John 3:1-17
March 20, 2011
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
One of the most rewatchable movies of our times is Groundhog Day with Bill Murray. Murray plays a weatherman to report if the groundhog would see his shadow or not. One drab morning in Pennsylvania, he awakens to the radio blaring Sonny and Cher’s song, “I’ve Got You Babe.” He then plods through his day, encountering a group of wearisome people along the way.
The next morning the radio awakes him at the same time, with the same song—Sonny and Cher all over again—and the same weather report, which he thinks a bit odd. But things become even stranger as he stumbles through exactly the same day with the same boring people as yesterday. And then the next day and the next. After the 20th repetition of the same meaningless day, Murray realizes that he is in hell.
In a number of vain attempts to end it all, he tries to commit suicide, leaping from a building, falling in front of a speeding truck. But after each attempt, he wakes the next day to the same day, same song, Sonny and Cher again. He even engages in a life of crime but in the next morning, he awakens to “I’ve Got You Babe” and begins his day all over again.
Realizing that he has no way of escaping the humdrum of the same day, he launches into a program of self-improvement. He takes up piano. He memorizes poetry. He transforms himself into an interesting person and, in the process, the people around him, for whom he once had such contempt, become meaningful to him. Only then is he freed from the same day nightmare.
Murray attempts to free himself from hellish repetition through heroic self-improvement. This is the story that the modern world thinks is a living possibility—take charge of your life and transform yourself into someone worth loving and use your time to make a life worth living. You can have meaning if you choose to have meaning. Your life is what you make of it. You are the savior of your soul. Sounds pretty good and right, doesn’t it?
Do you know that Christians believe that this story to be a lie. Christians believe in another story than that of Groundhog Day.
Nicodemus
In today’s Gospel, Nicodemus is someone who knows about many things, comes to Jesus at night. He doesn’t want anybody to see him—after all, he’s a teacher. He’s supposed to have the answers, not to have the questions. So he asks Jesus, “Who are you?’
Jesus doesn’t really respond to Nicodemus’ interrogation. Rather, he launches into a strange discussion about birth, telling Nicodemus that he must be “born from above.” He misunderstands, thinking that he had to be born again. Jesus then speaks about the mysterious and uncontrollable nature of the wind. The wind blows wherever it chooses.
I think Nicodemus, being a powerful and an intelligent person comes to Jesus asking, “What do I as a competent and intelligent person need to do to understand what you’re doing? What is your plan, Jesus? Are you offering us some new technique for salvation? What are the steps that you say we must follow if we are to save ourselves? Can you give me a copy of Christianity for Dummies?
Probably because Nicodemus is both powerful and educated—he is one of those people who, having had so much success in striving, and planning, and setting goals and working for what he wants in life—Nicodemus thinks that all he has to do is to find out about Jesus’ program, get with it, master it, and then he will be “saved.” Nicodemus wants to be able to improve himself like Bill Murray did in the movie.
And Jesus responds to Nicodemus by saying that there are some things that we don’t have anything to do with like birth and wind. We don’t get to decide when someone is born. We don’t get to determine from which direction wind blows or even when the wind begins to blow at all.
Jesus says, “God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but to save the world.” It was God who sent the Son. It was God’s decision to send Jesus into the world. Whatever it is that Jesus is about, it’s not some self-help program that we initiated. It is not up to us to decide on how to be saved by God. It’s a gift sent from God. Salvation is a gift that comes from God.
Born of the Spirit
Jesus says, “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 it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (3:8).
When Jesus talks about being “born again,” he is talking about a spiritual, not a physical rebirth. Some of us who are from more of an evangelical tradition would appreciate the concept of “born again” to mean responding to the gospel at some moment in life when we made a personal commitment to Jesus as Lord and Savior. It will most likely become for such believers the major moment of their spiritual autobiography. William James in his book, The Varieties of Religious Experience, referred to such believers as the “Twice-born” type.
For these persons, being born again describes an often dramatic change, that takes place when we are confronted with our sinful state, repent and ask God to cleanse and restore us to a rightful relationship with God and neighbor. There’s a distinctive sense of “before and after” in one’s life.
However, there are also those who have come to faith that do not identify a single decisive moment as a crucial step in which they became a Christian. Being a Christian in this tradition is less focused on a conversion event in which the believer agonizes over one’s sinful life and gives one’s life to God—though that kind of experience may still happen as a renewal event. Believers in this tradition are more likely to understand the “born again” experience as a process rather than an event. This may be a lifetime of being faithfully active in the church. James referred to these persons as the “Once-born” type.
For the “Once-born” type Christians, life has a gracious continuity to it, rather than a “before and after” disruption. Being a Christian usually occurs at the beginning of life, launching one on a foundational journey of faithful practices and commitments. The “Once-born” are more likely to see their faith as adding value and meaning to a world in which God’s presence is discovered, celebrated and embraced.
Both of these understandings on how we are “born from above” have a place in our faith and even in our church. What unites all persons who have come to know Jesus as the Son of God, the hallmark of being “born from above,” is the ability to “see” the Kingdom of God. Jesus says, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above” (v. 3).
The question for us is: Where does the Kingdom of God come alive for you? Where do you see it? Some will see it in acts of kindness and mercy extended especially to those who are otherwise invisible in the world.
Some will see it in the generosity that is given to help alleviate the suffering and horrible disasters in Japan’s earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear reactors.
Some will see it in the focused and enduring commitment we make to support the life-saving missions we partner with missionaries and the hill tribes in Northern Thailand.
Some will see the Kingdom of God in acts of justice making when oppression is named and challenged.
Some will see God’s Kingdom happening around them when they have been faithful to their families and friends in life so that when others meet them, they are touched by their love for Christ.
Many will see God’s Kingdom in the beauty of creation and the blessing it bestows on us despite our daily worries and concerns.
In a sense, Jesus chastises Nicodemus because he cannot see the Kingdom of God is right in front of him and all around him—like the wind that blows.
Nicodemus was so focused on the “how to” questions that he was confused when Jesus answered him with a birth story. As a teacher, Nicodemus assumed that faith is born of some quantifiable proofs and arguments pointing to clear conclusions. Jesus, however, told him that faith is born of the Spirit, a Spirit that blows like the wind. Life in God’s Kingdom cannot be earned or achieved. One is simply born into God’s kingdom, and life in the Spirit cannot be controlled, charted, or calculated.
This birth means letting go of the old certainties, allowing the Spirit to guide, and trusting in God’s love. It is not about what we do. We cannot give birth to ourselves. Instead, God breathes life into us, giving us birth from above. The God who gives birth labors over us, breathes life into us, and pushes us out into an eternal life lived in God’s presence.
What Do We Do?
What would happen if we listened for God’s word to sweep over us without direction from us? What if we allowed the wind to take us to places not on our agenda, to call forth from us that which we did not recognize as being possible?
This is what happened to old Abraham who was as good as dead and his equally elderly wife, Sarah when God called them from barrenness to birth. God’s Spirit blew on Abraham and Sarah and a new nation was born.
When our daughter Lauren was working in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania and making plans to attend graduate school to become an English teacher, she encountered a word from God right on the expressway going home. She heard God calling her to go into ministry that we all know she did. It was a new birth for her. The wind was blowing on Lauren and she forsook her agenda to follow where the Spirit led her.
Nicodemus, an educated and intelligent teacher who knew everything about the law and religion came to Jesus at night so others wouldn’t easily see him with questions, received Jesus’ response that he needs to be born from above. We don’t see what happens to Nicodemus in John 3. But he appears two more times in the gospel. In John 7, Nicodemus is the moderating voice of reason pleading for due process for Jesus with his Pharisaic friends. And at the end when he goes to the tomb, Nicodemus carries a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes to prepare the body in John 19. It’s not clear whether Nicodemus became a disciple of Jesus or not but we know that he was with Jesus all this time. The wind was blowing on Nicodemus and he forsook his agenda and followed where the Spirit led him.
There are some people here who perhaps have lived a good life, nothing like what Bill Murray went through but still have not let the wind of the Spirit taken them to places not on their agenda. You have been in control of your life and have succeeded in achieving some things that permitted you to live safely and comfortably. But the question facing you is: Are you willing to be led by the Spirit of God to be born from above?
C.S. Lewis, the Oxford professor, another highly educated person like Nicodemus was, wasn’t really searching for anything special in his life. He was okay with who he was. The way Lewis tells it, he was being searched for until that time when, as he put it, “God closed in on me,” and he exclaimed with surprise, “So, it was you all along.” Lewis didn’t search for God; God was searching for him.
In our modern society, we think about salvation is something that we fabricate through good decisions and making wise choices. Like Bill Murray, we believe that one day after repeating the same day over 20 times that we can choose self-improvement and then everything turns out to be fine. For Christians, salvation is the surprising gift of a creative God who gives birth, who sends the wind.
Of course, we are modern women and men who have had years of education designed to insulate ourselves from even considering the possibility that something is happening other than that of our own devising. We do not expect for anything of value to be sent to us from anywhere other than from within ourselves. Most of the voices that address us are self-derived.
But on that night, Jesus told Nicodemus that the one with whom you speak, the one who invokes mysteries like birth and wind, this one is sent from God to save. Your ultimate status with God is not your spiritual achievement; it’s God’s gracious gift.
Jesus says, the wind blows where it will. The God who gave you your first birth shall, from on high, as a gift, birth you again and again until you are that creature whom God intends you to be.
Let us pray.
Lord, our salvation is something that you have done in Jesus Christ, not what we think, or do, or feel. Like the mysterious, disruptive wind, the Holy Spirit blows through our lives, giving us what we could not achieve for ourselves; namely, salvation. Thank you, God for giving us new birth from above so that we are saved by grace and that grace has a name and a face in Jesus Christ. Amen.