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Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did. But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.
There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, "Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him." Jesus answered and said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus said to Him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?" Jesus answered, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit." Nicodemus answered and said to Him, "How can these things be?"
Jesus answered and said to him, "Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life."
- John 2:23-3:15
Yesterday, we read that the Passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers' money and overturned the tables. And He said to those who sold doves, "Take these things away! Do not make My Father's house a house of merchandise!" Then His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up." So the Jews answered and said to Him, "What sign do You show to us, since You do these things?" Jesus answered and said to them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." Then the Jews said, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?" But He was speaking of the temple of His body. Therefore when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said.
Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did. But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man. This is the first Passover reported in the Gospel of John; there are two yet to come. It is via this information that we know Jesus' ministry lasted three years. What we have already evidenced is Jesus' use of discernment; "He knew what was in man." Clearly, our faith does not come only from being convinced by "signs." There is more to faith than that, something deeper within the heart.
There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, "Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him." My study bible tells us that Nicodemus believed Jesus was from God, but his faith was still weak, as he was afraid of his peers and thus came to Jesus by night. Later on, his faith will grow to the point of defending Jesus before the Sanhedrin (7:50-51) and making a bold public expression of faith by preparing and entombing Christ's body (19:39-42). According to some early sources, Nicodemus was baptized by Peter and forced to flee Jerusalem after he was removed from the Sanhedrin.
Jesus answered and said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." The phrase born again can also be translated born "from above." The word in Greek comes from "above" but it can also mean "from the beginning" (similarly to the expression "from the top" one supposes). But the clear implication is of a heavenly birth. My study bible calls it "the heavenly birth from God through faith in Christ." It says that this is baptism and our adoption by God as our Father (Galatians 4:4-7). A note reads: "This new birth is but the beginning of our spiritual life, with its goal being entrance into the kingdom of God."
Nicodemus said to Him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?" Nicodemus takes Jesus' words at face value. This is a device that will frequently be used in this Gospel, as a method of showing us "signs" through language. Jesus refers to a deeper or higher meaning, a spiritual meaning attached to what we know. This is part of the purpose of the Incarnation. Misunderstandings like this will occur throughout John's Gospel, as opportunities for Jesus to explain the spiritual realities He brings to the world. As my study bible puts it, "Christ uses these opportunities to elevate an idea from a superficial or earthly meaning to a heavenly and eternal meaning."
Jesus answered, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Jesus refers directly to Christian baptism here, when speaking of being born of water and the Spirit. My study bible tells us that this means the new birth consists of "being joined to Christ in the water of baptism and receiving the Holy Spirit through anointing or 'chrismation.'" In this way, salvation is more than forgiveness or mental acceptance of teachings; it's being "given union with God through Christ, a right and full relationship with the Holy Trinity, and the restoration of our full humanity."
"Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit." Nicodemus answered and said to Him, "How can these things be?" Jesus gives us a play on words: in the Greek, the word "pneuma" is used to mean both wind and Spirit. (It also means "breath.") My study bible says, "The working of the Holy Spirit in the new birth is as mysterious as the source and destination of the blowing wind. Likewise, the Spirit moves where He wills and cannot be contained by human ideas or agendas."
Jesus answered and said to him, "Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven." According to St. John Chrysostom, when Jesus speaks of earthly things, he's referring to the grace and baptism that are given to human beings. These are earthly in the sense that they are bestowed in the Incarnation, they occur in the world and are given to us creatures. Heavenly things, says my study bible, "involve the ungraspable mysteries of the eternal generation of the Son from the Father; they relate to His eternal existence before all time and to God's divine plan of salvation for the world." It adds that a person has to first grasp the understanding of how God works among human beings before one can begin to understand things that pertain to God Himself. John's Prologue tells of "heavenly things."
"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." Jesus immediately connects the "heavenly things" with what will happen in this salvation plan of the Incarnation. My study bible says, "Moses lifted up an image of a serpent to cure the Israelites from deadly poisonous snakes (Numbers 21:4-9). This miracle-working image prefigured Christ being lifted up on the Cross. As believers behold the crucified Christ in faith, the power of sin and death is overthrown in them. Just as the image of a serpent was the weapon that destroyed the power of the serpents, so the instrument of Christ's death becomes the weapon that overthrows death itself."
The mysteries of God and our faith are in some ways too "awesome" to think about. They're so high above us sometimes; and yet, in other ways -- particularly through the experience of faith -- they're imminently graspable. First our passage today tells us about baptism. Somehow the elements of the earth, particularly that of water (which covers approximately 75% of the world and makes up approximately the same percentage of our bodies) combines with the Spirit to allow us to be reborn in spirit, to give us adoption by grace and a relationship to God the Trinity. This can only happen through the Incarnation and is, indeed, a purpose for the Incarnation: to bring us into the deepest possible relationship with God. We can talk about this and explain it and try to understand it as deeply as possible. But the true test of understanding comes via experience. We may not be able to explain the experience, either, but we know its effects. Just like the example that Jesus gives of the wind, we "can't tell where it comes from and where it goes." But we can see its effects, we "can hear the sound of it." A person who has had experience of prayer and how it works in us is someone who knows how it has worked for them and in their lives, even if full explanations of "heavenly things" are impossible. One can experience a change without being able to fully explain it, and one can certainly grasp what it means that all things are possible "with God's help" when one has experienced that help. I can't say how many people have shared with me the impossible task of explaining to another how they got through a situation with strength they knew could not have come from themselves, but came via prayer. Insights come in prayer that one may well understand as remarkably greater than anything that has come from racking one's mind about a solution to a problem. But try to explain it to someone who wants to scoff. Experience tells us so much that can't be conveyed through theory or other explanations, and still leaves room for mystery. How do we find that we become close to God, to Christ? How do we explain that the persona of a saint may become someone from whom we feel love and hope? It's experience that brings us these insights and wisdom; and yet, the "heavenly things" remain elusive in explanation. We can just see the effects in our lives, and live the experience of faith, and grow in it as we continually put our faith back into where we've come and the Person from whom the grace has come. And there we come back to baptism. Baptism is something that works with us throughout our lives. This "living water" is something that continues to give within ourselves, our hearts the place out of which we're promised will flow rivers of living water (John 7:38). Again, it is the faith journey of experience that helps us to grasp this; explanations can't really do it justice. But Jesus ties all of this gift of grace in with what is to come in His earthly ministry: His "lifting up" on the Cross. Via this act He gives the gift of eternal life, a life that is added unto everything that is "earthly" -- just as baptism works with the earthly element of water combined mysteriously with Spirit. Christ's "lifting up" elevates our lives with it, molds together in faith our lives with His life, and with life itself -- the life in abundance that He promises (John 10:10). I think we get it wrong if we think that "eternal life" is only about life after life in this world. It's not. The "eternal" of "of the ages" as the Greek more literally reads (meaning the length of an age, rather than an earthly lifetime) is something that tells us of the quality of this life that is given to us, not merely its length or that it is heavenly. Jesus promises this quality of life not only in an "eternal age" but rather here and now, through faith: a transcendent kind of a life. And just as He promises "life in abundance" it is the same with His promises of peace and of joy that pass the usual human understanding of the sources of these feelings. It's John's Gospel that gives us those promises too -- see John 14:27 and John 15:11. All of this is bound up in the image of baptism we're given in today's reading: the union of the earth with the heavenly, the meaning of the Incarnation, and the gifts He's here to bestow. It is the Kingdom that has come near, that is within us and among us. Above all, we characterize all of these things as love, because it's love in which we're held, brought closer into relationship, and bestowed with a Kingdom as heirs. That's the real reason for the mission, the real explanation we're always looking for. How do we know love? It is experience that teaches, and this is something -- the great bedrock -- we find in the real experience of our faith and the working of Spirit through our lives. Jesus will teach that His sheep will know Him and His voice; through the experience of love we recognize, and through the experience of love we also discern the false -- that to which we must not commit ourselves, as in His example above.
