You Must be Born Again
John 3:1-17
May 30, 2021 anno Domini
Who has known the mind of the Lord? Certainly not Nicodemus. To him the judgments of the Lord were unsearchable and his ways inscrutable.
Nicodemus comes to Jesus looking for something and at the same time afraid. He comes at night. Nicodemus gets very close to calling Jesus God, but not quite. Nicodemus doesn’t even get to his question or his request. We don’t know what he wants of Jesus, but we know what Jesus wants for Nicodemus. He wants Nicodemus to be born again. (Read 3:3)
Jesus’ declaration is as incomprehensible as the doctrine of the Trinity. We worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance. Jesus says if you want to see God’s Kingdom you must be born again and that causes Nicodemus to ask the logical questions (Read 3:4)
Learn of God and His Kingdom from Nicodemus and Jesus. If your god makes sense he isn’t god. If he is easily understood and acts exactly the same way you would he isn’t god – he is you. If you can reasonably explain his nature and behavior he isn’t god.
I have a Masters Degree in Theology. I am an M.D., well actually an M.Div.. Somehow, I managed 8 years of education past High School. I should be as smart as your medical doctor. I cannot explain how One God can be three distinct persons and yet not three gods, but One. I cannot describe how Jesus is both fully God and fully Man at the same time. It is incomprehensible to me that God was born of a Virgin and died on a cross. But the greatest mystery of the unsearchable Trinity is His heart towards you. He loves you in this inscrutable way – He gave His only begotten Son to die for you. He whose nature cannot be understood desires Nicodemus and you and me to live forever and the way to that eternal life Jesus says is to be born again.
We can draw some logical conclusions from Jesus’ words to Nicodemus. If we are only born once, in the physical way, to our moms and dads, we know what is going to happen. We’re going to die. There’s no escaping it. It might happen tragically while you’re working in a transit station in San Jose or on your way home from the lake on Memorial Day weekend. You’re going to die if you’re only born once, because that which is born of the flesh is flesh. Jesus could have said, “that which is born of sinners is sinful” or “that which is born of death is death.” We’re going to talk about original sin in Bible Study this morning – and in 19 minutes or less I’ll tell you everything I know about original sin. If your parents were sinners then you’re a sinner. If your parents are dying or dead then you’re dying. Your parents passed on to you the only thing they really owned as their own – sin and death. Therefore, do not marvel that Jesus says, “You must be born again.” ( vs. 7).
Another logical conclusion we can make is that we will play no part in this being born again because you don’t participate in your birth. I never said I wanted to be born to Myrlen and Marlys Timm in Glendive, Montana. I’m glad I was, but I’m most thankful I was born again. I didn’t have anything to do with that either. Myrlen and Marlys took their little bundle of Bruce to Our Savior Lutheran Church on May 13, 1962, and Pastor Henry Meyer poured some water on my head, and washed me in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. That’s what happened, but as Jesus says, there’s no explaining it. (Read 3:8) I have no explanation as to why I stayed in the faith, while many others who were baptized do not. I can only say, “The Holy Spirit alone caused me to be born again.”
Because no one would ever dare say, “Boy, I sure picked a great family into which to be born.” Or “I’m glad I chose my mom and dad – too bad my siblings chose the same parents.” That’s nonsense. God loved you in this way – He chose to send His Son to die for your sins. Then He delivered that love to you in this way – He gave you a new birth by water and the Spirit. That’s Holy Baptism.
When you were born according to the flesh your mother and father chose to have a child. You grew in your mother’s womb for 9 months. Your life depended on your mom’s life. You were born because your mother labored. She worked through pain to deliver you. You did nothing. You might have even worked against your birth.
God chose you before the foundation of the world to be His child. He conceived Jesus in the womb of the Virgin Mary to bring you from death to life. Jesus carried you (along with every other human) through His suffering and death. Jesus alone labored to deliver you and when the suffering was done, He declared the labor finished. It was time for the birth. He rose again from the dead – the first born of those who rise never to die again. Before He left for His heavenly home He gave His men command to “Baptize all nations (the Swedes and the Somalians, the Norwegians and the Nuers, even the Germans) baptize them all in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
It’s like that snake in the wilderness. Moses’ congregation didn’t do anything but sin and die. God spoke and gave them a way out. Moses, put a snake on a pole and then preached, “Look at the snake and you will live.” Did anyone in Moses’ congregation brag, “I have great eyesight. I saw that snake perfectly and saved myself. I have decided to believe in snakes on a pole.”
Nicodemus stumbled over baptism because he was stumbling over Jesus and over faith. He was a a Pharisee, far smarter than an M.Div or an MD, but before God he could do nothing except receive. He was nothing but flesh and he needed the Spirit. He was a dead man and needed resurrection. Nicodemus probably thought he was above average, easily loved by God since he was a pharisee, but if he was lovely, why did God need to love him with the bloody sacrifice of His son? Nicodemus may have come thinking “I could work with Jesus” but He left knowing that his only hope was that Jesus would work on him.
You’ll see Nicodemus in the resurrection, because he was baptized and he believed. We know he believed because he was there to bury Jesus. Nicodemus saw the Son of Man lifted up on the cross and he believed. Now when you see Nicodemus in the resurrection he’s not going to brag about his great eyesight or his decision to follow Jesus to the cross or his courage to bury his Savior and confess his faith publicly. Do you know what Nicodemus is going to say? “Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.” And Amen.