Have you been following the U.S. presidential election campaign? It’s kind of hard not to with the likes of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders running for president. Perhaps you caught this news item then a couple of years ago. It has to do with Senator Ted Cruz who is also running for president. Did you know that Senator Cruz was born in Canada? Yes. He was actually born just down the highway in Calgary. But that fact was judged to be a liability by the senator so two years ago he formally renounced his Canadian citizenship. I suppose he wants to assure his fellow Americans that he really is one with them and doesn’t have divided loyalties.
In this day and age it shouldn’t seem to matter where a person is born. For example you don’t have to be born in a palace to be someone important. If you work hard enough, you should be able to make your mark on this world…or so the theory goes. The reality is that it does matter where you are born, or at least where you are born still has a big impact on your future. I’m reading a book right now about an Afghan girl who was the daughter of a rich man. You’d think that would be good for the girl’s future except this girl’s mother was not the rich man’s wife; she was a household servant. Because of that, the girl was not allowed to grow up in her father’s house. Instead she and her mother were banished to the outskirts of town where they lived in a shack and only received weekly visits from the rich man. If that girl would only have been born from the “right” woman, she would have had a much easier life.
Perhaps you’ve felt that way too. You’ve thought that life would be much easier if you would have been born into a family that has lots of money. Then you’d get to live in a mansion and maybe even have servants to make your bed and pick up after you. Or if you were at least born into a family with brains, school wouldn’t be so difficult for you. You could count on getting good grades, getting into a good university, and landing a good job. But what’s done is done. You can’t be born again into another family…can you?
Today we’re beginning a new sermon series on the sacrament of baptism. And we’re going to learn that through baptism we are born again. We’ll also learn that this new birth is a better birth. Listen to the words of our text from John 3:3-6. “Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’ 4 ‘How can someone be born when they are old?’ Nicodemus asked. ‘Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!’ 5 Jesus answered, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.’”
Do you remember the context of these verses? Jesus was speaking to a man named Nicodemus—a respected religious leader among the Jews. While most of those religious leaders were hostile towards Jesus, Nicodemus was curious about this rabbi or “teacher” from Nazareth. So he arranged a meeting with Jesus, but at night because he was perhaps concerned about what his fellow religious leaders would say about such a visit. Although Nicodemus had come to find out more about Jesus, he also learned plenty about himself.
It was Jesus who got the conversation going when he addressed the unspoken question that was on Nicodemus’s mind: how do I get to heaven? Jesus said: “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again” (John 3:3). Nicodemus of course was confused. How could he be born again? How could he climb back into his mother’s tummy? And why was that even necessary? Hadn’t he been born a Jew? Wasn’t he therefore one of God’s chosen people by virtue of his birth? Wasn’t heaven automatically in his future? That’s what many of Nicodemus’s fellow religious leaders implied when they would later tell Jesus, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone” (John 8:33a). But what these Jewish leaders failed to realize is that your first birth doesn’t count for anything. Sure, it will determine whether you have blue or brown eyes, whether you can draw, or whether you can sing like a rock star. Your first birth will also have a bearing on whether you grow up in a mansion in Vancouver or in a two-bedroom house in St. Albert. But your first birth also guarantees that you come into this world as an enemy of God. That’s what Jesus meant when he said, “Flesh gives birth to flesh” (John 3:6a).
The word “flesh” here doesn’t just mean people with flesh and bones give birth to babies with flesh and bones. Jesus could have said, “Sinful people give birth to sinful babies,” just as a polluted spring can only produce a polluted stream. This should not have surprised Nicodemus because King David had written in Psalm 51:5, “Surely I was sinful from birth; sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” Consider also these words God spoke after the flood. “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood” (Genesis 8:21).
Is that what you believe? Or have you gone through life thinking that babies are innocent and that they only become sinful through the example of others? Nicodemus was of course no baby, but in that one day alone how many needy people had Nicodemus walked by without stopping to help because he was in a hurry? How many unkind thoughts had passed through his mind when he thought of his co-workers? How often did he grumble at something his spouse did or did not do? How often hadn’t he done something nice or polite simply out of habit, or because he knew he would want the kindness returned at a future date? Because of his birth, Nicodemus, like us, was destined to daily prove that he was a born sinner. That’s why Jesus could have added, “I tell you the truth, no one [not even you, Nicodemus] can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again” (John 3:3).
What Nicodemus needed and what we need is a better birth if we want to get into God’s family. And God himself provides that better birth through baptism. That’s what Jesus was talking about when he said, “…no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit” (John 3:5, 6).
This verse makes it clear that baptism is not just a ceremony. God the Holy Spirit is active in that sacrament. He does something. He creates a new life. A Bible student even observed, “Baptism is a reenactment of Creation Day” (Robert Kolb). How so? Well think of how the opening verses of Genesis state, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” (Genesis 1:1, 2). Just as the Holy Spirit was active at creation hovering over the waters like a mother bird protecting her young ones, so the Holy Spirit hovers over us through the waters of baptism to create in us a new spirit – an attitude of love, faith, peace, and joy. Through baptism we are given faith in Jesus as our savior and are therefore born into a better family, God’s family. We become his child and are now in line to receive the family inheritance: an eternal life of peace and joy because through baptism we receive forgiveness.
If you rummage through the mementos your parents saved from when you were a baby, I’ll bet many of you have a tiny little bracelet like this. On it is your name – at least your last name and a barcode that matched the barcode on a bracelet your mom wore. The hospital does this so that babies go home with the right families. Do you realize that if there would have been something in that barcode to identify who you belonged to spiritually, it would have said the devil? Yes, because of the sin we inherit from our parents our eternal home should be hell! But in baptism God changed that. He changed the barcode’s information and gave you a new name and a new destiny: child of God; heaven. That is the blessing Jesus reminded the Christians of in the city of Pergamum when he said: “To the one who is victorious, I will give…that person a white stone with a new name written on it” (Revelation 2:17). Jurors in biblical times would return a “not guilty” verdict by casting a white stone as their vote. “Not guilty” is the verdict all believers in Jesus will hear on Judgment Day. And the “new name” that Jesus promised to give is probably “forgiven child of God” instead of “enemy bound for hell.” That new name was already given to you at baptism.
That’s why I encourage you all to find a white stone about the size of your palm and get your name and baptismal date engraved on it. Then put it in our baptismal font. That way every time you come to church you can see your name and be reminded of your better birth. And when your baptismal anniversary rolls around, celebrate it! Get out your baptismal candle if you were given one, and eat a dessert of milk and honey. This was the custom among Christians in the early church to remind them of the Promised Land to which they were headed, thanks to their better birth.
There is obviously more I can say about baptism, but I’m holding back because we have three more sermons to go in this series. In the next sermon we’ll talk about the blessings of baptism, followed by the power of baptism, and finally the daily use we will want to make of our baptisms. For now, take home the sermon note questions in your bulletin and go through them as a family so that you can apply what you were reminded of here today that through baptism you’ve received a better birth and therefore you have a better future—a future with God in heaven thanks to Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
SERMON NOTES
(For discussion at home.) How can one’s birthplace and birth family make a big difference to one’s future?
Why might Nicodemus have thought that he didn’t need to be born again?
What did Jesus mean, “Flesh gives birth to flesh”? Where else does it say this in the Bible?
“We need a better birth.” What does that mean, and how did God provide a better birth?
Explain: “Baptism is a reenactment of Creation Day.”
What are some things you can do to celebrate your “better” birth?
