Thoughts On: John 3:1-8

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him." Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus said to him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?"Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."

John 3:1-8, ESV

I love the idea of flesh and blood because it is concrete. You can feel it, you can see it, you know it’s there. We are first born out of flesh, and we continue to be connected to our own flesh throughout our entire lives. We eat, we breathe, we run, we sweat - all of it is found within the flesh. I wanted to stay there, in that place where things make sense. It’s the lie I always wanted to believe, and I still do:

Life with God will be concrete. 

The problem is, concrete never worked for me. I always seems to be getting stuck in the cement I poured, caught in my own agenda and unable to get out. I never actually liked the plans I would make, but I continued to make them, because there needed to be something to fall back on. I didn’t yet believe I could fall back on God. 

That’s where the Gospel comes in, though - the second birth. If the first birth is flesh, the second is water and spirit, and there is nothing more fluid or mysterious. Water doesn’t stay in one place once it’s poured. Water moves. Water dances. Water falls deep and runs wide and fills in all of the unmet places. Then there is spirit. To be born of the spirit is about as ethereal as it will get in this world. There is something completely unknown about it - we know about solids and liquids and gas, but the spirit is from another world of understanding. The spirit is the breath of God, and it doesn’t quite make sense. 

The truth is right here, even if sometimes I don’t want to hear:

Life with God is mysterious. 

To be born again is to give up any right to knowing what anything will look like. We can still make plans, and we can still chase dreams - our flesh and bone still exist and we still need to eat and to breathe. But we have woken up to a different realm, now. There is more to see. There are better things. There is new air to breathe, all we need is to believe.