Park United Methodist Church

John 3:1-17

 

Like I asked the kids, have you ever felt like you had a dumb question? I have a friend, Linda, who insists on asking what she calls the dumb question because she knows there are people in the room who want to ask it but won’t. Here is Nicodemus listening to Jesus preach in the public places. He is trying to understand. He knows that something is going on. Some people say he is trying to be oppositional, some say he is just trying to understand. I am thinking Nicodemus is trying to understand because he goes to Jesus in the dark.

​

In an honor and shame culture where it is considered weak not to know the things, he sneaks off in the night to ask the questions. Jesus senses his question and jumps right into being born from above. This is totally confusing for the poor man. He is so literal, and Jesus is so frustrated with a man without metaphor who is a supposed teacher. Yet, he continues to help Nicodemus understand.

​

So, what is actually happening here? Why does Jesus expect him to know this, and what is he referring to? Well, in Genesis 1:2 The Spirit of God hovers over the deep, chaotic waters to begin creation. For a Scripture scholar at the time, this should have been a key reference - although clearly poor Nicodemus was not catching what Jesus was throwing down. It is the beginning of all things. It is the creation of the world.

 

Yet, after God creates the world, God also creates humanity, giving us free will and choice. We, in all of our infinite freedom, decide we know better than God. We chose to turn away from God and depend on our own knowledge rather than God’s Spirit. This began our separation from God. Jesus looks at Nicodemus, explaining about the Kingdom of God - this new world that is being built is going to be built by us being born of water and Spirit. We are born of water in our natural births. All of us have amniotic sacs - or birth water, as Nicodemus would have thought of it. The Spirit - Ruach- that blows where it will is the second part of what Jesus is talking about.

​

In the United Methodist Church, we use baptism as an outward sign of the inward grace of God’s Spirit moving in a person. We recognize that God’s grace is previenent. It is a fancy John Wesley word for going before us. It is the grace that pulls us into a relationship with God, which is offered to us even before we know God. I want you to put a hand on your chest right now. Imagine if you will, we all have a God-shaped piece within us calling us into relationship. Some of us deny that. But, I tell my summer camp kids that if you imagine that God shape with a string attached, it is pulling us into a relationship with God, and when we say yes, it transforms us. It changes us and how we react and interact with the world. That is called sanctifying grace.

​

Jesus goes onto say that God sent his only son to save the world, not to condemn it, but to love it. Jesus is explaining to Nicodemus that he has come from above to be part of the new heaven and new earth in this way, making room for this new thing. Those who are born from above will participate in this new heaven and earth.

​

So, are you ready to participate in the in-breaking of the kingdom? Being born again isn’t a thing, but saying yes to Jesus’s transforming love is. Are you willing to be changed by the Holy Spirit a bit every day?

 

Nicodemus leaves confused, but in that interaction, he is changed. By chapter 7:50, he questions his colleagues for condemning Jesus without hearing him out first. At the end of the book, John 19:39-40, he is buying spices and carrying Jesus’ body to be buried. Nicodemus is transformed. We too can be as well.