The March newsletter is hot off the presses, and if you’ve read it yet I hope you made it far enough through to see the adorable new babies – Brenna and Josephine. Aren’t they cute?! It’s been an exciting few weeks here, waiting and waiting for them to be born, and celebrating with the new parents and grandparents. In my own family, two different cousins, one on each side of the family, are expecting their first child in the next few months – what a joyous time! Out in nature, we see the trees budding, and bird nests are popping up. Signs of birth are all around us!
When we think about birth, we most often think of babies. Most people do, I would venture. And that includes Nicodemus, the Jewish religious leader who goes to see Jesus by night. The connection of birth with babies is why he’s so confused when Jesus says, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Part of the trick here is in the original Greek – the word used for “born from above” can also mean “born again” or “born anew.”
So poor Nicodemus goes for the literal meaning and is left incredulous and scratching his head as he says, “How can anyone be born after having grown old?" (They haven't seen the movie Benjamin Button yet, so he can't even begin to wrap his head around the idea!) "Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” No, of course not.
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| Photo by Giu Vicente on Unsplash |
But what Nicodemus didn’t recognize is that birth happens in other ways, too. It happens when someone addicted to drugs or alcohol gets clean and sober. It happens when our identity changes in some way and we learn a new way of being. Yes, we experience a kind of birth when we go from being a single person to a spouse, or from a spouse to a widow or widower. Things change, birth happens, when we go from being an employee to a retired person, or from an individual to a parent with children at home, and then to an empty-nester.
Birth happens when we decide to release our past hurts and disappointments and live into a new attitude and perspective. Really, birth happens any time we live into something new. And, as Jesus said to Nicodemus, birth happens when we are born of water and the Spirit, when we die to sin and rise to new life with Christ in the waters of baptism.
Through baptism we are born into God’s family. We receive salvation, and forgiveness, and new life – bestowed on us because of God’s love, mercy, and grace. We are not defined by who we used to be, or by who we could be, if only we tried harder. We are not defined by our failure, or by our success. Instead, we find our identity, our birthright, in the God who calls us beloved children.
Birth – both the kind with babies and the other kinds – can be exciting and joyful. And, it’s also messy, painful, and full of waiting.
As people who belong to a rather individualistic society, it can be valuable to remember that birth is something that happens to us – not something we do for ourselves or on our own. In the case of being “born from above”, it is God who labors to bring us to new life. It is God who waits with us, nourishes us, and then, when it is time, pushes us out, squalling and red-faced, into the world, whether we are ready or not.
In this nighttime encounter, Jesus is inviting Nicodemus to be born into a new way of relating to the world - one not dependent on what you can see, for the Spirit is like the wind, and we don’t know where it comes from or where it goes; and not dependent on what you can understand, because a literalist view will take him only so far. Instead, this new way of relating is dependent on God, on belonging, and on trust – which is another way to talk about believing.
So what new birth is taking place in your life? Where is it that you see signs of the Spirit’s work, like the sound of the trees rustling with the presence of the wind? Where is it that you find messiness and pain and extreme joy all rolled up together?
It’s not always easy to spot, especially when we’re in the middle of things. It might leave us, like Nicodemus, asking, “How can these things be?” I always feel bad for Nicodemus in this story, because it seems that he left this encounter with Jesus disappointed, just as in the dark as when he arrived, with more questions than answers. But even if he didn’t understand how someone might be born again, or born from above, the Spirit who blows where she chooses continued to work in him.
We run into Nicodemus twice more in John’s Gospel. In chapter seven, he tentatively defends Jesus, encouraging the other Pharisees who want Jesus arrested not to condemn him without a fair hearing. And then, in chapter nineteen, it is Nicodemus who joins Joseph of Arimathea in lugging pounds of ointment and spices to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body for burial.
We don’t hear about Nicodemus’ reaction to Jesus’ resurrection. It’s possible that, confronted with the news that the man he saw die was alive again, Nicodemus again asks, “How can these things be?”
But what we don know from this story is that God is at work in and among us even when we don’t understand or notice. We are reminded that God loved the world – the whole world – with the kind of love that sent us Jesus in order that we might not die, but live. Born of water and the Spirit, we are claimed as children of God and brought to new life. It is a life of love, service, and wonder; a life of sharing, relationship, and thanksgiving. For the gift of new life, however it comes, and for the Spirit who accompanies us through all of it, we give thanks and praise.
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