20th March 2010 - Lent 2

"You must be born from above." John 3.7

A little while ago someone suggested I go and see a certain family. They said to me, “You’ll enjoy meeting them. They are born again Christians.” And the person was right. I did go and visit the family, and I did enjoy the time I spent with them. I was reminded of that conversation as I read the Bible readings set for today because of that term, “Born again Christians.” That term “born again” comes from the King James Version text of John Chapter three. In the New Revised Standard Version which we have read this morning it is rendered “born from above”. This reflects the fact that the phrase is a difficult one to translate into English. The words used in the original language mean “born from above” and “born again” and “born anew”. It is not that one phrase is a more accurate translation. The words in the original language encompass all three meanings.

Now I am fairly sure that you would have a pretty good understanding of what was meant by the person who used that phrase, "born again Christians". If you heard someone described as a “born again Christian” you’d probably think about someone who was quite enthusiastic about their faith, someone who attended a church with lively songs and worship, someone who took very seriously the call to share their faith with other people - perhaps even to the extent of not being able to ever get off the subject. Above all you might think about a person who had moved from unbelief to belief and had experienced a great transformation in their life as a consequence. That is the sort of thing that people generally mean by that phrase today. But what did Jesus mean when he used that phrase? Is it something we need to understand? or is it just for extremists and enthusiasts and not for good Anglicans like us.

In John Chapter 3 Jesus is approached by a man named Nicodemus, who is described as “a leader of the Jews”. This probably means that he is a member of the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of Judea. He appears three times in John’s Gospel. First here, then later when the ruling council begins to think about moving against Jesus, he calls for patience and tolerance and is mocked by the rest of the council, and then finally after the crucifixion when he, together with Joseph of Arimathea, asked Pilate to let him have Jesus' body so they can place it in a tomb. Nicodemus is member of the party of the Pharisees, a group who believed that by keeping God’s laws perfectly they would bring about the liberation of their people. All of this suggests that Nicodemus was a good, tolerant and scholarly man from a wealthy family with good connections in both the Jewish and Roman ruling classes. So not an extremist or an enthusiast but in many ways rather like a good Anglican; or at least the stereotype thereof.  

This Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. There are a number of ways to understand this. Firstly it could mean that he is coming unobtrusively; he has heard about Jesus, wants to find out about him, but doesn’t want anyone else to see him doing it. Secondly, it could simply mean that he comes to Jesus when Jesus has time for a private conversation. During the day Jesus is surrounded by people. After sunset there is time for an individual and in-depth conversation. But there is a third possible meaning too. In John’s Gospel the terms day and night, light and darkness, refer to people’s attitude to God. Most dramatically, when Judas leaves to betray Jesus we are told “And it was night”. In Chapter 11 Jesus says, “those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” He is not talking about the need to carry a torch. The darkness of night is darkness of a life lived without reference to God. Just two verses after the end of today’s Gospel reading John writes “this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.”

So where have we got too? I think this; Nicodemus is not a bad man but probably the kind of person you would see as being the best of his people. He is learned, religious, tolerant and wise. He comes from a good family and is well respected in his community. But despite all this he is still in the darkness. He still did not walk in the light.

Nicodemus reminds me in some ways of another member of the Pharisee party. This man wrote of all the advantages in life that he had received. “If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.”

The writer is, of course, Saint Paul, but after listing his advantages he goes on to say, “Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ...”

And this, I think, explains what it means to be born again. To be born again is to step away from all those things that we think make us special and to realise that they count for nothing in the sight of God. It is to stand before God as helpless and naked as a newborn child and accept his complete authority over who we are and what we do. It is both the easiest and most demanding thing that you will ever encounter. The easiest because it is utterly the action of God. The most demanding because God’s love “so amazing, so divine; demands my life, my soul, my all”.

And of course it is a lot easier to do if you know that your life is rubbish. That is why we associate that phrase “born again Christian” with people who have experienced that dramatic change. Go to the churches you associate with “born again Christians” and you will hear the testimonies - I used to be a drug addict, a thief, a gang member; but Jesus changed my rubbish life and gave me a new one. It was ever so, Jesus said to the Pharisees “Truly I tell you, the tax-collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.”

But Nicodemus’ life didn’t appear to be rubbish. If anyone was OK he was. But he wasn’t. It was to him, the good man, the tolerant man, the scholar, that Jesus said“no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Even the best are not good enough, even the worst will be accepted if they come to God empty handed and ask Him to rule their lives. "You must be born from above."