The Only Must That Means Anything
Word associations can be a fun exercise to measure a group. Let’s try a few.
When I say “tomato,” you say, ________.
When I say “star-light,” you say, ________.
When I say, “Super Tuesday,” you say, ________ (just kidding, we’re not going there this morning!).
When I say “that team from Texas who cheated to win the World Series,” you say, ________. (OK that might be a stretch to be considered a word association)
Last one, when I say “born again,” you say, ________.
Jesus answered Nicodemus the Pharisee saying, “Truly I tell you, no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born again.”[1] That is some serious word association. Born again and the Kingdom of God. Being born once was hard enough for me (I have an unusually large head), to be born again as Jesus told Nicodemus, well that sounds like something that might be outside my scope of expertise or comfort.
To be “born again” from a mainline Protestant, not wanting to rock the theological boat (too much) is something we Methodists reserve for Christians of a different flavor. People like us, sensible United Methodists, do not know what to do with Jesus’ response to Nicodemus, “Truly I tell you, no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born again.”[2]
If we knew what to do with this impossible command from Jesus we would most likely be in another congregation, part of a different community where the language of accepting Jesus into our hearts - knowing the date of said declaration, marking our born again-aversary on the calendar - is the common vernacular and practice. This would be a community when prompted with a word association exercise of “when I say ‘born again,’ you say, ________” the response would be confident, unified, and not one leaving many to look for the nearest exit.
Having compartmentalized his faith Nicodemus missed the spiritual reality spoken by Jesus and opted for the impossible logistical feet of physically being born again.
We would like to skip over Jesus’ born again - the Greek word is anothen - response to Nicodemus. After all, it was Nicodemus who asked the question with the impossible response. I did not ask the question. Pastor Ed did not ask the question. You did not ask the question.
Jesus’ response was directed to Nicodemus, so it would be great to leave the logistical nightmare of being born anothen at Nicodemus’ feet. Leaving verses three and five to Nicodemus would allow us to jump ahead to verse 16 - “for God so loved the world” - a favorite of college football players and modern Christian interior decorating.
Jesus did not tell his disciples, called away from their nets and their families to be born again. This word association conundrum is Nicodemus’ problem. Can’t we just end the sermon now and head home?
The word we and Nicodemus trip over like a child’s shoe left on the floor in the middle of the night is what separates Christians into born anothen tribes. To be born anothen, as instructed by Jesus is to be born “anew,” “again,” or “from above.” Three definitions each slightly different.
Nicodemus is the only person in the gospels Jesus spoke these words to, except, the “you” in you must be born anew, you must be born again, you must be born from above is plural.
You all must be born again. We, all of us, everyone must be born again.
Nicodemus was a Pharisee. His midnight meeting with Jesus made him a representative of an entire people. This midnight encounter is not about Nicodemus seeking information for his own salvation, which is why Jesus replied with a “you all” you.
We’ve been lumped in, many of us unwillingly, into Nicodemus’ middle of the night encounter with Jesus, but for as long as I can remember to be born again was for those Christians and not for me.
Not us. Certainly not us United Methodist Christians, after all, we are the happy middle ground families find with a Roman Catholic marries an Evangelical.
To consider that we must be born again leads me to believe that we need to add a weekly altar call to the end of each service. But if that becomes the threshold for genuine faith, being a “real Christian,” we contradict everything Jesus told Nicodemus, everything Jesus is telling us.
To be born again - that is something God does; it is not something we do.
It is something - being born anothen - that we are incapable of doing for ourselves.
To be born anothen is something we can control just as easily as we can control the directions and speed the wind blows.
To be born anothen is not a notch on your spiritual belt.
To be born anothen is not a resume line you can accomplish for yourself to ensure your own salvation.
Jesus tells us as much - “what is born of flesh (that’s us) is flesh.” What is flesh is incapable of becoming God. Only God can become God. Only God can connect us with God. This is not something we can make on our own.
To be born anothen is not a journey we can accomplish on our own. To be born anothen - born anew, again, or from above - is not something we do. It is something God has done.
The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is God’s invitation into God’s new creation through the faithfulness of Christ.
As we journey through Lent we see the shadow of the cross, the sorrow of Good Friday getting bigger and bigger. But after the sorrow of Good Friday, on Easter, the disciples received the Holy Spirit as Jesus breathed on them. This was not Jesus sharing his three-day-old death breath. Jesus said to them, “receive the Holy Spirit.”
Like Adam formed from dust and having new life breathed into his lungs, Jesus - the New Adam - takes away the stench our sin and death, breathing upon us new life in the Spirit.
Skipping over Jesus’ bit of being born anothen, preferring the safer-waters of John 3:16, we miss that we have been born anothen. We have been born again. We have been born from above, born anew.
Jesus’ resurrection sealed this for all us. Everyone. Even those of us who prefer John 3:16 over John 3:3 or 3:5.
This Lenten season we are considering what it means, as Saint Paul put it, to “adopt the mind of Christ.”[3]
To adopt the mind of Christ is to acknowledge that regardless if you have ever come forward during an altar call, regardless if you have your born again date circled on the calendar, regardless if you attend a “born again, Bible-believing” church or the happy middle ground of mainline Protestantism, you have already been accepted by God. The faithfulness of Christ to the will of God is what gives us life. This is something we could never do on our own.
So while you may have a date you can remember - confirmation as a teenager, an altar call way back when, or just a few years ago - the anniversary date on your calendar is a signifier of your recognition of something accomplished for you, whether you knew you needed it done or not, whether you wanted it done or not. Hold onto those dates and keep them circled but don’t forget that the sorrow of Good Friday does not last indefinitely.
We are Easter people and when the stone was rolled away and Mary found Jesus, she mistook the New Adam for the gardener, the caretaker on the first day of God’s new creation.
What Jesus accomplished for us remains the if/then of being born again - if you are born again, born from above, born anew, then you will see the Kingdom of God. What Jesus accomplished for us is true today, now and will always be true.
For all of us. Everyone.
This is not just Good News. This is Great News! Some might call it Awesome News!
This Awesome News we celebrate today, gathering around the baptismal font, we are reminded that each of us has been born anothen, through water and the Spirit, as we celebrate the baptism of Eliza Charlotte.
Being born anothen gives each of us new sight - to be able to see Jesus in the darkness of night, to see Jesus while the shadow-side of creation looms, to see him not as the gardener but rather the new Adam, the first of God’s new creation.
Seeing Jesus and trusting that his faithfulness is enough frees us to see all of creation with new eyes. The darkness does not seem so dark because the light of Christ - because of his faithfulness and love of God - shines on each of us, exposing our born anothen-ness to the world but more importantly, to those of us who doubt our enoughness.
[1] John 3:3
[2] John 3:3
[3] Philippians 2:5
