It was a dark night following a day Jesus had made a huge amount of trouble, a good night to go into hiding. The authorities were still steaming about his tirade in the Temple. Cracking a whip, no less, he had thrown over tables of money and driven livestock away. Setting new standards for righteous anger, he shouted, “Don’t turn my Father’s house into a marketplace!”

Hours later, when the crowds had been hushed and the power brokers who made money in this scheme thought Jesus’ threatening influence was halted for the time being, a figure slipped into the disciples’ camp. By power and status, he was from the other side. No respectable Pharisee would be caught in the light of day with this troublemaker, but under the obscurity afforded by darkness, Nicodemus slid in.

As one whose position appreciates deference, Nicodemus tries even as his efforts reveal his insecurity in his approach. He calls Jesus Teacher. He affirms that Jesus’ miracles are signs, proof if you will, that God is with him. Or at least he says so in order to get close, maybe achieve level footing with this man of immense mystery.

Jesus doesn’t fall for it. Immediately, pointedly, he declares that to see or be a part of God’s kingdom, “you must be born again.” Spiritually dense, Nicodemus asks if an old man can go back into his mother’s womb and be born again. Irrational thinking is not what he expected.

To be fair, maybe it was just the way Jesus said it. Maybe if he had said that there needs to be changes in a person’s life of her or his priorities without sacrificing self, it would have gone over better. Maybe if he had said one could find God by keeping the commandments, attending the festivals, and making the sacrifices, it would be understandable. Maybe if he had used words that were theologically sound or philosophically of reaching into one’s inner self to find one’s best, it would at least be aspirational.

The Trouble with Jesus is he wouldn’t water his message into how people wanted to hear it. “You must be born again.”

Born Again

As a newborn baby is a clean slate for a life to be lived out, so the soul needs to be wiped cleaned, washed in water, if you will, by life lived out in the Spirit of God. That Spirit is known by knowing one who came to show the extent of God’s Love. It is known by those who in their souls come to believe that Love will reverse forever their lives and destiny in this life and afterwards. In just 24 words or so, Jesus clarifies this Love.

By the Love of God

“God loved the world so much…” That animal whose skin was given to cover the nakedness of the couple in the garden had to die. In that perfect place, a death had to happen so this man and woman would know the extent of their Creator’s Love. They had wanted to be more, to be like God, and they believed a lie. “Eat this and you will not die.” The trouble it brought could only be halted with such a copious Love nothing would be beyond its reach into the world.

“God loved the world so much God gave…” It took the fullest sacrifice that could be measured. It took so much Love it gave and gave all it could. “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends,” he said. Costly? Yes. It meant a surrender that shatters all concept of a love that serves itself. “I came here not to be served but to serve others, and to give my life as a ransom for many.”  It’s a giving which doesn’t care what it gets from it, how it is helped or promoted or one’s life is made better. It’s Love given that is total, unreserved, unrestricted. 

“God loved the world so much that God gave his only Son…” One can’t know Love without knowing its Lover.  So Love came among those who live to show how Love is done. “As the Father knows Me, I also know the Father; and I lay down my life…” God knew what this Love would cost, and there was no other way to deal with the trouble of the world except for God as Son to face it directly.

“God loved the world so much that God gave his only Son that whoever believes in him…”  “Come and see,” he said.   Watch me, observe me, draw closer, get nearer to what I do and who I am. Know it for yourself and not just what you’ve been told or what someone else wants you to know. And if you get close enough, I will change you and reverse all that you thought you were or could ever be. For in me you will know God and believe, in me you will have faith in what I can do, and in me you will trust as you walk in my path.

“God loved the world so much that God gave his only Son that whoever believes in him will not perish…” Yes, that for which you’ve striven is what I want for you as well. You will not die! That inner sense of self you call your soul is infinite, and the trouble you’ve lived will not rob you of your innermost, intimate part of you that only God sees and of which you have only part understanding. That for which the first couple reached is within your grasp, but not by a lie. It is a gift that is yours by the life I give to you.

“God loved the world so much that God gave his only Son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.”   You see, you will not die; you will live and it starts now. For I have come that you may have life and have it fully, abundantly, rich and satisfying with the essentials of all that life is and needs. Even more so, it will carry you from this life, this trouble, into an even better existence with me forever.

God loves. God gives.

God gives God’s self in a human form who lived and died and lived again, reversing trouble by reversing where trouble ends into what God and every created person wants, not death but life that fulfills Love.

John 3:1-17

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