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?
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