By cover of night Nicodemus the great rabbi of Israel came to inquire of Jesus. The signs Jesus had performed, Nicodemus said, meant God was surely with him.
Jesus’ response tells us important things about God’s kingdom, glimpsed through the signs that had captured Nicodemus’ attention.
“This is certain fact,” Jesus declared. “Unless you are born anew you cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Nicodemus was dumbfounded, so Jesus said it again. “This is certain fact. Unless you are born of water and spirit – through baptism – you cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”
Born anew, of course, meant the state of Gentiles entering the kingdom by converting to Judaism. After baptism they were said to be born anew. Water baptism through immersion in the mikveh was the means of entry into the Jewish kingdom. But Jews were born into the kingdom through their ancestry from Abraham, and so new birth through conversion was for them unnecessary. Even impossible – as impossible as a grown man climbing into his mother’s womb to be reborn.
But Jesus was adamant. Everyone, Jew and Gentile, must be born anew through baptism into the kingdom of God.
Jesus clarified it this way: “Whatever is born of flesh is flesh,” he said. Those born as natural descendants of Abraham are merely that – natural descendants of Abraham. “But that which is born of spirit is spirit,” he continued. Everyone born of the Holy Spirit enters the kingdom.
Then Jesus spoke of his role. The Son of Man, he said, came from heaven and must be lifted up (on the cross), just as Moses lifted the serpent in the wilderness.
He referred to the story in Numbers where the people spoke against God and complained there was no food or water in the wilderness. The Lord sent poisonous snakes among them and many died. When they repented, Moses cast a bronze serpent, mounted it on a pole and lifted it up, so that when people looked on it they survived their snakebites.
Then Jesus spoke the foundation truth of the kingdom. God loved the world (not just the Jews) so much that he gave his one-of-a-kind, only-begotten Son so that whoever believes on him will not perish but have everlasting life (in the kingdom). The Son does not come to condemn the world but to save it.
The heart of this is the word believe. The Hebrew thought arises from the word from which we get amen. It means certain, sure, established. It refers to something unshakable and completely dependable. It is something on which you can build your life.
We have reduced believe in contemporary culture to something that is possible, hopefully true but not really certain. We may even have a mental assent with little more than acknowledgement.
But Jesus asked Nicodemus, and us, for more than a place in our thoughts. He wants us to count on him so fully that we base our entire life on it. It is a certain fact (believe), Jesus said, that we must be born anew to enter the kingdom.
That means, entry into the kingdom requires setting aside the past and everything associated with it and make a radical commitment to Jesus and living into this new arrangement called the kingdom.
Believing is more than mental assent. It means abandoning everything else to place all your hopes and values on the thing believed. For Nicodemus it meant radical change in the same way Gentiles join Judaism and beginning again.
And so it is with us. Believing on Jesus means following him with everything we have, being willing to abandon anything that gets in the way.
Do you believe on Jesus? Are you a sold-out follower of Jesus?
Jesus’ response tells us important things about God’s kingdom, glimpsed through the signs that had captured Nicodemus’ attention.
“This is certain fact,” Jesus declared. “Unless you are born anew you cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Nicodemus was dumbfounded, so Jesus said it again. “This is certain fact. Unless you are born of water and spirit – through baptism – you cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”
Born anew, of course, meant the state of Gentiles entering the kingdom by converting to Judaism. After baptism they were said to be born anew. Water baptism through immersion in the mikveh was the means of entry into the Jewish kingdom. But Jews were born into the kingdom through their ancestry from Abraham, and so new birth through conversion was for them unnecessary. Even impossible – as impossible as a grown man climbing into his mother’s womb to be reborn.
But Jesus was adamant. Everyone, Jew and Gentile, must be born anew through baptism into the kingdom of God.
Jesus clarified it this way: “Whatever is born of flesh is flesh,” he said. Those born as natural descendants of Abraham are merely that – natural descendants of Abraham. “But that which is born of spirit is spirit,” he continued. Everyone born of the Holy Spirit enters the kingdom.
Then Jesus spoke of his role. The Son of Man, he said, came from heaven and must be lifted up (on the cross), just as Moses lifted the serpent in the wilderness.
He referred to the story in Numbers where the people spoke against God and complained there was no food or water in the wilderness. The Lord sent poisonous snakes among them and many died. When they repented, Moses cast a bronze serpent, mounted it on a pole and lifted it up, so that when people looked on it they survived their snakebites.
Then Jesus spoke the foundation truth of the kingdom. God loved the world (not just the Jews) so much that he gave his one-of-a-kind, only-begotten Son so that whoever believes on him will not perish but have everlasting life (in the kingdom). The Son does not come to condemn the world but to save it.
The heart of this is the word believe. The Hebrew thought arises from the word from which we get amen. It means certain, sure, established. It refers to something unshakable and completely dependable. It is something on which you can build your life.
We have reduced believe in contemporary culture to something that is possible, hopefully true but not really certain. We may even have a mental assent with little more than acknowledgement.
But Jesus asked Nicodemus, and us, for more than a place in our thoughts. He wants us to count on him so fully that we base our entire life on it. It is a certain fact (believe), Jesus said, that we must be born anew to enter the kingdom.
That means, entry into the kingdom requires setting aside the past and everything associated with it and make a radical commitment to Jesus and living into this new arrangement called the kingdom.
Believing is more than mental assent. It means abandoning everything else to place all your hopes and values on the thing believed. For Nicodemus it meant radical change in the same way Gentiles join Judaism and beginning again.
And so it is with us. Believing on Jesus means following him with everything we have, being willing to abandon anything that gets in the way.
Do you believe on Jesus? Are you a sold-out follower of Jesus?
O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (BCP)John 3:1-17 (2 Lent A 2014)
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