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21.06.2009_John 3:1–17
| 03.07.2009, 16:43 | |
| Rev. Tatiana Cantarella Psalm 29; Isaiah 6:1–8; Romans 8:12–17; John 3:1-17 "Born again" ONCE UPON A TIME, there was a woman who set out to discover the meaning of life. First she read everything she could get her hands on--history, philosophy, psychology, religion. While she became a very smart person, nothing she read gave her the answer she was looking for. She found other smart people and asked them about the meaning of life, but while their discussions were long and lively, no two of them agreed on the same thing and still she had no answer. Finally she put all her belongings in storage and set off in search of the meaning of life. She went to South America. She went to India. Everywhere she went, people told her they did not know the meaning of life, but they had heard of a man who did, only they were not sure where he lived. She asked about him in every country on earth until finally, deep in the Himalayas, someone told her how to reach his house--a tiny little hut perched on the side of a mountain just below the tree line. She climbed and climbed to reach his front door. When she finally got there, with knuckles so cold they hardly worked, she knocked. "Yes?" said the kind-looking old man who opened it. She thought she would die of happiness. "I have come halfway around the world to ask you one question," she said, gasping for breath. "What is the meaning of life?" "Please come in and have some tea," the old man said."No," she said. "I mean, no thank you. I didn't come all this way for tea. I came for an answer. Won't you tell me, please, what is the meaning of life?" "We shall have tea," the old man said, so she gave up and came inside. While he was brewing the tea she caught her breath and began telling him about all the books she had read, all the people she had met, all the places she had been. The old man listened (which was just as well, since his visitor did not leave any room for him to reply), and as she talked he placed a fragile tea cup in her hand. Then he began to pour the tea. She was so busy talking that she did not notice when the tea cup was full, so the old man just kept pouring until the tea ran over the sides of the cup and spilled to the floor in a steaming waterfall. "What are you doing?!" she yelled when the tea burned her hand. "It's full, can't you see that? Stop! There's no more room!" "Just so," the old man said to her. "You come here wanting something from me, but what am I to do? There is no more room in your cup. Come back when it is empty and then we will talk." Meanwhile, several thousand miles to the west, a ruler of the Jews named Nicodemus came to Jesus by night. These two dispensed with a tea ritual, but the outcome was the same. Nicodemus came looking for answers. Jesus would not cooperate. H poured tea all over his visitor's hand and said, in effect, that Nicodemus already had gallons of answers available to him. What he needed was one drop of experience--one moment of new birth--and he could leave all his answers lying in puddles on the floor. And Jesus began talking to Nicodemus about being born again and it was hard to understand. The greek word Jesus uses can mean “born from above” or “born again” or “completely reborn”. “How”, Nicodemus says, “can a man be born while being old? Can he enter again into his mother’s womb and be born again?” Of course, no one can do that and be born that way again; no one can rewind his life and start anew. And even if Nicodemus understood that Jesus means some radical change, he was sort of saying, “with the life I have such radical change is as unthinkable as the second birth of a person”. Perhaps, Nicodemus didn’t so much doubt the need for change as much as the possibility of it. He was faced with the eternal problem of humanity which would like to change but is not able to. But Jesus tells him – one CAN be born again, because such birth is from above, it’s of the Spirit and this birth is not only possible but necessary is one is to enter into the Kingdom of God. And this birth is the only real answer to the question about the meaning of life. Many people are like Nicodemus, they are law abiding citizens who are sorry for their actions, who seek forgiveness and wish to start anew, they desire to be purified by the baptism of John and to begin living a new “lawful” life. That’s what Nicodemus was. He was a law abiding citizen, loved God and taught others God’s truths. Nicodemus was a man who did everything more or less right. He lived according to what he’s been taught, prayed as he was taught, went to the Temple for worship as he was taught, paid respect to his parents, was and honorable and respected man among others. Nicodemus, like many others understood that Jesus was special that He is the Teacher from God – otherwise He could not do all those miracles, if God wasn’t with Him. But all that didn’t give him any answer to the most crucial question – what is the ultimate purpose of it all? I saw a card once which said something I remember till this day, “God has no grandchildren”. I needed to ponder that for a moment to understand what was meant. But what it means is simply this: - It’s not enough for one to simply grow in a religious family - It’s not enough for one to know about faith in Jesus from one’s parents or friends, it’s not even enough to try living according to the teaching of others - But each person must make a personal decision about God, each person must be born again from God – despite how rightly or wrongly they lived or how religious (or not) their parents (or they themselves) were And that’s an amazing thing! Because it puts us all on equal ground before God, makes all of us to answer for ourselves! It’s great news especially for those who have nothing to be proud of, who are lost, who grew up in unbelieving families, who never heard about Christ. But more than that, Jesus words about being “born again” tell us something important about becoming God’s children. Think about it, you’ve done nothing for your own birth – it’s the mother that gives birth and the only thing necessary from us in our rebirth is the same thing that is necessary of a baby – to start breathing, to start breathing with life, with God’s Spirit. In Hebrew the word Spirit literally means breath. In order to be born one needs to yield, to let God push us through the birth canal, to yield to what God is doing creating us anew. Many of us wonder and cannot imagine being completely reborn for new life. We understand that our life is imperfect but we find it hard to imagine how God can live in us, how we can be born again and why it’s possible only through the cross and resurrection of Jesus. But all that is demanded of us is to breathe in God’s breath, to trust the Spirit, to trust Christ’s testimony to the Heavenly Father. We are to trust the truth that God out of His love for us acts not in His own but in our interest. He is not out to satisfy his desire for power, He is not there to conquer the world by forcing it into obedience, He is out to love us, He desires that no one perish but that everyone comes to repentance. He is not a tyrant seeking to punish every mischief but the one who will not be happy until His every lost child comes back home. He does not force us into obedience but He suffers for us, sharing His love which is even willing to die for each one of us. To be born again for some people, like for Nicodemus means to set their wisdom aside, for others to leave their doubts, for others still to stop trusting their own righteousness. It might not be hard for some but for others who lived a long good life it’s very difficult. It’s hard for us to admit that our virtue doesn’t count when God’s love is in the picture, God’s love that cannot be earned but only accepted. We need to set aside the thinking based on merits, lay down our doubts, stop limiting God with our own concepts and allow Christ to start acting in us already now. And what then? We’ll begin to see the world with spiritual eyes, begin understanding that there are spiritual laws at work in our lives, acquire a different attitude to the world and start living differently. When one is born again, they see the world differently, like the newborn no longer see the limited world that surrounded them in the womb. Can that be explained to those who have not experienced it? I can tell you one thing – this new life is beautiful and full of light that no darkness can overcome. I’ve experienced it first hand and testify to that. When Nicodemus protested that he did not know what Jesus was talking about, Jesus said, "If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?" Part of the problem (both of Nicodemus and ours), I think, was the difference between what Jesus meant when he said "believe" and what Nicodemus meant by the same word. On one level, to believe someone means simply to accept what that person says as true, usually on the basis of some evidence. Someone shows you a picture of himself climbing the rock face of a mountain, tells you it can be done, and you say, "I believe you." You accept the proposition. You give your intellectual assent, but it does not interfere with the way you live your life, because it is all in you head, you are still sitting on your couch in your home and looking at this picture. There is another level of belief that is much more visceral. Instead of showing you the pictures, someone invites you to go rock climbing with him. As he checks the knots on you harness and runs your safety line through the carabiner around his own waist, he assures you that everything will be all right. The proper response at that point is not "I believe you" but "I believe in you," because you are way past anything like intellectual assent. You have set yourself in relationship with this person, and you are trusting him with your life. You begin climbing up the mountain with him, believing in him, trusting that he will lead you to the top and you are experiencing everything he talked about, experiencing it first hand. Nicodemus was halfway there. He came by night to interview the new teacher in town. He knew he was good--he had checked his references--but he wanted more information. He wanted to see the accident reports, check out the insurance coverage. He wanted to handle the equipment, maybe try it on for size. He wanted the teacher to say something that would take away his doubts and make it easy for him to say yes, but Jesus would not cooperate. Nicodemus already had all the necessary information about Christ. Believe in me. That was Jesus' dare to Nicodemus. Turn your cup upside down. Turn your mind inside out. Step into the air. Ride the wind. Be born anew, a live. “How can this be?" Those are Nicodemus's last words in this passage, which makes him a sort of patron saint for all of us who get stuck at the foot of the mountain, looking up, without the faintest idea of how to begin. Here is how, Jesus says. Watch me. Put your hand here. Now bring up your foot. Don't think about it too hard. Just do as I do. Believe me. Believe in me, and when we get to the top, we will have some tea. Perhaps some of you have been searching for answers from God for a long time and you’ve gotten so many of them that you have a whole collection. Perhaps, you've believed these biblical truths about God who loved the world and gave His only begotten Son for you. But may be having believed these truths, you kept standing away, standing at the foot of the mountain called “new life” where Jesus is calling you to go with Him to experience the real purpose of life. Today He is calling us together with Nicodemus to stop seeking intellectual answers – like that woman also did – they will not change anything, we’ll be so full of them and of ourselves that won’t have room for what God has in store of us. He is calling us today to leave at the foot of the mountain everything that holds us and to take His hand and allow Him to lead us step by step into the experience of a new life for the sake of which He laid down His own precious life. Let’s stop collecting answers, let’s enter into this new life and live it step by step and new answers will come as we go and they will finally make sense. | |
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