Born…A Second Time?

A Sermon Based Upon John 3: 1-21

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

Trinity Sunday, May 27, 2018

A sociologist visiting a tribal village raised her camera to take pictures of some children at play.  Suddenly the children began yelling and waving their arms in protest.  Seeing their antics, the freshly minted Ph.D. lowered her camera in embarrassment.  She had forgotten, she explained to the chief, that certain tribes believe the soul is lost if one’s picture is taken.  She then launched into a long-winded explanation of the camera’s operation. Several times the chief tried to interrupt, but to no avail.

Finally, after putting all the primitive man’s fears to rest, the savvy sociologist allowed him to speak. Sporting a wide, toothy grin, he told her, “The children are trying to tell you to take the lens cap off.” (King Duncan).

In today’s text about Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus, we see the master teacher trying to get this super-serious Pharisee to take the lens cap off.   The Pharisees were the most devout Jewish group.  They insured that the Jewish faith would continue through some very dark times. 

The times were still dark.  We are told that Nicodemus comes to Jesus ‘by night’.  In John’s Gospel, darkness is typically a sign of doubt or unbelief (cp. 1:5, 9-11). As smart and educated as he is, Nicodemus is “in the dark” when it comes to Jesus.  Who is this man? Where does he come from? What’s he trying to do?

Still, there is something about Jesus that gnaws at him. He doesn’t know exactly what it is. Jesus is not like other rabbis. There’s something unusual about him. So Nicodemus takes a risk and goes to Jesus ‘by night’ to question him.  He states respectfully and politely, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God” (v 2).  Nicodemus appears as an honorable man.  Even if he doesn’t understand Jesus, he shows him respect and calls him “Rabbi”—Teacher! 

But what has caught Nicodemus’ attention is not simply that Jesus is a ‘teacher come from God’, it’s also these ‘signs’ (NRSV), ‘miracles’ (KJV), or ‘miraculous signs’ (NET) which imply that ‘God is (really) with him.’ Like so many, Nicodemus is captivated and motivated by the ‘signs’ that point to something being very different about Jesus.

HOW CAN THESE THINGS BE?  (v. 4, 9). 

Jesus sees through this fascination with ‘signs’,  confronting Nicodemus with God’s call to conversion: “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above’ (or born again, [KJV]. Either way is correct).  Jesus does not seem to be interested in compliments, but moves straight to the heart of the matter.  Jesus demands thought, response and action.  Instead of getting lost in theological musings, Jesus calls for a complete ‘make-over’ of the heart---an actual spiritual transformation which points to genuine change.

Immediately, Nicodemus answers with an honest question: “How can anyone be born after having grown old?  Can one enter a second time into the Mother's womb and be born?” (v. 4).  This call for ‘radical change’ goes against the normal way of thinking and observation, both then and now.  People still have questions about what ‘born again’ means.  In the 1970’s, when Jimmy Carter, a southern Baptist, was running for president of the United States, and declared himself to be a ‘born again Christian’, the press went scrambling for their dictionaries to decipher what he meant.  (https://hollowverse.com/jimmy-carter/#footnote_4_10673). 

Nicodemus raises questions, but we need to understand that he is not doubting the power of God.  Nicodemus clearly understands that "no one can do these signs...apart from…God" (3:2b).  Perhaps he had heard about the Wedding in Cana, where Jesus turned to wine (2:1ff.).  Maybe he saw with his own eyes how Jesus ran some of those ‘dirty dealers’ out of the temple (2:16). Of course, God can change things.

As we’ve already pointed out, Nicodemus is also not questioning the identity of Jesus as a good ‘teacher’ or legitimate ‘Rabbi’.  He recognizes that Jesus has ‘come from God’(v.2a).  The reason he comes to Jesus at all is because he has witnessed something uniquely different and important about Jesus.  He realizes that these miracles were not shallow, isolated events.  They run deep.  He couldn’t separate these ‘signs’ from Jesus himself.  These miracles made him, and others too, feel that when they were standing in the presence of this man Jesus it was as if they were standing in God’s presence too. 

Nicodemus’ encounter reminds us that Jesus provoked, and still provokes, all kinds of reaction and response.  Jesus made some people love him enough to want to follow him their whole life long, while others hated everything he stood for, and they hated him enough to murder him.

If you remember, in the Bible that King Herod was so disturbed by Jesus’

birth that he slaughtered thousands of innocent children trying to keep Jesus from growing up (Matt. 2:16).  John the Baptizer, who called for repentance and baptized anyone who came to him, felt unworthy to baptize him (Matt. 3:14).  Unlearned Fishermen, became willing learners and his followers (Mark 1:18).  A brother of one of the disciples; a man named Nathanael, at first said that ‘nothing good could come out of Nazareth’, later named Jesus ‘the Son of God’ (Jn. 1:49).  Now, in our text, an educated Pharisee breaks from the others, seeking answers too. 

  

The Scottish Bible Scholar, William Barclay, reminds of one more thing Nicodemus does not doubt:  Nicodemus does not doubt God’s power, nor does he doubt that Jesus is from God,  but just as importantly, as Barclay wrote, "Nicodemus is not doubting that humanity needs to be changed nor is he doubting that people need a new beginning in life."   Nicodemus is realistic about the human condition.  He knows that there is something that goes wrong with the human race.  Nicodemus also knows that something about us must change, or he would not have put his religious career at risk and come secretly to Jesus.  He knows, that even being good or being religious is not enough.  Our human need to ‘change’ as this is exactly why he comes to Jesus ‘by night’.     

After the fall of the communistic grip over East Germany an Evangelical Pastor shared the joys of release and freedom with his congregation.  However, this wise pastor knew that the excitement would be only be temporary.  Difficult days were to come after the celebration had ended.  The message he gave to his congregation the Sunday after opening of the Berlin Wall was one we all need to take to heart.  His message in one sentence was, after the freedom party was over: "We are still not

free!"  That pastor knew the truth.  The real enemy was not communism.  The real enemy is still here.  The real enemy is in us!  It is not something out there that needs to change to bring us the freedom we need, it is something within us.  

So, the question Nicodemus poses that is most important in this whole encounter and conversation is, simply "How?"  Nicodemus was asking the curious, honest, most practical question of all: "How can anyone be born when they are old?  Can anyone enter a second time into the mother’s womb (v. 4)…?"  “How can these things be” (v. 9)? 

Have we not all, at some time or other, been at least a little negative about our ability to change?  We have a popular saying: "The more things change, the more things remain the same." Maybe the negativity of Nicodemus was similar to that which was experienced by the prophet Jeremiah over 600 years earlier.  With society crumbling around him, the weeping prophet looked over the decadence and degeneration of his own people and asked:  "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the Leopard its spots.  Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil...Woe to you, O Jerusalem, How long will you be unclean (Jer. 13:23,27).  This same pessimism may have been what the Preacher of Ecclesiastes felt when he also said, “That which is crooked cannot be made straight”(1:5). Such pessimism about human change not only predates Jesus, it also continues today, even into our world, as when the 18^th century French philosopher Voltaire who once rather sharply said: "The better I get to know people, the better I like dogs."  That's strong language, but doesn’t it still resonate with us?  In another moment Voltaire wrote even more dramatically: 'Show me one real Christian and I'll become one.'

      

When Teresa and I were beginning our language study in West Germany, we arranged to have a private tutor during a holiday period.  The young lady who came to help us was a very warm and delightful person.  She was working on her teaching certification and agreed to help us for a few weeks.  She was an easy person to get to know.  As we talked, I found out that she was registered as a Protestant, but really was not a professing Christian at all.  She was agnostic and was well read in the writings of the French atheistic philosopher, Jean Paul Sarte.  But she was still very interested in my being in Germany as a missionary. She asked us the normal questions I was used to being asked: Why would one leave America and come here? 

I spoke to her as best I could about who Baptists are and why I answered God’s call to come to Germany.  Then I asked her why she was not interested in the church, since there was a church on almost every street corner in Germany.  Her answer was honest and open. She told how she grew up in a family that registered Protestant in a predominately Catholic neighborhood.  There was not supposed to be religious persecution any more.  That was supposed to be past.  Instead, her Catholic neighbors looked down upon her.  Her family was often talked about and treated unfairly.  The Catholic Church in her neighborhood would not allow her to attend their school nearby.   The Church, as she observed it, was filled with people who would come to show their religion on Holy Days but it did not affect daily life.  She saw religion spoken with the lips, but their hearts were not in in.  Through the years, her attitude had become like that of Voltaire: "Show me a true Christian, and I will become one."

YOU MUST BE BORN FROM ABOVE (v. 7)

The late Ben Johnson, who taught at Columbia Seminary in Georgia, told the story of a young man who came to the door of a monastery with a large duck in his arms.  He asked for his uncle, one of the monks, and said he wanted to give his uncle and the other monks the duck as a gift for all they had done for him.  Eat it in good health, he said.

A few days later another knock came on the monastery door. I am a friend of the nephew who brought you the duck. I’ve been a little down on my luck lately and I was wondering if I could impose on you for a bite to eat and a place to stay. The monks welcomed him happily and served him some leftover duck.

A few days later, there was another knock on the door. I am a friend of the friend of the nephew who brought the duck. Could I impose on your hospitality for a day or so? He too was welcomed and given a steaming hot bowl of duck soup. And then, you can imagine, a knock came and it was a friend of the friend of the friend of the nephew who brought the duck. That night at dinner he was presented with a steaming hot bowl of water. He was surprised but they explained that this was soup from the soup of the soup of the duck the nephew brought.

Now that is a silly story, but it says something profound about how distant we can become from true faith.  Too many people are content to live with a watered-down Christianity. Perhaps their mother or father or their grandparents had a profound faith in God, but they have been making-do with something that is weak, tasteless, and certainly without nutrition.  Is it any wonder that so many say religion does more harm than good, or that there isn’t anything to it?  Maybe this is what Jesus saw in religion too.

But I definitely don’t want to leave this here.  Jesus surely doesn’t.  Do you see again how Jesus answers this negativism of Nicodemus?  Jesus explains how this is change is not only possible, but it ‘must’ happen.   Jesus answers from the heart of God: “Do not be astonished that I

said to you. 'You must be born from above..." (v.6-7). In a world that says we can't change things, we don't really change, or the

more things change, the more they remain the same, the words of Jesus challenge us, stirr us, and awaken us a greater truth.  “Don't be so amazed” says Jesus.  Don't let it surprise you.  Not only can people and societies change, it is a necessary and change is unavoidable, if... you want to see the future…, and if you want to see God’s kingdom come (v. 3). 

When you hear Jesus' words over against the negativism of Nicodemus, and against the pessimism and skepticism of our world too, they shine like a lights in our darkness.  Jesus is the one who remained optimistic about our humanity.   But to believe in this kind of optimism is never easy, because as Jesus implies, most of the things Jesus teaches us to believe seem impossible on our own terms.  

Long before I first went to Europe, the first European I ever came to know was my roommate in college.  His name was a Frenchman, named Pierre.  Pierre was loud.  He was proud.  He was vulgar.  He drank too much.  He thought he knew everything. It was not a good first impression.  I knew that if our relationship was going to amount to anything something would have to change.  They told me I was going to get a football player for a roommate, but I ended up with a French, Karate, kicking catholic.  I tried to change him.  I tried to witness to him.  All the talking I did was like talking to a wall.  So, after a couple of months past, I decided to give up and move out.  I was losing my concentration for my studies.   I went to talk to the college administrator and he found me another room in another dorm.  Finally I was finished with Pierre.

Then, a year or so later, while I was eating dinner in the college cafeteria, someone came into the hall calling my name with a certain French accent.  "Joey! Joey!"   I turned and felt him touch my shoulder.  "I've got some news that you will be glad to hear."  "What is it?"  I replied.  "Last week I became a real Christian. I am going to be Baptized this Sunday night and I thought you would like to know." 

What I learned in that moment, impacted me so much, that later on in my life I went to Europe as a missionary.  Pierre made me realize that even against all the negatives in this world, Jesus can still change people.  And it’s not a truth about Jesus that changes us, but it’s the living, eternal Christ, who ascended to the Father, returns to us in the Spirit, who is present with and in people who can and will to be changed. It is this living Christ, who still touches, challenges, and changes the lives of Europeans, Americans, Asians, Africans, and Indians, if we will open our hearts to him.

 “Do not be astonished…, Jesus says.  'You must be born from above."  This is not some fantasy or an option of a religious viewpoint.  This is still the true hope of all the peoples of the earth.  The only way to receive and enter the eternal kingdom is through the human heart.   Jesus does not say you can change, might, or you can change if you want to, but the optimistic Jesus says you ‘must’ change: You must be born again!

FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD…. (v. 16)

With all this talk of change in the human heart, we still need finally reveal the most important part of Jesus’ answer.  Nicodemus was a smart man, but it was still hard for him to ‘understand’ (v. 10).  Jesus explained to him about the very mysterious wind of the Spirit which ‘blows where it chooses’ (v. 8), but since we can’t see it, nor can we control it, how to we discover it.  How do we tap into this Spirit that gives us second birth?   

It is no accident that this discussion ends with a picture of the cross.  It is on this cross, where ‘the Son of man must be lifted up’ (3:14) that people come to ‘believe’ and gain the gift of ‘eternal life’ (15).  It is with this proof of love, that God can change human hearts, from the inside out:  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son….God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (Jn. 3:17 NRS).

      

Not long ago, the Reverend John Buchanan retired after 48 years as a Presbyterian pastor in New York City.   Writing an article about his retirement, looking back over his half century of ministry, he remembered one Sunday service in which he was baptizing a little boy. After the child had been baptized with water, John Buchanan, following the directions of the Presbyterian prayer book, put his hand on the little boy's head and addressed him in Trinitarian language, saying, "You are a child of God, sealed by the Spirit in your baptism, and you belong to Jesus Christ forever." Unexpectedly, the little boy looked up and responded, "Uh-oh."

It was an amusing moment, and people in the congregation smiled, of course, but "it was [also] an appropriate response," wrote Buchanan.  It was a stunning theological affirmation ‘from the mouths of babes….’ (Psalm 8.2).  This "uh-oh" was a recognition that not only had everything had changed, and that this boy would never be the same. He was now being called, because of something he could never do for himself or by himself, to live a different way in the world.   No wonder he said, "Uh oh." Life would never be the same. (From in "Beginnings and Endings," The Christian Century, Jan 25, 2012).

What makes you say ‘Uh oh’?  The American Evangelist Billy Graham once asked the German Theologian Karl Barth what was the greatest and most overwhelming theological thought he had ever pondered.  Dr. Barth answered in the simplicity of an American Sunday School song:  "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so."  Faith in this unconditional love for you is what can change us from the inside.   This love, so generously displayed in Jesus’ death, is so graciously and freely given by the God who is willing to pay the price of love.  Believe this and you will be born again, and again, and again.  Amen.