Nicodemus comes and addresses Jesus as “rabbi.” Nicodemus, a Pharisee, member of the ruling council, well educated, himself a rabbi, and a man of substantial means. Jesus was the carpenter’s son, from the wrong side of the tracks, Nazareth, and he never had any formal rabbinical training. Nicodemus had great regard for Jesus. He respected him. “ We know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.” He acknowledged that Jesus was a teacher, a teacher with a mission from God. He could even accept that God had a very special mission for Jesus, since he performed miracles. But Nicodemus was still looking at Jesus through eyes of flesh.
Jesus cut Nicodemus short. Jesus was not going to let this be a theological, or ethical, or religious discussion. He abruptly says, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” All the Pharisaic words and deeds he did and accomplished are nothing. Don’t look to the flesh for the answer to what troubles you. Don’t we try to be good? Don’t we try to be nice? Religious? But lay awake at night unhappy. There must be more. Being “nice” is not enough; it’s unsatisfactory. It is death.
Nicodemus did not understand. He could not yet make the leap. He asks Jesus, “How can a man be born when he is old?” Jesus’ proposition is preposterous. Are the words of Jesus, of the Torah, of the Bible to be taken only literally? Surely man “cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!” Or any other womb for that matter.
Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of heaven unless he is born of water and the Spirit.” We must be born again. We must be born from above. It’s not enough to strive with all human effort and power. It’s not enough.
A young man came to Socrates and said that he had come to him for knowledge. Socrates took him down to the river and they waded in. He then seized upon the man and held him underwater. The young man struggled and flailed about. When his resistance was almost gone, Socrates pulled him up and dragged him back to shore. He asked the young man, “When I was holding you under water, what was the one thing that you wanted more than any thing else in the whole world?” The young man said, “AIR!” Socrates replied, “When you desire knowledge as much as you desire air, you will not have to search for it.”
When it comes to our salvation, we are totally helpless by ourselves. People will go hundreds and thousands of miles to find the next spiritual guru. The Beatles went to India to find Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Others look to New Age speakers, who preach that man needs no savior other than his inner self. Even Christians will go to great lengths to attend a Billy Graham crusade, or to see the next “in” charismatic experiment. People are helpless; they are searching for help. Many will take help from whoever offers it cheapest—with the no admission of guilt, wrong, or failure. Men try to avoid these, and yet when they receive the so-called help, it leaves them unfulfilled. It doesn’t meet their needs.
We can desire new life all we want, and beat our arms to get it; but, like the man underwater, we cannot have what we want. We are held captive in chains we cannot break. We are held underwater by hands too strong for us. The Psalmist writes, “I lift up my eyes to the hills—where does my help come from?” Surrounded by foes, standing in the valley of the shadow of death, when you look up to the hills in that dark valley, what do you see? Do you expect to see more forces of the enemy ready to descend upon you and lay you waste? NO! For those born of the water and the Spirit, we see our salvation. “My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.”
“Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to Spirit.” We cannot hope to receive air from what is holding us below the water—the weight of sin. Our own flesh is powerless. But don’t let that worry you. The flesh of those to whom you might seek help is equally powerless. Only by grace! Only by the Spirit is your spirit enlivened. Only by the breath of God do you receive breath. Only by the Spirit working in others is their help of any benefit. There is no explanation for the levity that comes with being born from above. “The wind blows where it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” When you have been born of the Spirit, you are reconciled to God; you have no explanation for it. You enter the kingdom of heaven, and no one—at least from the flesh—can understand where you are going or where you have been.
Nicodemus could not understand. “How can this be?” Nicodemus reached the limitations of the flesh. He has stretched as far as is humanly possible. Yet he resists. His question is similar to that of Mary to the angel Gabriel, when told that she would conceive and give birth to a son. But, Mary’s question was not a challenge; she accepted the message given by the angel with pure faith, and sought confirmation that her purity would not be stained. Nicodemus question smacks of frustration and a lack of faith.
Jesus response shows his disappointment. “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do you not understand these things?” Still, Jesus did not give up on him. “I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.” Jesus peels back part of the world, part of things earthly, and now shows Nicodemus things heavenly. Despite his difficulty in understanding, Jesus gives Nicodemus another glimpse, and this into his own personhood, into the divinity contained in his humanity, into the mystery of the incarnation, into the One and Only who was born of water—yes of the flesh—but born fully of the Spirit. This is a great mystery. If you look back to John 2:24, you’ll see even more how great this veiled revelation was. “Jesus would not entrust himself to them [the people at the Passover], for he knew all men. He did not need man’s testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man.” Jesus, in a small but very real way, entrusted himself to Nicodemus, not to gain his support and his vote in the Sanhedrin, but because he wanted Nicodemus. Jesus desired him to be his disciple.
Nicodemus was stretching, bending, and Jesus inched closer to the goal: “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” The serpent and the Son of Man. In the desert (Numbers 21), the Israelites grumbled against God and against Moses, and complained that their salvation that he wrought was not up to their standards. God sent serpents to punish them. Their salvation from the deadly venom was to look upon the bronze serpent that Moses had erected on a pole.
What does this have to do with Jesus? The bronze serpent was a type, a prefigurement of our Lord. For the serpent had no venom, no deadly power. It looked just like the deadly vipers, but was powerless. Likewise Jesus: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus was sinless, yet on the cross he appeared as one with sin. Jesus appeared to be conquered by death, but death had no dominion over him. We look upon Jesus and find in him healing from our deadly wounds. There certainly were those in the desert who, when told what they had to do to be healed, thought that it was crazy, even stupid. When they looked at the serpent, they had no faith, and they died. Likewise, simply “looking” at Jesus on the cross—saying you’re a Christian, even being baptized—does not guarantee eternal life. One must look and believe. A hymn that’s dear to many of us speaks well of this. “On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross / the emblem of suffering and shame; / and I love that old cross where the dearest and best / for a world of lost sinners was slain. / So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross / Till my trophies at last I lay down. / I will cling to the old rugged cross. / And exchange it some day for a crown.”
And here’s the goal: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” There’s another echo in these verses, one that goes back to the foundation of the chosen nation. Did you catch it? Think back to Genesis 22, when God tested Abraham. “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love…sacrifice him …as a burnt offering.” “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son.” When Isaac asked his father, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” and when Abraham responded, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son,” this was the moment Abraham spoke of. Jesus is the Lamb of God, the once for all sacrifice for our sins.
Nicodemus came seeking Jesus. In the end, it was Jesus who was seeking Nicodemus—seeking his soul. I’ll let you decide whether Jesus got him. While Jesus was at the Feast of Tabernacles, the Jewish leaders tried to have him arrested. John 7:50: “Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number [the Pharisees], asked, ‘Does our law condemn anyone without first hearing him to find out what he is doing?’” Indeed, Nicodemus had visited Jesus to hear him before passing judgment.
And after Jesus’ death, John 19:39: “[Joseph of Arimathea] was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds.” Such a great amount of spices was reserved for a king. But wasn’t that why Jesus was crucified. Wasn’t that what Pilate wrote as the charge, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews”? This charge is true. Jesus was the King of the Jews. How dangerous this is. The Devil seeks to make light of it. For if Jesus is King of the Jews, the promised Messiah, then his is the Desire of the Nations, the King of the Gentiles as well.
What I find most beautiful about St. Benedict was his focus on continual conversion. Continual conversion is the constant exercise that the soul must make to be born again. It acknowledges that being born again is about having a relationship with God, a living, growing, developing relationship. Do you believe in Jesus? Are you born again, born from above?
