And Are We Yet Alive?

Credentials for the Kingdom

Jesus has just began his ministry with a bang. He attends a wedding feast at Cana, where he somehow turns several large barrels of water into wine. That kind of miracle isn’t something that goes unnoticed, and as we read at the end of Chapter two, Jesus was now the talk of the town. All of that talk had attracted the attention of a certain Pharisee, Nicodemus, who came to Jesus in the night for a talk on theology, something every pastor dreams of!

Nicodemus, Pharisee, leader of Israel, the man with all the titles, approaches Jesus in the dead of night to discuss the miracles and signs this new teacher has been performing. Nicodemus had no doubt heard of Jesus’s most recent sign performed in Cana: turning water to wine. And so he had come to hear what this new teacher had to say. As he so often does, however, Jesus’s teaching proves to be a great challenge to Nicodemus.

Unlike most conversations Jesus has with Pharisees, this one starts off pretty well. “Jesus!” Nicodemus says, “We’ve seen the things you’re doing, we’ve heard about the wine trick you did, and all of us Pharisees agree that you’re a great teacher sent from God.” Now, we might expect something like a “thank you!” from Jesus here. That seems, at first glance, like a pretty good compliment. But, instead, Jesus answers back with a rather odd statement (as he is known to do):

The New Revised Standard Version Nicodemus Visits Jesus

“Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

Nicodemus, Pharisee, Leader of Israel, you see, had come before this budding new Rabbi, Jesus, with a great deal of confidence in his status and relationship to God. As a Pharisee, we can be sure that Nicodemus was a devout Jewish man who took great pride in his heritage. He was born of the line of Abraham, he was one of God’s chosen people, he was one of the special chosen few, hand selected by God. We tend to have a negative view of the Pharisees, and perhaps for good reason, but we should never make the mistake of thinking that they did not take their religion seriously. Nicodemus was no doubt passionate about his religion, he desperately wanted to see the kingdom of God, and he’d been trained his whole life as a Pharisee in order to do just that.

Nicodemus, you see, seems to have come to Jesus rather confident of his own status, and of Jesus’s status as well. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a leader of Israel, and Jesus was like him, a teacher. Jesus, however, doesn’t seem pleased to be put on the same level as a mere teacher. And he doesn’t seem to think too much of Nicodemus’s titles either! And so Jesus begins to challenge Nicodemus’s assumptions.

If he only kept the Torah, Nicodemus likely thought, he would be blessed by God and get to see his kingdom. If he only ate the right things, performed the right rituals, wore the right clothes, said the right prayers, and hung around the right people, then he was sure to have a place in God’s kingdom. Jesus, however, throws a wrench in Nicodemus’s whole worldview. “No,” Jesus says, “to see the kingdom of God, you must be born again, you must be born from above.” This is confusing for the esteemed Pharisee Nicodemus. He’d likely never heard of anything like this before! Seeing God’s kingdom, for him, was all about following the Law. No one had ever mentioned anything about a second birth before! We might forgive Nicodemus, then, for being a bit confused. “What? How could I be born again? That just doesn’t make sense!”

“No, no, no!” Jesus tries to explain, “Born again from the Spirit.” This, of course, only served to confuse Nicodemus even more. So, here he stands, the teacher of Israel, hung up on the most basic of Jesus’s teachings. We might very easily relate to Nicodemus here. We have no reason to believe he’s not being entirely sincere. Surely, we must think, Nicodemus wanted to see God’s Kingdom. Who wouldn’t? And yet, Jesus’s teachings are difficult. This being “born of the Spirit” is a new requirement that Nicodemus had never heard of before. And if what Jesus has said is true, that “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,” then it sounds like meeting this requirement won’t be easy either. For the Pharisees, even if the Law was a hard thing to follow, it was at least straightforward. You knew what you had to do. But how does one go about being born of the Spirit?

Nicodemus relied on his birthright as a Jewish descendant of Abraham as assurance that he was right with God. Being born of the flesh, however, being born from the line of Abraham wouldn’t be enough. Nicodemus has to be born again, he needs to be born from above.

This was no doubt a shock for Nicodemus. He’d likely lived his whole life thinking he had it all figured out. He’d probably went most of his career as a Pharisee thinking that it would be enough to follow the law to the letter, perform the right rituals, eat the right food, say the right things, and that was what would get him into the kingdom. But now Jesus has turned that assumption on its head.

Christ as Savior and Giver of Life

New Birth: The Mysteries of the Wind

This is, perhaps, Jesus’s whole point with Nicodemus. Being born of the Spirit isn’t something we have any sort of control over. We have the power to eat kosher food, to celebrate the Passover, and to offer the right sacrifices at the temple, but we don’t have the power to be born of the Spirit. In fact, most of us, like Nicodemus, probably wouldn’t even know we needed to be born of the Spirit if it weren’t for Jesus’s saying so!

"But how can someone be born again?” Nicodemus asks. That’s just not possible! Humans don’t really choose to be born a first time, so they certainly don’t have the power to be born a second time as well.

Luckily for us, as Jesus goes on to tell Nicodemus, this is precisely what Jesus has come for. “No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man,” Jesus says. No one can understand how to see God’s Kingdom unless they’ve already seen it, as Jesus has. And now Jesus has come to open up a way for us to see that kingdom. He has come to cure us of our blindness, to show us the light, to be a banner for us to look toward and be healed, just as Moses lifted the serpent in the desert. Christ has become for us a pathway to God.

“God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, so that whomever believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”

So that whomever believes in Jesus may be born of the Spirit, that they might have a life in the spirit, the kind of life that lasts forever, the kind of life that comes from God’s Kingdom. This was God’s plan of salvation for all. We humans, lost as we are, could never find our way to God’s kingdom. Like Nicodemus, we hardly know where to begin looking. And so the master of heaven has instead come down to look for us, to give us new life in the Spirit, so that we might see his Kingdom.

Here, in the dead of night, speaking with this Pharisee Nicodemus, Jesus has proclaimed a very vivid picture of the gospel. No one can see God’s kingdom unless they have been born of the Spirit. And, as Nicodemus was quick to realize, we have no power to do such a thing as be born again. But praise be to God, Jesus has opened up a way for us, he has sent his spirit out on all who believe in him, that they might have new life in the spirit, eternal life that is never destroyed and never fades away.

And Are We Yet Alive?

Christ: Saviour and Giver of Life

Yet, having recieved that life, so often we remain in the confusion of Nicodemus. We desperately want to see God’s kingdom, yet we expect to see the kingdom through human means. As the church, we organize programs and events, we put together councils and committees, we create budgets and vision statements, we plan and we work, and we wait expectantly to see the kingdom of God as if all this would ever be enough to grant such a thing. Like Nicodemus, we come before Jesus boasting in our human titles and human deeds, “ Nicodemus, Pharisee, Leader of Israel. Cody Westcott, the Good Reverend Doctor. Nicodemus: keeper of the Law, observer of the Sabbath, guardian of the temple. Cody, mission trip expert, food pantry worker, worshipper not just on Sundays, but on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and every day as well.”

And Are We Yet Alive?

Like Nicodemus, we bring all of this before Jesus, and he looks quizzically at us and responds, “That’s all well and good, but you must be born of the Spirit to see the kingdom of God.” None of these things are bad, some of the things we as the church do are even very good! In fact, many of the rituals and practices Nicodemus observed were very good. But what they lacked was the Spirit. Because, like Nicodemus, we rely on our birth in the flesh, or our human efforts, hoping they’ll be enough to catch a glimpse of God’s Kingdom come down. Like Nicodemus, we cling to our titles, “Son of Abraham, Pharisee, Church Board Member, Pastor...”

I believe that many of us truly desire to see God’s Kingdom. We want to see heaven breaking into this world. We want to witness the power and glory of God, not just in the future, but right now. So many of us here would give just about anything to see our church grow and thrive. We want to see the good news preached to the poor, we want to see healing and God’s miraculous power changing lives forever. If we go about our ministry as the church in the same way as Nicodemus, however, we’ll never see any of it. And despite all of our efforts, all of our titles, our committees, plans, budgets, and programs, Jesus will simply shake his head and say, “No, no, no. You must be born of the Spirit.”

Because it is by the power of the Holy Spirit, and only by the Holy Spirit, that the church can accomplish her mission. It is only by the life given by the spirit that we can begin to see new creation springing forth, that we can witness life brought out of death, that we can see the power of God at work in the present, making all things new. Apart from the Spirit, the gift given to us by Christ, the church has no power. We have no power.

On that night so many years ago, Jesus was challenging Nicodemus to let go of his human efforts and place himself fully in the hands of Christ, to throw himself entirely upon the whims of the Spirit, to be born into new life from above. Today Jesus issues the same call to us as well. Christ has died for all, opening up the way to the kingdom of God, pouring out the Holy Spirit on all who would receive him, and by his grace we have recieved new life, eternal life, the kind of life that doesn’t fade or perish, the kind of life that empowers us to see God’s kingdom even now.

Church, we have been called to participate in the mission of God. Christ has died for the salvation of the world. The work we are called to is difficult. It is daunting, and so often can seem an impossible task. But are we yet alive? Do we not have the Holy Spirit? And if so, then what could stop us from seeing God’s Kingdom coming down, breaking into our town, our neighborhoods, and our homes, even now?