We Are Born Again Throughout Our Lives

We mainline Protestant churches do not talk much about the idea of being “born from above.” And we have good reason not to dwell on it, because the New Testament does not dwell on it. The word “anothen” occurs only twice in the entire New Testament, and both of them are in this passage. But you would never know this by some Christians. They have turned this phrase into a box of their own, thinking they captured what it means.

Personally, I believe that the mainline Christian Church is correct in not emphasizing “being born from above” as an event in ones life that needs to occur in order to see the kingdom of God. And I say this, not because of the phrase’s double meaning, but because as it appears in the Greek in which this text was written, the phrase involves a present participle, meaning that it is an ongoing process. It does not describe a one-time event.

As a result, our church stresses the concept that John Ylvisaker captured in the hymn we just sang, “I Was There to Here Your Borning Cry.” The phrase is correctly translated “borning from above, or being born.” It implies an ongoing process of our rebirth by God’s Spirit, throughout our life.

Albert G Butzer, in his book Tears of Sadness, Tears of Gladness, picks up on the ongoing process of being born from above, as he relates it to the explanation Jesus gives of the phrase. Jesus says to Nicodemus, being born from above is a lot like the wind. “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Butzer writes: “The winds on the Chesapeake Bay where I sail, are not very predictable. One day they will blow down from the North, another day from the Southwest. On still another day, a sea breeze off the Atlantic will fill in from the Southeast. As a result, you never know what to expect.

The wind of the Spirit is like the wind on the Chesapeake: subtle, mysterious, always changing, rarely the same two days in a row. It is the wind – the wind of the Spirit – which can blow into your life and mine in ways that are so subtle that you hardly notice until one day you open your eyes and begin to see things differently.” End quote.

And this is what happened to Nicodemus. Even though he thought he had a deep understanding of what it meant to be a person of God, even though he was a theological scholar and a member of the Sanhedrin, the Spirit of God continued to challenge those tiny boxes in which he had put his trust, and at the end of John’s Gospel, Nicodemus again appears, as a disciple of Jesus, who worshipfully cares for his dead body.

As our hymn began, “I was there to hear your borning cry, I’ll be there when you are old…” The Spirit of God is like the wind. It comes and goes, constantly challenging our attempts to confine and minimize our conception of the Gospel. It is the promise of God to walk with us throughout our life, ever opening new doors to understanding his grace at work among us. Thanks be to God.

Amen.