Lent II - Skip Windsor

Ps 121; John 3:1-17
Born Again

This morning I would like to reflect with you on the Gospel lesson from John. I would like for us to consider what it means to be “born again” and how it has implications for our understanding of Christian freedom and human responsibility.

If you were to ask me who was one of the most unforgettable people I have ever met, I would have to say it was a wandering Scotsman who I met as a boy while living in London in the late fifties.

I met the Scot one Saturday afternoon with my friends. We were sitting on a bench when an older gentleman wearing a kilt and a “tam o’ shanter” cap approached us and asked if he could sit down. He told us he was traveling all through the British Isles telling everyone how Jesus Christ had changed his life.

He showed us his Bible where his name was inscribed on it along with some dates underneath it. The Scotsman explained that the first two dates were the date of his birth and the date of his death. Underneath these dates was the same year as his purported death with just a hyphen after it. He said the third and final date was the date when he was born again. Puzzled, we asked him what this second birthday meant; and he replied that he had been “born again” in the Spirit.

I remember thinking at the time “what happened to this man that caused him to change his whole life and begin to wander the globe telling anyone, including a bunch of eleven-year old boys like us, that Jesus saved him?” The longer and lingering question for me was, “How can this be?” From time to time when I read this gospel lesson I remember “The Wandering Scotsman” and his being born again and my question of how can this be? It is the same question that Nicodemus asks of Jesus.

This encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus, Martin Luther, the Protestant reformer, calls “The Gospel in Miniature.” It seems to summarize the Gospel of Jesus for Luther because of what Jesus tells Nicodemus about the mysterious movement of the Spirit. Jesus’ words to Nicodemus reveal the truth of faith about how we experience the Triune God if we are open, obedient, and prepared to receive God’s grace and power.

In John’s Gospel we know that Nicodemus is of the Jewish ruling class. He is a member of the seventy man Jewish tribunal called the Sanhedrin, the Supreme Court of his people. Next to Roman rule, the Sanhedrin was the most powerful governing body in Judea.

This influential ruler comes to the popular rabbi by night not to question Jesus about the desirability to change but whether there is even a possibility for such a man to change. Nicodemus is faced with the perennial existential problem of one who wants to change but who has no power to change himself. Jesus tells him, “Truly, truly, I say to you unless one is born anew, they will not see the Kingdom of God.”

The expression “born again” is not new to us. We hear in certain Christian groups that we must be born again in order to enter the Kingdom of God. I am reminded of the story Bishop Barbara Harris tells of being accosted in an elevator by fundamentalist, charismatic, Christian who asked her if she was born again. Bishop Barbara replied no she wasn’t born again because the first time was hard enough! Yet, behind the grilling and questioning by some of whether we are “born again” to their liking, there is an important gospel truth worth reflection. According to the evangelist, John, who was an eyewitness to this encounter, Jesus is speaking about personal transformation whether it is sudden or gradual.

Being born again, means a person undergoes a powerful spiritual conversion that alters, changes, and transforms him or her to such an extent that they believe they are a new person. Such an experience happened to St. Paul on the road to Damascus and to St. Augustine in the garden. The feeling of conversion is described as a dying and a birthing at the same time. Jesus says to Nicodemus this spiritual transformation is not by human will but by the will of God through the Spirit.

I believe this is what happened to the Scotsman. The Spirit changed him. I am sure each of us knows someone who experienced such religious conversion. But what about the rest of us? Are you and I missing out on something big or does being born again simply imply less about us and be more about the nature and grandeur of God. Should not our focus be away from our own self-diminution and more about how the greatness of the Holy Spirit works in our lives? Jesus’ reply to Nicodemus holds the answer and why Luther believes it to be the Gospel in miniature.

Night covers Nicodemus. Not only is he spiritually blind; but also he is afraid to be seen. The encounter is a perplexing one with back and forth questions and answers. Then Jesus delivers the punch line: “Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen; but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?”

We know little about Nicodemus after his conversation with Jesus. The evangelist, John, tells us little more about him; except, one more time when he comes with Joseph of Arimithea to claim the crucified body of Jesus. What conversion happened to him that brought him from darkness into the light? Like the journey of any soul, intimacy with God, is as mysterious as it is personal. The Scotsman never told us boys of his conversion experience. The only thing he wanted to share was his transformed life in Jesus Christ.

Another Scotsman, theologian William Barclay, likes to tell the story of a workman who had been a drunken reprobate and was later converted. Barclay writes that the Scotsman’s working colleagues did their best because of his conversion to make him feel like a fool. “Surely,” they said to him, “You can’t believe in miracles and things like that. Surely for instance, you don’t believe that Jesus changed water into wine?” “I don’t know,” the man answered,” “whether he turned water into wine but I do know that in my own home he turned beer into groceries.”

I remember once listening to a woman who is in religious orders. She told me that she was asked about a friend what it the one attribute that lies above all others in the heart of Jesus. I thought to myself maybe it is compassion or loyalty or courage. She said what lies in the heart of Jesus is freedom. Freedom.

The more I have pondered the sister’s answer about freedom the more I believe Jesus is calling us to freedom this Lent. If we believe that the world is in God and not the other way around (of God in the world) then everything is susceptible to the power of the Spirit: life and death, sin and forgiveness, doubt and faith. All is in God. In other words, God is with us, in us and around us. What Jesus told Nicodemus is ‘there is more to God’s world than Rome, the Sanhedrin, Jerusalem or even himself.’ Once, Nicodemus became open to the Spirit, God guided him and gave him true freedom; and the gift of this lesson is that the Nicodemus’ promise is our promise, too.

For many years, I actually thought the wandering Scotsman was slightly crazed; but, as I have grown older, I think of him more and more because I believe he is one of the freest men I have ever met. He was a ‘born again Nicodemus.’ Although, many of us may not claim to be born again like the wandering Scot, I think conversion takes place progressively in God’s good time and not our own. Our sole response to God’s call is to be open. By lifting eyes up to God and knowing God is the keeper of our lives, we find new life and are born again. Therein lies our true freedom. Amen.