Are You Born Again (John 3:1-21)

The business of the day has ceased and the evening has brought calm and quiet.  It is in this calm and quiet that Nicodemus comes to Jesus.  Having experienced the turmoil in the temple, Nicodemus as a representative of the Jewish council for he acknowledges that “we” and not “I” comes to seek clarification as to the nature of Jesus’ ministry.     

I have heard this story preached many times and often Nicodemus is portrayed as a potential follower of Jesus.  It was a custom that those who would work all day would come in the evening and spend time with the Rabbi learning without the demands of the day interfering.  However, the Scripture plainly reveals to the reader that he is a Jewish council leader and therefore did not have a job that would preclude him from seeking Jesus out during the day.  So it appears that he came under cover of night as an agent of the council to seek information without the community taking note.  Further, the use of night also has symbolic meaning for John.  In the very beginning of John’s Gospel, he equated light to the presence of God through Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the light.  So that Nicodemus came out of the darkness into the presence of God.   

From the interchange between Jesus and Nicodemus it seems that the purpose of Nicodemus’ night-time visit was to ask the fundamental question, “How do you enter the Kingdom of God?  How do you come into the presence of God?”  Jesus in the last chapter of the gospel reeled against the religious status quo that failed to bring people into the presence of God.  Jesus’ answer was quite direct, “No one can see the Kingdom of God unless they are born again.”  However the multiplicity of Jesus’ answer is lost when the Greek is translated to English.  In the Greek, again, Anòthen, has several different meanings, anew, again or from above.  The Bible translators had to make a decision regarding which meaning to use when translating the text. Unfortunately this has limited the nuances that John was trying to convey to the reader.  Further born again is also linked with Kingdom of God.  So being born again gives new and fresh access to God.  

   

Further, we as Christians in our religious-ease have reduced the rich meaning of the text, when we ask one another if we are born-again.    We have cheapened a deep and probing question to have you had a conversion experience.  While I do not want to minimize a decision to accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior (which we call justification – just as if I had not sinned; where we are made right with God), Jesus question is not merely asking if Nicodemus had a conversion experience.  

As I examine the interchange between Jesus and Nicodemus, Jesus is drawing Nicodemus into a challenge.  “Nicodemus, if you really want to experience the Kingdom of God you need to let go of all the things that you think you know about God in order to really experience God.”  In essence, Jesus was telling Nicodemus and we as well not reduce God to what fits into our box.  God is bigger than any box of knowledge or experience that we can construct.  Being born again comes when we are able to open ourselves up to the possibility of recognizing the full depth and breadth of God’s character as we experience it in Jesus Christ. 

  

 In this light, being born again is much more than a one-time conversion experience, but it is really a process that continues through our lifetime; it is what we would call sanctification.  As John Wesley would ask, “Are you moving onto perfection?”  Are you moving further in your faith journey experiencing God’s character in such a way that you are being transformed each day into the likeness of Jesus Christ?  That is our calling; to be transformed so that God can transform the world through us.  So are you born again?    

Are You Consumed With Zeal? (John 2:13-25)

After Jesus first miraculous sign, the changing of water into wine, John’s Gospel moves to Jesus in the temple during the Passover.  Can you imagine the temple at Passover?  If you have trouble getting your mind around this, imagine the largest mega church that you can imagine, but its Easter service.  The place is packed to capacity.  Many of the folks visiting the temple would have been visiting maybe for the first time or visit very rarely since they live so far away from the Temple.  The anticipation of worshiping God through the sacrifice is high but suddenly those hopes come to a screeching to a halt because Jesus is smashing apart the area where worshipers could purchase animals to sacrifice.  Without an animal there was no sacrifice.  Without a sacrifice there was no worship.  And worship of God was of paramount importance to the Jewish community.  It was in the worship of God that they received their meaning and purpose and their very identity.  Worship was vital to the life of the Jewish community.

For many of us we rationalize that Jesus was reeling against unfair business practices.  We argue that the business people were gouging the worshipers and getting rich at the expense of the temple.  We would say that for travelers who ventured great distances and could not bring an animal from home would be at the mercy of the business people and their price fixing for their own benefit.  

But if we look at the text carefully, it never says that Jesus was upset with unfair business practices.  It simply says that Jesus entered the temple, saw the “market place,” made a whip out of cord and then began to turn it upside down.  We place our suppositions into the text.  Could there be a deeper reason for Jesus’ actions that may speak to the heart of corrupt worship practices of the Jewish community that would get in the way of the community experiencing the fullness of the Kingdom of God?  Remember just sentences ago Jesus’ miraculous sign, changing water into wine, spoke of the nature of the Kingdom of God that was marked by abundance, extravagance, transformation and newness.  Could it be that the Jewish people were worshiping the sacrifice and not God?  Could it be that a sign that was supposed to usher them into the presence of God instead took their focus off of the presence of God?

The disciples remembered the passage from Psalm 69:9, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”  Jesus demonstrated passion for the temple and its true meaning.  God had instructed the construction of the temple as a visible sign of his presence.  It was erected on a hill so that those coming to Jerusalem would see it from a distance and know that God was there.  The temple was in the center of Jerusalem reminding all that God was the center of their lives.  Jesus had zeal for the temple in as much as it represented the primacy and centrality of the presence of God in the lives of the Jewish community and his anger was fueled that it had been reduced to an embedded religious and cultural practice that lacked any power to move participants into God’s presence and usher in the Kingdom of God.  

Is Jesus still reeling against our religious practices today?  Do we really experience the presence of God in our religious practices and sign-acts in the church?  Do we really experience the presence of God in our daily lives?  Or has our faith become more of the status quo?  As a test, think about the last time you participated in the Lord’s Supper or attended worship.  Did it usher you into the presence of God? Or were you merely present at the service and not experiencing the God who desires to be the primary and central part of your life?  Does zeal for God’s house consume you?

The Nature of the Kingdom (John 2:1-12)

Did you ever wonder why in the Gospel of John Jesus’ first miraculous event is at a wedding and only a select few were aware it even happened?  Jesus had just extended an invitation to his disciples to “Come and see.”  And the next thing that they are witnessing is water being turned into wine.  Can you imagine what they were thinking?  Maybe Nathaniel would ask, “Hey Phillip, you called me away from my life and work for this?” Or maybe he would ask Jesus, “Hey, you told me that I would see greater things than you knowing that I was sitting under a fig tree – you said I would see heaven open?  Is this all the kingdom has to offer?”

What was John trying to say?  First he called the changing of the water into wine a miraculous sign; not a miracle.  Many times in the church we use the things of everyday to point to deeper theological truths.  The sacraments would be an example of this.  If we sit at our dinner tables and eat bread and juice it really does not have any theological meaning.  However, when Christ is present around the elements, they are no longer just bread and juice but they become a sacrament that reminds each of us of the grace that God pours out on us continually.  So it was with this story.  It is not merely a story of a wedding gone wrong, but it is a story of God’s grace when Jesus Christ is present.  But what deeper theological truth is this story pointing us to?

As we consider the entire story, what was it revealing to the disciples and to us as well?  First and foremost, at its foundation, the story speaks of the transformative power of God.  Jesus was able to change water into wine.  It is striking that there was so much wine.  I realize that a wedding was a town-event and there were many people.  But Jesus provided 100 gallons of wine minimum.  That is a lot of wine especially considering the wedding had gone on for so long a time that they were able to drink all the wine already provided.  Could it be that Jesus’ actions points to the abundance of God’s kingdom?  Further, the wine steward remarks that not only was there an abundance of wine, it was the best wine.  At a time when the cheap wine would do, God provided the very best. Could it be that Jesus’ actions pointed to the extravagance of God’s kingdom?  Lastly, think about what was going to happen if the wine had completely run out.  Think of time when you were at a wedding celebration and imagine that all of sudden the food and drink had run out.  The celebration would have deflated.  Jesus brought new life to that wedding feast in Canaan.

So maybe, this simple miracle wasn’t such a simple miracle after all.  Maybe Jesus was teaching his first experiential lesson to his disciples.  Come and see the Kingdom of God not only with your eyes but with your entire being he says through his actions.  You will experience transformation, abundance, extravagance and new life.  Jesus invites us to experience these things as well if he is present in our lives.

Experiential Discipliship (John 1:35-51)

In the latter half of the gospel, John tells the story of the calling of the first disciples.  John the Baptist points out Jesus as the Lamb of God and the disciples’ interest is piqued.  They said to Jesus, “Rabbi, where are you staying?  To truly understand the question, we need to consider the duality of the question.   The disciples were asking a literal question; Jesus where are you living and where are you from?  But they were also asking what his was theologically.  Just as there are many Christian churches with differing theological tenets, in Jesus time there were many Jewish groups that differed in their theological teachings.  Jesus understood that they had a deeper desire than merely wanting to get to know him better, including his theology.  He knew that deep within their souls they had a desire to know and serve God in a personal and profound way.

The answer that Jesus gave was more of an invitation that answer; “Come and you will see.”  He refuses to merely give a theological treatise that will not satisfy their deepest longings, but instead he offers them a gift.  Come and experience me with your whole being; see with your eyes, with your mind, with your heart.  Come and experience transformation as you live as my disciples.  Jesus called them to experiential discipleship. 

In the educational world there is a teaching model called experiential learning developed in the 70’s by David Kolb and Ron Fry.  The premise behind this model is that learning takes place through our experiences based upon four elements that continue cyclically:

      • concrete experience

      • observation and reflection upon that experience

      • formation of abstract concepts based upon the reflection

      • testing of new concepts

This is just the type of invitation that Jesus was giving his disciples.  Hey Nathaniel, “Come with me and experience sick people being healed, the demon possessed being set free, the poor receiving acceptance and the dead being raised to life.  In the evening when all the people have gone back to their homes, we will have a chance to talk about all that happened during the day.  You will have time to think about it and figure out for yourself who I am.  And you’re not going to believe this, but in time, I am going to let you go out on your own (not really on his own but with the power of the Holy Spirit) to test what ministry in my name is really like.  So what do you think?  You want to come?”

Jesus offers us the same invitation as well.  As Christians we do a pretty good job of getting into the thick of the experiences.  But in order to really have a deep and grounded faith, experiential disciples need to spend time reflecting and allowing themselves to be changed by them.  How much time do you spend reflecting alone and with other fellow disciples?  Most of the time, truth be told, we are so busy going from one thing to another we never process what we have actually been doing.  So just as Jesus was inviting Nathaniel not only into active hands-on ministry but also to a life of active reflection he invites you as well?  Will you come?