21. Talking with Nicodemus

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, who came to Jesus by night, and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do the signs you do, unless God is with him.”

Jesus answered him, “Truly, I tell you, unless people are born anew, they will never see God’s Kingdom.”

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?”

Jesus answered, “Unless you are born of water and spirit, you can’t enter into God’s Kingdom! What is born of the flesh is flesh; what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Don’t marvel that I say, ‘You must be born anew.’ The wind blows where it wants to, and you hear its sound, but don’t know where it comes from or where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Nicodemus answered him, “How can this be?”

Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and don’t understand these things? We speak what we know, and tell what we have seen, yet you don’t receive our witness. If I tell you earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has gone into heaven except the Son of Man who came from there. 

As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him should have eternal life. God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God didn’t send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not judged. Whoever doesn’t believe has been judged already, by not believing in the name of the one and only Son of God. 

This is the judgment, that light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light, for their works were evil. Those who do evil hate the light, and don’t come to it, to keep their works hidden. Those who do the truth come to the light, that their works may be revealed as being done in God.”

Reflections

Words are often ambiguous. Jesus speaks here of being born from above or being born again; Nicodemus assumes it is the latter and is confused. Jesus makes clear, though, the Holy Spirit’s role in it all: becoming a child of God is never mechanical or formulaic. How did you come to faith? Was there a clear and memorable moment of new birth in your spiritual journey?

Prayer: Help me remember, Lord: people become believers, not because we persuade them, but because you draw them to yourself.