He’s alive!!!!!! He’s alive!!!!! He’s alive and I’m forgiven, heaven’s gates are open wide!!!!
Those words are playing over and over in my head. He’s alive! This truth changes everything. Jesus is alive, and as a result, every person living has a wide open door to being born again.
Pastor John took us to Jesus’ beautiful conversation with Nicodemus where Jesus shared what it means to be born again and to have eternal life. What Jesus said to Nicodemus about a new birth, a new life, and a new way are true for all.
Nicodemus is an interesting man. He was a Pharisee. Our minds have a tendency to lump people into groups; we do this with the Scribes, Pharisees, and teachers of the law. What we are reminded of in this story, is they were also individual people. They shared a common upbringing and education, but they each had a personality, a mind, and a unique way of being in the world, as do we. Nicodemus had questions. He wanted to understand Jesus better. He wanted clarity about some of Jesus’ teachings. He may have been sent by the whole group, because he says to Jesus, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God…” (John 3:2) because of the miraculous things Jesus was able to do. Jesus flips the script and responds with “...no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” (3:3) Jesus recognized the seeking heart and answered the question that hadn’t been asked.
We are familiar with the term “born again”. Those words aren’t shocking to us, but what if, for a moment, we think about what it would be like to hear the phrase “born again” for the first time from someone who we knew had come from God? Two things are important here. First, Nicodemus’ literal interpretation of birth and his understandable confusion. Second, how Jesus told us to be born again. Jesus didn’t say, this is how to be saved. He said, this is how to be born again. Yes, we receive salvation in Christ, but it’s so much more than that. It’s not a one and done transaction for getting our ticket to heaven. Think about it. If babies stay in the womb too long, it’s dangerous. They are “saved” from the womb when they are born, and that birth changes everything. They begin breathing air, they begin to see, they stretch their limbs, they experience being loved and cherished and held, and nurtured, and taken care of, and they begin to grow. It’s the beginning of a whole new way to live.
Being born again is no different. It’s a life altering, world changing, real new birth into the family, mission, and kingdom of God. We breathe the breath of God, the Holy Spirit. We begin to see differently. We experience being loved, cherished, held, nurtured and taken care of by our Heavenly Father, and we begin to grow. Our new place of residence is the kingdom of God. The head of this Kingdom is the triune God. Jesus’ earthly life is our example of what a citizen in this kingdom looks like. The Holy Breath of God guides us into all truth, teaches us, leads us, reminds us of what Jesus taught, fills us, and uses us to grow God’s kingdom and family even as we grow in Christ.
Understandably, Nicodemus has questions. Jesus responds by saying, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (3:5-8).
If you read last week’s blog, the Spirit Jesus is referring to is “Pneuma” (Greek) or the Hebrew “Ruach” meaning wind or breath– the Holy Breath of God, so when Jesus talks about the wind blowing wherever it pleases, his metaphor makes sense. Everyone born of the Breath of God, the Wind of God, the Spirit of God, lives with that Breath in them and that breath guides their steps. It’s a beautiful picture. God gives us our physical breath and our spiritual breath. God inhabits us with God’s own breath. How? I can tell you how it happened for me.
In last week’s blog I shared that I gave my life to Jesus when I was a 9 year old. What I didn’t tell you is how it happened. One Sunday evening, instead of having a regular worship service, we watched a Billy Graham film. At the end of the service, when the invitation was given, many of my friends and I went forward. As was my dad’s custom, he met with each one of my friends individually, and then he baptized all of them in one service. I didn’t get baptized in that service and I was mad about it. I wanted to be baptized with my friends, but my dad wanted to make sure I had really had an encounter with God rather than an encounter with peer pressure and emotionalism. I was not happy about it. I don’t know if it was weeks or even a couple of months after my friends were baptized, but one evening after prayers were said and I was tucked in, the Holy Spirit met me in my bedroom. Can I explain it? Nope. Do I know it happened? Yes. Without a doubt. And I said “yes”, to Jesus in that moment. My entire being felt different. Something wonderful had happened. I told my dad about it the following morning. I remember his expression. He hugged me and smiled with tears in his eyes. We probably prayed together, but I don’t remember it. The following Sunday, I ran, sobbing, down the aisle into my dad’s arms to let the congregation know I had given my life to Christ.
I’m deeply grateful for that experience because it kept me tethered to God during the rocky years, the years of doubt, the times I tried to walk away. Just a side note, each birth story is unique, even our born again birth stories are unique. Yours may not be like mine. That’s okay. I gave birth to three children and their birth stories are all different, but they were all born and are alive. My new birth happened in my childhood bedroom when the Breath of God visited me there. It was a sweet, tender, beautiful moment. Each of us will have our own story. There will be similarities, but yours will be different from mine.
New birth into God’s kingdom is a reality because Jesus died and rose again. Without the resurrection, there is no life in Christ. Easter is a big deal, and it’s more than about personal salvation and heaven. Yes, through Christ’s sacrifice we are forgiven, but he accomplished more than “saving us from our sins”. Jesus died, rose from the dead, and will never die again. He conquered death. Death is an enemy (1 Cor. 15:26) , and that enemy no longer has any power.
Hebrews’ chapter 2 makes it very clear. Verse 9 says: “What we do see is Jesus, who for a little while was given a position “a little lower than the angels”; and because he suffered death for us, he is now “crowned with glory and honor.” Yes, by God’s grace, Jesus tasted death for everyone.” A little further down, 14 and 15 say: “Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying.” (NLT)
The devil held the power of death and that power has been broken. Paul, in the 2nd chapter of Colossians writes: God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross. (14b,15 NLT)
But it didn’t end on the cross. Without the resurrection we have no hope. “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” (1st Corinthians 15:17).
But, hallelujah, we are not still in our sins. We have the breath of God in us and a life full of purpose to live. Paul, in his second letter to Timothy wrote: For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you… for the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. (1:6,7; 9,10)
One thing we, in our western theology, don’t pay much attention to, is what Jesus was doing between his physical death on Friday and his resurrection on Sunday morning. However, in Eastern Orthodoxy, Holy Saturday is celebrated as “The Harrowing of Hades”. Hades, was the holding place of the dead. Matthew, in his gospel writes, “The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.” (27: 52-53) And Peter wrote, For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits— to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built…”
We don’t know what to do with that, and there is still scholarly debate around it, but it definitely puts an exclamation point on the fact that Jesus conquered death. Not only did he conquer it, we read these beautiful words in Revelation 1: Jesus Christ… is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father. Jesus says of himself, in that chapter: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.”
Jesus holds the keys of death and Hades! There is no reason for us to fear.
Returning to Jesus and Nicodemus’ conversation, one of the most memorized verses of scripture is in that chapter of the Bible: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. (3:16-17)
And John 17:3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
And John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Understanding that we are born again by the Spirit wakes us up to the fact that not only do we have no fear of death, not only are we loved deeply and unconditionally by God, not only are we being made whole, not only are we going to dwell with God forever, but we have the great joy and privilege of fulfilling the mission given to us to love the world and let them know they are loved by God. The world includes everyone we encounter– the people right next to us when we’re running errands, or eating at a restaurant, or living next door to us, or co-workers, or friends.
We are born again through the power of the resurrected Christ by the Holy Spirit. That same Holy Spirit bears fruit in us as we grow in Christ. That fruit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Gal. 5:22) That fruit will be the mark that we belong to Jesus… they will know we are Christians by our love.
The resurrection changes everything. Because he lives, we live. Because he loves, we love. Because he conquered death, we have no fear of death and will live forever with him. Because he ascended, the Holy Spirit came to inhabit his people. Because he’s alive, we’re forgiven, heaven’s gates are open wide– for everyone. Let’s tell them.