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Birth Certificates

There’s an interesting story from Brazil this week. Medical staff were dispatched to a home in Brazil this week to check on an elderly woman living in the home. Trying to determine the age of the woman they were caring for, they were shocked to be given a birth certificate that indicates the woman was born in the year 1900. That would make her 121 years old, the world’s oldest woman. She has 13 great grandchildren and 6 great great grandchildren with a first great great great grandchild on the way in the next few weeks. Five generations. Her family says she was the active cook in the house until about 8 years ago. The authorities are now trying to authenticate the date on that birth certificate. 121 years old.

Where's your birth certificate? I think I know where mine is at. We don't spend a lot of time thinking about a birth certificate. We have drivers licenses and passport cards and social security cards and bank accounts and all sorts of other documents and accounts that depend on us being who we say we are and what country we belong to. But all of those depends on a birth certificate that defines our source and place of origin.

Where we’ve been

Today, we are discussing our origin story. Our origins are with Jesus. And baptism is a big part of the origin story. Here’s a quick recap:

Jesus baptism was for us

Jesus identified with sinners

Jesus was baptized on behalf of sinners

Baptism provides us with

Salvation

Forgiveness of sins

Baptism is

A washing

A death

A gift

We also have a sheet we’re making available. Everyone who wants to be baptized, we go over this sheet. I pray it is beneficial to you as we think about baptism. We are not going over everything in this sheet during this series. But you’ll see some of what we have covered there. If you have any questions, please let me know.

Jesus and Nicodemus

Baptism shows up in an unlikely story early in Jesus ministry. Jesus is at the Passover festival in Jerusalem. He has already caused an uproar by overturning the tables of the money changers and driving out all the animals and their vendors from the exhibit hall. In the process, he makes an astounding claim that he, not the building, is the true temple of God where God’s presence dwells among his people. While there were plenty of people who were angry with Jesus, at least one of the religious leaders was interested enough to text Jesus late at night and ask him if he’d like to have a conversation at Starbucks.

This man’s name is Nicodemus. John says he was “a man from the Pharisees”. Pharisees were those religious leaders in Jesus’ day who claimed to have the inside track to salvation through keeping the law of Moses. Salvation by the works we do. That idea put them in the crosshairs with Jesus throughout most of his ministry and certainly played a role in his death. Pharisees were a big instigator in getting Jesus killed because Jesus’ message of grace was more popular than their message of law-keeping. Nicodemus is apparently not just any Pharisee, but one of the highest ranking religious leaders of his day.

But Nicodemus is curious. He has most likely witnessed Jesus’ functioning as a one-man wrecking crew at the Passover… and then claiming to be God’s presence on earth as the new temple. He tells Jesus that he and all the other religious leaders know that he is a teacher who has God’s blessing. He views Jesus as a peer. But Nicodemus is selling Jesus short. Jesus isn’t just another teacher. He’s already claimed to be God’s presence on earth. He’s already been presented as the Lamb of God who has come to take away the sin of the world. Jesus is much, much more than a teacher. And Jesus calls him on it by referencing the new birth. In fact, that’s the subject of the conversation.

The subject of the this conversation is new birth.

Eight times, birth is mentioned and of those eight times, six are references to a new birth.

someone is born again

How can anyone be born

the second time be born

someone is born of water and the Spirit

Whatever is born of the flesh

whatever is born of the Spirit

you must be born again

everyone born of the Spirit

That’s kind of odd. Nicodemus comes to Jesus looking for answers… talks about Jesus being a peer and Jesus seemingly just cuts to the chase. Jesus is showing Nicodemus that the nature of his questions needs an overhaul. What is it that prompts Jesus to walk into the temple and just begin some Mayhem? Jesus forces Nicodemus to go places where I’m sure Nicodemus wasn’t ready to go. Jesus’ answers are unexpected. Nicodemus talks about Jesus being a teacher and Jesus starts talking about the new birth. And the problem is with Nicodemus’ worldview. His presuppositions. He gives it away with his question. When Jesus says you have to be born again, Nicodemus says this:

John 3:4 “How can anyone be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked him. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?”

Nicodemus is a Pharisee. Pharisees have the inside track to God. Because of their birth. Nicodemus rightly understands that Jesus is confronting his worldview that Nicodemus is right with God because of his ethnic origin. He’s a good Jew. He’s a child of Abraham. His mentor is Moses. Between Abraham and Moses, Nicodemus has everything he needs to be good with God. It’s why he considers Jesus a peer. Jesus is a teacher. He is a good Jew. A child of Abraham, though the question of Jesus’ fidelity to Moses is certainly up in the air based on his antics in the temple. Jesus is having none of this. Jesus challenges the way Nicodemus views the world. His point of origin is all wrong.

John 3:5 “Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”

Nicodemus, it’s not about what ethnicity you are. Your birth certificate down at the synagogue can’t get you into God’s kingdom. Your birth certificate doesn’t answer the sin problem. Your birth certificate cannot provide you what you think you need in order to be a kingdom citizen. What you need is another point of origin. You need a new birth brought about by water and the Spirit.

You need a baptism. You need the water in which the Spirit works. Baptism might seem like an odd place to take the conversation until you realize that it runs to the heart of Nicodemus’ problem.

The context of the conversation is baptism.

Nicodemus should know that Jesus is already more than a teacher, someone with the right credentials to walk into the temple and declare himself to be God’s presence on earth. The context of this conversation involves Jesus’ baptism. Jesus is point Nicodemus to his own baptism where the water and Spirit were present. The baptism of Jesus in John 1 is the backdrop where John says that the One being baptized is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Jesus is telling Nicodemus, unless one receives the same baptism that I received, a baptism of water and the Spirit, they will not enter the kingdom of God. Having the right earthly birth certificate cannot gain you entrance into the kingdom. Instead, you need a heavenly birth certificate, one that calls you a child of God because you have been washed in water and regenerated by the Spirit of God.

So what are some things John and Jesus want us to see from this text regarding baptism?

Life-giving water

Baptism is life-giving water. Because baptism holds a promise and that promise is salvation to all who believe, baptism provides life. A new birth. Eternal life. This entire episode with this conversation at night Jesus is talking about a new birth. The water and the Spirit are the agents of the new birth.

The water and the Spirit: This is one phrase, this is one activity, not two. There is one birth, not two births.

A popular reading of this suggests that Jesus is talking about two births here. But that word “and” is not one of addition, but one of sameness. Both the water and the Spirit make up the new birth. The water and the Spirit create new life… bound together. The Spirit, through the water, creates new life. In fact, that’s what the great missionary Paul says about baptism in writing to one of his pastor friends:

Titus 3:5-8 “God saved us—not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy—through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit. He poured out his Spirit on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior so that, having been justified by his grace, we may become heirs with the hope of eternal life.”

Paul is saying that our baptism is a washing of regeneration. A washing of new life. It’s where he gives us His Spirit. He pours the Spirit into us as the water is poured onto us. That’s the point of this passage. Baptism is life-giving water. This is not talking about Spirit baptism, but baptism with water. This isn’t the only place where baptism is referred to as a washing. When Paul is first converted to be a Christian, this is what his mentor tells him to do, before he does anything else:

Acts 22:16 “Why are you delaying? Get up and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on his name.”

This is the same thing that Peter told the crowd at the end of his famous sermon right after Jesus ascended into heaven:

Acts 2:38 “Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

Peter has in mind this conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. Be baptized for the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Spirit. The Spirit is given in baptism, creating life in the recipient of the baptism. This is why we say baptism is the beginning of real life. It’s where God gives us a new identity. We have the forgiveness of sins and a new life. Jesus uses ordinary water and His Word to make us God’s children.

Death, then Life

In the days of the early church, after the church had been around long enough to finally have buildings and ways of existing as an institution, the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday was set aside to baptize those who were desiring to come into the church. After the sun was down, when it was dark, the Christians started lighting lamps and gathering in the local church building (a fairly new idea: having a building to use as a church) and the whole community would gather there, together. If you were there to be baptized, there would be a point in the evening in which everyone would descend into the lower levels of the building where there was an octagonal pool cut into the floor about 3 feet deep. There in the deep darkness of the church, those being baptized would hear the promise of what happens in baptism. There would be a reading of scripture. There would also be a renouncing of the devil and sin as you faced west. Facing east, there would be embracing the kingdom of God and his community. At that point, you would get into the 3 foot pool and kneel as the pastor and others assisting would basically drown you in water.

And that was the point. Baptism is a drowning. The old man dies. The sinner dies with Christ. The new saint comes out of the water being regenerated. It’s not symoblism. This is all happening because Jesus himself was baptized for us in the Jordan so that all righteousness would be fulfilled.

Gift of the Spirit

Every single person who has been baptized has been given the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a later addition to our lives. He is present from the very beginning. He is Jesus’ gift to us.

What does this mean for life this week?

John 3:5 “Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”

We are sinners. And we need this daily drowning of baptism because the Old is still clinging to us even as the New calls us forward. And the thing is, we don’t want it. We need it, but we don’t necessarily want it. There’s something in me, and you, and each of us: there’s something that doesn’t want to own up to our sin, that doesn’t want to admit that we’re sinners, that doesn’t want to let other people in on the secret that we’re not perfect.

I’m a sinner, who needs drowning. And the Spirit, who is alive in me through Christ’s Word brings me to life again. He makes us New Creation. He produces in us a new life. It is through the Spirit we live our our new identity as children of God. It’s the Spirit of Jesus who conforms you to Jesus and his cross and empty tomb.

All this is done for us in baptism. Baptism is a miracle. An unbelievable miracle in which Jesus uses plain, ordinary water for His salvation purposes. Earthly elements used to make us His, to tie us to himself. Forever. It’s not our doing. It’s all his doing. It’s our heavenly birth certificate.

Let’s Pray.

A kingdom meal for kingdom citizens. You’re a kingdom citizen if you’ve been baptized. What Jesus provides for us in his life and in his death is ours through faith. Faith lays hold of the promise of Jesus to save us and forgive us and give us the new birth. What was true in our baptism is true here for us today. We receive this in faith. We believe the Promise that Jesus has for us in this table that he will give us forgiveness and life in the eating and drinking of his body and blood. As we receive Jesus and his Promise in faith, all those things that are true in our baptism are ours again here at The Table. Jesus has promised to be here for us. And we receive it in faith.