Born From Above (John 3:1 - 17)

      How many times have you seen it?  On a bumper sticker or a billboard.  On a sign in the end zone of the big game.  Or—and this is my favorite—on those little, cumulative signs out on Route 66:  For God so loved—telephone pole, telephone pole—the world—telephone pole, jackrabbit, telephone pole—that he gave—wait for it, wait for it—his only begotten son . . . and it's Jesus and Burma Shave and See Rock City, together again, but not for the last time. We’re talking John 3:16, of course, and it’s beloved of Christians everywhere, especially of the more evangelical flavor, and it’s so iconic that all they have to do is put up the reference—John 3:16, John 3:16—and you get the point.  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”  But as in anything that gets taken out of context, anything that gets proof-texted, as the saying goes, there’s danger when it’s read alone.

      The verse is actually at the tail end of Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus, the Pharisee John describes as a “leader of the Jews,” and we should put the episode into context within the Gospel of John . . .  he’d just come up to Jerusalem from Cana where he’d just done the first of his signs—turning the water into wine at some relative’s wedding—and John says that he revealed his glory in this miracle, and his disciples believed in him . . . and note the order: he does his miracles and then the disciples believe, and then his entourage heads to Jerusalem and the temple, and in the temple he drives out all the money changers . . . and when the temple authorities ask him for a sign, he says destroy this temple and in three days I will build it back up, and they think he means the temple on the mount, but he means the temple of his body . . .
      And so we’re introduced to one of John’s favorite themes, the inadequacy of seeing as a basis for belief . . . many believed, John says, right before our passage, because they saw the signs Jesus was doing, but Jesus would not entrust himself to them, because he knew what kind of belief signs produce, he knew that belief from signs was not belief at all . . . and the ultimate sign he would give would be his body, murdered on the cross and then raised from it, and here comes Nicodemus, doubtless one of the temple leaders who’d asked him for a sign, and he comes to Jesus by night, and . . . just what does that mean?  Is he on the swing shift down at the temple?  Does he come to Jesus after he gets off work, on his way home to the wife and kids?  Is he sneaking down from the temple mount?  Throwing pebbles at Jesus’ bedroom window, saying “psssst . . .  Jesus!  I got some questions for you”

      It’d be like Bill Clinton sliding out of bed next to Hillary—she’s got her sleeping mask on, muttering about electoral votes and Michigan—it’d be like Bill slipping on over to the White House, knocking on the door, asking the Donald about economic policy vis a vis the Middle East, or something . . . it just wouldn’t have been done, Jesus had already challenged the religious establishment to which Nicodemus belonged, he’d turned over those tables and  kicked up a fuss . . . and Nicodemus says “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher come from God”—what an admission that was, huh?—“we know you’ve come from God, for no one can do these signs you do apart from the presence of God.”

      And you can almost here the tires screech, Jesus stops him right there, because Nicodemus has fallen into that same old trap of seeing and believing—or perhaps I should say believing only what he’s seen?—and Jesus’—and John’s—big thing, right in this section of John’s gospel, is that that’s just not right.  Didn’t John just get finished telling us that many believed because they saw the signs, but Jesus didn’t trust ‘em?  And so he interrupts Nicodemus with one of his patented non-sequiters, only it’s really a sequiter, after all, because—again as John’s just got finished telling us—he knows what’s in Nicodemus’ heart.  He says “Very truly I tell you”—and if he says that you know he’s serious—“Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

      And here’s where we have to come to a screeching halt and do a little ‘splainin’, ‘cause if you go over to the New International Version, it says “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born again,” which in meaning is very different from “being born from above,” and in English, it looks very different as well.  But—and here’s the thing—in Greek it’s the same word, the Greek adverb anothen can mean either “from above” or “again,” and in fact, this is the crux of the passage—Jesus means “no one can see the kingdom without being born from above,” but Nicodemus thinks he means “no one can see the kingdom without being born again.”  And long-suffering translators are always faced with this problem in this verse: do you translate it as Jesus means it—from above—so we can understand Nicodemus’ mistake, but not understand why he made it?  Or do you translate it like Nicodemus does, as again, so you see why he made the mistake, but not why it’s a mistake in the first place?

      Whatever, Jesus corrects him, or he makes it more clear: no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.  And he’s talking about the Sprit of God, which descended upon him in the water, at his baptism, and one thing’s for sure: Jesus is not saying you must be born again, as in a second time, as our evangelical brothers and sisters have it. He’s saying you must be born of God, and that doesn’t put a time-stamp on it . . . it may be after your physical birth, it may be at your physical birth or it may be—interestingly enough—like Jesus, who was, remember, from the beginning the Word.

      And there’s another thing I want to say about this terribly misunderstood passage: the whole metaphor of birth—whether it’s from above or again, it doesn’t matter—works against the notion that it’s in any way up to us.  I don’t know about you, but I didn’t have any say in the matter of whether or not I was born. . . I didn’t have to initiate my own birth, I didn’t have to accept it in any way, shape or form.  It was entirely up to my mother and father, and that’s how it is with being born from above, of the spirit—you have no say in it one way or another, it’s all up to our heavenly parent, who is father and mother all rolled into one.

      And one other thing—he’s talking about belief here, don’t forget, this whole story is a meditation on the nature of belief . . . Jesus tells this Pharisee, this poster-boy of logical, by-the numbers religion, that true belief, which Jesus calls “seeing the kingdom of God” comes from above.  Not from studying the law, not from some conscious choosing to follow some set of propositions, like, “Man! That makes sense!  I think I’ll follow this.”  You can’t do that, Jesus is saying, you can’t see signs and see the kingdom.  It all comes from above, it all comes from God.

      But what about this phrase “seeing the Kingdom of God?”  In Greek, the word “seeing” implies acceptance, embracing, faith, and so “seeing the kingdom of God” isn’t a metaphor for salvation, but for belief in the kingdom of God, which at the time was standing right in front of them in the person of one Jesus of Nazareth.  The Kingdom of God is before you, he says elsewhere, and he means himself.  Same thing about “entering the kingdom of God”—I am in you and you are in me, says Jesus, to enter into the kingdom of God is to have a deep relationship with Christ, and no one can do that without being born of water and spirit.

      So, Jesus tells Nicodemus don’t be astonished that I’ve said to you “You must be born from above, because the wind—and here’s another play on words, “wind” in Greek is the same word as spirit—the spirit blows where it chooses, it lands where it chooses, it comes upon whom it chooses, it fills whom it chooses . . . but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.  You must be born of the spirit, but that spirit goes where it will, to whomever it will, we have no control, no say in the matter, so it is with everyone born of the Spirit.

      And now we pause for a word from our sponsor, Lent—do you begin to see a theme developing, here at this Lenten season?  Do you begin to see a pattern?  Last week, the first week, was all about Jesus’ temptation to do it himself, to feed himself, to save himself, to take the reins of the kingdom himself.  To, in short, rely on himself as if he were God . . . and here we have a Pharisee, that very model of a modern Torah scholar—the Torah being emblematic of do-it-yourself, if-I-just-fulfill-these-613-mitzvahs-I’ll-be-all-right religion—here we have a Torah scholar, who thinks that he can choose to believe based on some sign or another—from the flesh, from below—and Jesus says no, you can’t do it yourself, you can’t decide to believe, you can’t accept it, it’s not up to you.

      And that’s a signature malaise of the modern era, isn’t it?  We like to have control.  We like to think that we have a choice in the matter.  God loves us so much that God gave us the choice about whether to believe or not, whether to see the kingdom of God.  But no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above, without being born of water and spirit.  No one can believe without it coming from above.  In everything else we can do it ourselves, but not this—you cannot believe without it coming from God.

      Nicodemus saw a sign and believed, but Jesus knew how much that was worth . . . the next guy to come along, who does a better sign, he’d just switch his belief on over to that . . . we’re in an age of miracles and wonderment, we can do anything with Industrial Light and Magic and a couple million bucks . . . but it’s all just snake oil, it’s all just flash and bang and sizzle.  The real message, the real world, the real kingdom of God, is before us, right in front of our faces, it’s in Jesus Christ, and he’s come from above.

      The spirit goes where it chooses, the wind blows where it will, it lands or doesn’t land, as it chooses, and we do not know where it comes from or where it goes, and at this time of reflection, at this season of meditation, it is well to meditate on that.  For as much as we hate the thought, as much as I hate the thought, it’s not up to us, we’re not in control, I’m sorry, we’re not.  And I thank God for that, ‘cause if it were up to me, I’d just mess it up . . . I’d just come in with some way to fix it or another, some program or process or procedure or another, but it isn’t gonna be me that does the deed, it isn’t gonna be me—or even you, or even the church leaders—that does the job.  It’ll be the Spirit, who blows through the trees outside, who sighs through the eaves of this very church, even now.  It’s gonna be God who revitalizes us, who renews us . . . we will see the kingdom of God, and it will come upon us from above.  Amen.