist practised came from the Essenes. But the Baptism practiced by the Essenes was a regular annual ritual cleansing or purification, based on older traditions of ritual purification practised in Old Testament Judaism, and also in many other religious traditions around the world. It’s still practised today, for example in Islam: ritual washing before Friday prayer at the Mosque. It’s a cleansing from ritual uncleanness; not physical uncleanness, but spiritual uncleanness – in other words, cleansing from SIN.

But in Christianity Baptism is not a regular purification ritual, weekly or annual, rather it’s a once-off initiation ritual, initiation into membership of the church – that’s how it’s now understood and practised, although in churches which practice infant Baptism there is the later ritual of Confirmation, initiation into adult membership of the church.

Jesus is definitely talking about cleansing, that is, being forgiven for sin; but why does he use the expression being born again – born anew, born a second time? It’s a pretty radical way of putting it – definitely a once-off thing – you wouldn’t want to have to get born again every week or every year! And as well it implies some form of death: you die, and then you get born again.

Well, think about it: what’s the point of getting forgiven for the sins you’ve just committed, getting washed clean from them…. then, that’s good, but you just go straight out and commit some more sins?! What we need, really, is not just to be forgiven for the sins we’ve already committed, but to have our propensity for sin somehow dealt with, so that we can become better people, hopefully stop sinning, or at least sin less.

This is the radical born again thing. Our problem is our natural propensity for sin, and all this really means is our natural-born self-centredness – sins are fundamentally acts of selfishness. In the moment, we’re not thinking about anyone else but ourselves, and we act in a way which hurts someone – that’s what sin is, all sin, our natural-born selfishness. And, this is what we call “original sin”, by the way—it’s just a completely natural part of being human.

Think about little children. Little children are cute, charming, innocent, lovable, adorable; but, yes, they are very naturally completely self-centred, self-focussed. They – we – are simply, all, natural-born little narcissists! Little children, our little darlings!

Now, because we’re naturally born this way, there is a very real sense in which, to overcome our natural propensity for selfish sin, we have to die and be born again. Not a physical death and rebirth, obviously, but a psychological, spiritual death and rebirth.

From natural-born selfishness to unnatural born-again selflessness. We have to, as the saying goes, “die to self”, then get reborn into a life of living not for self, but for others – this wonderful new life Jesus offers us. Die to self – yes, sounds pretty painful … and it is! Think of the pain of a little child as their parents teach them to not be selfish, to think of and consider others: you can’t always have what you want, sometimes you have to share, let the other person have a turn, put yourself in their shoes. Remember the tantrums of a little child, thwarted in getting what they want, Ohh the pain, the despair! As adults, too, it can be pretty painful to let go of what we want in favour of another, it’s a little death every time.

It’s a gradual process, obviously, although some people get there – to a really selfless life – quicker than others; and some people never get there, and remain selfish narcissists till the day they die, no longer the least bit cute or innocent. Baptism, as we practise it in the Church now, is a once-off symbol of this gradual transformation, over time, from natural-born selfishness to unnatural born-again selflessness.

“Metanoia”— is the Greek word in the New Testament for this inner transformation – the English translation of it is usually “repentance”, but it’s a lot more than that – “conversion” might be a better word for it. Metanoia: in Greek “meta-” is a prefix referring to a complete inner change of something, a change in kind or nature, not just degree; and “-noia” is from “gnosis”, meaning “knowledge” or “way of thinking”. So, the original Greek, metanoia, refers to a complete change of mindset, a complete turnaround in your way of thinking.

The concept is used in modern psychology: metanoia is “the process of experiencing a psychotic ‘breakdown’ and subsequent, positive psychological re-building or ‘healing’”. Ah, so now we get it: psychotic breakdown … the pain, the little death, of realizing how self-centred we really are; then feeling sorry for it, repenting, being healed by forgiveness, then going forward with a new mindset to a better, a self-less life.

But, but, but: we absolutely can’t achieve this on our own – we can’t experience metanoia, we can’t get born again, through any effort of our own—it can only happen with outside intervention in our lives. Thus, parents intervene in the life of their children, the church intervenes in the life of its people with Baptism (and later Confirmation), God intervenes in the world through the Incarnation—Jesus—2000 years ago, and now, in our lives, through the Holy Spirit.

God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit—the Trinity, the triune God. Let’s now listen to the second part of today’s reading and see exactly how they, the Trinity, fit into the born-again, metanoia picture.

[We’re skipping verses 9-12, by the way].

GOSPEL READING PART 2: John 3: 13-17

3:13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.
3:14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
3:15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
3:16 “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.
3:17 “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

REFLECTION PART 3: 

Now, the final verse there, verse 17, affirms the amazing, wonderful truth that God’s plan is to save the whole world – not just you or me, but all people, the whole world. “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” What a beautiful thing to affirm, for Jesus to tell Nicodemus on that secret night 2000 years ago.

But saved from what?

Well, it harkens back to what we said before: the world needs to be saved from …. human sinful selfishness, all its destructive effects, everything from little kids not playing nicely together in the playground, to the Russians invading Ukraine and, dare I say it, human-induced climate change. Yes, each of us needs to be saved from our own selfishness, and the world needs to be saved from …. us!

This is the metanoia, the born-again experience, the transformation from selfishness to selflessness – humanity as a whole needs to go through it. And the Good News is that, as verse 17 says, God has every intention of making it happen – the Kingdom of God, eternal life – this will happen!

“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son”, “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world”.

Jesus is announcing these things to the world, but he’s telling it privately to Nicodemus in his secret night meeting all those years ago. Why? – why Nicodemus especially? Because he is a leader of the Pharisees, a man steeped in the Law, in the God of the Old Testament – a God who, yes, does judge and condemn the world.

Jesus is announcing that God is not, as Nicodemus believed, as everyone believed in Old Testament times, a God of judgement and condemnation, but a God who loves and saves the world.

“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life”. Amen!

May 2024