Being "born again" has very negative connotations for many people. It conjures
up images of televangelists saving souls for a price, teams of people knocking on doors to witness and hand out
pamphlets, or perhaps even a self-righteous preacher who comes across like the owner of an exclusive club to which
he or she holds the only keys to membership.
But the concept of "starting over" when one feels they have already arrived is something many people
have been forced to confront whether they are comfortable with it or not.
Discovering one is pregnant at 38 with their youngest child already in high school, terminated at 54, divorced
at 41, moving after 50 years in the same community, a stroke or life altering accident that brings the need to
relearn basic skills, these are all examples of "starting over," and those who have been there know that
life can throw us a curve ball at just about any age that causes our need to do major readjustments to our thinking.
No one plans on this kind of event, nor are we quick to adapt to the challenges it brings. Typical first reactions
are "I already did all of this," "I've paid my dues," "I can't do it again." Many
choose instead to deny the reality of a changed situation and continue the remainder of their days as if nothing
had ever happened, and those lives are most to be pitied!
Abraham, the man exalted as the founder of the Jewish nation, and an important figure in two other living religions,
Christianity and Islam, did not come upon the world scene until he was seventy-five years old. This Hebrew patriarch,
highly honored among Jews, Christians, and Muslims is found in both our Old Testament lection and the epistle reading
from Romans for this day. Next to Moses, Abraham is the most frequently mentioned Old Testament figure in the New
Testament. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John list his name, and Paul considers Abraham a believer whose faith is reckoned
to him for righteousness. At seventy-five years of age, God challenged Abraham to make a complete break with his
past so that he might become the founder of a nation in a land then unknown to him.
In short, God asked him to "start over."
Jesus makes a similar challenge to a well established and highly respected Pharisee named Nicodemus in our Gospel
lesson. He is a member of the Sanhedrin, the ecclesiastical law court of Israel, and a person who would have exercised
considerable clout in the land of his time.
Note that Jesus doesn't say to him "You might want to consider starting over" or "Have you given
any thought to trying a new direction?" His words are not invitation but command…You must be born again! It
is a reality that must be confronted if Nicodemus is to continue to grow.
There are two verbs used in scripture for the parental activity of giving birth: one is the verb to "bear"
and is the action of the mother; the other is the verb to "beget" and is the action of the father. The
verb for "birth" used here is the paternal variety - Gennao (ghen-NAH-o). Jesus is not saying (as Nicodemus
misconstrues) "You must be born again." He is saying, "You must also experience what it means to
be "begotten from above." Strange that this should be so confusing to a spiritually trained individual,
but sadly not unusual. Then as now, new ways of thinking do not come easy.
I once heard that "salvation" literally means "to be set into a larger space." I like that
definition. Nicodemus was living in the small place of legalism or perfectionism. There is no indication that he
was not sincere in his desire to be the best that he could be. In fact other gospel writers indicate that even
the look on his face showed the depth of his personal convictions to "do the right thing."
Being physically born is moving from a small (maybe warm and comfortable) womb to the larger place, where real
life and freedom occurs; along with all the accompanying light, sound, external stimulation and awareness of danger
it brings. Prenatal specialists are becoming more and more sensitive to what a traumatic event that is for everyone
of us. Some therapies even stress the desire and need for a return to that safety of the nuturing womb, and attempt
to recreate it for a patient's ability to relearn, and move beyond some stifling experience.
Being "born from above" is the process of salvation. Learning to live by the Spirit, or to live by grace,
is "being set into a larger space." A place that will allow more compassion and greater understanding.
The author of the Gospel of John belonged to a community of Jewish Christians who had been forcibly ejected from
the synagogue because of their faith in Jesus. It is this experience that gives John's Gospel what is sometimes
interpreted as an anti-Jewish tone. As a community of believers who had suffered because of their public profession
of Jesus as the messiah, they would be understandably impatient with others who kept their faith a secret.
The Johannine community would see Nicodemus as representative of many former neighbors and friends who were clearly
interested in Jesus, who perhaps even accepted him as the long anticipated Messiah, but were unable to make a public
commitment that would risk social and political suicide. The choice was simple…stay where you are, deny the presence
of a new reality and manage to the best of your ability…or risk everything and start over.
In part, John's Gospel is a call for pseudo-Christians such as Nicodemus to stand up and be counted, to trust in
Jesus not just as teacher, but also as Lord; to be baptized and join the church.
In the poetic language of John's account it is highly significant that Nicodemus comes at night, for he comes from
the darkness of the world into the presence of the one true light. From John's viewpoint, to come that far and
then turn one's back on Jesus and return into the darkness is to intentionally choose to cut oneself off from God.
Such a decision is more than a mere rejection of a different kind of lifestyle, for better or for worse. It is
in fact a rejection of the possibility of a whole new way of thinking and feeling. John Wesley wrote: "If
our Lord, by being born again, means only reformation of life, instead of making any new discovery, he has only
thrown a great deal of obscurity on what was before plain and obvious. More than a change of life, Jesus calls
for a change of heart." What we have been given in this account is the story of a man who went to meet another
man and ended up meeting God. Isn't that what church and worship are supposed to be for... so people can meet with
God? Shouldn't we come expectantly and open to whatever God reveals? Where God takes us and what God plants in
our minds is the outcome, but it is only possible if we are first able to receive. How can that be? One must be
"born from above."
Like so many of us, Nicodemus has been trying so hard for so long, and it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. He
can't quite get the idea that maybe he just has to let go and let God. We too, I think have to give up our idea
that we get born again, we get saved, we get right with God because of something we do. We get right with God because
"while we were yet sinners," while we were yet confused and trying to do it on our own, while we were
still hungering for a deeper relationship with God…God did it all.
Evangelist Billy Graham says that he can point back to a definite time in his life when he experienced conversion,
but his wife, Ruth, says that she grew gradually into the faith and can point to no definite starting point. While
a conversion moment might be an important part of many people's experience of personal faith journey, salvation
is a totally different matter. A very famous churchman's reply to the question of "When were you saved?"
was, "I was saved nearly two thousand years ago, on a hill called Golgotha, outside the city of Jerusalem."
It doesn't matter so much when we come to believe as it does what we come to believe and what we do with it. Perhaps
the primary purpose of Jesus' dialogue with Nicodemus, and with us, was to open up the question of what it means
for faith to be a gift from God rather than an activity performed by the devout. The exhortation to "have
faith" has become its own form of works righteousness in much of Protestantism. Something we work to perfect
and then use for our own benefits. Faith is a gift shared corporately, not an individual treasure to be hoarded.
It's a reliance on direction, support, and reasons that come not from human rationale but from the Spirit within.
For thousands of years, many Native American Indian tribes have practiced a purification rite that we know today
as "a sweat lodge ceremony." There are actually different names for this rite. For instance, the Lakotas,
who live on the wind swept Northern Plains, call it the Inipi. It is conducted first, before all other sacred acts.
It is a cleansing ceremony, and takes place within a dome-like structure of thick bent branches that are covered
over with hide or cloth. This structure can hold about six to eight adults, squeezed tightly together. In the center,
a pit is dug that is large enough to hold a dozen or more stones. The stones are super-heated in a fire that is
prepared near the entrance to the lodge, which always faces east, toward the rising of the sun.
When the ceremony is begun the structure is fully covered. Water is poured over the stones, thereby creating a
tremendous veil of steam within. The process is continued until all of the stones are cooled and can take anywhere
from an hour or two. During the time the water is being poured over the stones, the participants offer prayers
and sing sacred songs believing that the physical, as well as the mental and spiritual, sides of life are being
cleansed by the ritual. The domed structure of the Inipi is symbolic of Grandmother Earth being pregnant, and being
inside is symbolic of being in the womb. While inside, much formation takes place in the mental, physical, and
spiritual bodies of the participants and when they emerge from the lodge into the cool air of the outside world
and the full light of day, they feel literally, and on many levels, reborn.
Like this ritual, the season of Lent is also a reminder that we are never as fully prepared as we think we are.
We can be reborn every day if we believe that the power to accomplish that act does not lie within ourselves but
is a gift from a God who desires only the best for each and every one of us. Introspection and a willingness to
trust are key elements to survival when the old world crumbles beneath us. We discover strengths we never knew
we had, and we let go of things long trusted that can from this point forward only hold us back. We do all of this,
in order to receive the gift that God has prepared for all who will receive.
"For 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."
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