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

Baptism of Christ/Theophany, Byzantine Museum, Athens, Greece

 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

On Saturday, we read that the Passover of the Jews 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.  As we noted on Saturday, there are three Passover feasts reported in John's Gospel, between the Lord's Baptism and Passion (see also 6:5, 11:55).  By this we know that Christ's earthly ministry lasted three years.  Let us also make note that while there are seven signs reported in John's Gospel, they are given to us for their significance, to teach us something about Him and His ministry, but they are not inclusive of all signs He did.  John also makes note here of Christ as the knower of hearts, and of His discernment.  He is careful not to commit Himself to those whose faith is based solely on signs.  Contrast this with Christ's words about Nathanael in 1:47.

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."   Apparently in Jerusalem, the Pharisees have taken note of Jesus.  Nicodemus, one of their members, believed that Jesus was from God, but my study bible says that his faith at this point was still weak, as he was afraid of his peers and therefore came to Jesus by night.  After this conversation, Nicodemus' faith would grow to the point of defending Jesus in front of the Sanhedrin (7:50-51), and eventually making the bold public expression of faith in preparing and entombing Christ's body (19:39-42).  According to some early sources, my study bible notes, Nicodemus was baptized by Peter and consequently removed from the Sanhedrin and forced to flee Jerusalem.  It is worth noting that through John's Gospel, we are aware that even some among the leadership would become open followers of Christ.  Nicodemus himself is a Pharisee.  John 12:42 tells us that there were many among the rulers who believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees were afraid of being cast out of the synagogue.

Jesus answered and said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."  In the Greek, the word again has the literal meaning of "from above."  It clearly refers to the heavenly birth from God through faith in Christ (1:12-13).  My study bible says that this heavenly birth is baptism and our adoption by God as our Father (Galatians 4:4-7).  The new birth is the beginning of our spiritual life, and its goal is the 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?"  Frequent misunderstandings happen in John's Gospel, illuminating the allegories with which Jesus speaks in order to express transcendent spiritual realities, in this case the rebirth -- being born again "from above" -- of baptism.  (For other examples of misunderstandings which lead to deeper explanation by Christ, see 2:19-21; 4:10-14, 30-34; 6:27; 7:37-39; 11:11-15).  My study bible says that Jesus 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.  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."  The birth of water and the Spirit is a reference to Christian baptism and the gift of the Holy Spirit given at chrismation.  That which is born of the Spirit is given by grace, through faith, and in the Holy Spirit -- and forms a holistic part of the nature of human beings, one which we ignore to our own detriment.  The analogy to the wind is a play on words:  the Greek word pneuma/πνευμα means both wind and Spirit.  My study bible says that the working of the Holy Spirit in the new birth is as mysterious as the source and destination of the blowing wind.  Similarly, the Spirit moves where He wills and cannot be contained by human ideas or agendas.

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."  My study bible cites the commentary of St. John Chrysostom here, in which it is noted that earthly things refer to grace and baptism given to man.  These are "earthly" in the sense that they occur on earth and are given to creations (not that they are "unspiritual").  The heavenly things, it says, involve the ungraspable mysteries of the eternal generation of the Son from the Father, and they pertain to the Son's eternal existence before all time, and to God's divine plan of salvation for the world.  My study bible says that a person must first grasp the ways in which God works among humankind before one can even start to understand anything pertaining to God exclusively.

"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."   Moses lifted up an image of a serpent in order to cure the Israelites from deadly bites of poisonous snakes (Numbers 21:4-9); Christ references this miracle-working image as a prefiguration of His being lifted up on the Cross.  In some sense, it is a "type" of the Cross.  My study bible comments that as believers behold the crucified Christ in faith, the power of sin and death is overthrown in them.  It notes that 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.

Here John brings us to the powerful paradox of the Cross.  How does God's power work to use the things of this world -- even gruesome human death on a cross -- in order to turn back that power against itself and to destroy it?  Just as Moses was told to fashion an image of a fiery serpent on a pole, and to have those bitten look at the image, and they lived, so we look to the Cross when we are faced with death in any form.  The abolition of death is something that cannot be fathomed in human or worldly terms, but can only be understood through the spiritual counterpart that accompanies it:  that of sin and evil.  In other words, if God is life, then that which is "against God" is death, "not life."  In John's Prologue, we read about the Son or Logos, "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men" (1:4).  This light is contrasted with darkness, and the darkness also corresponds to death in some form.  When we refuse the light God would show us, to help illuminate our own lives and choices, we are in some particular sense choosing death, a kind of death of potentials and possibilities within us that grace offers as a gift.  Pain is also a component of that darkness or death; even the word for evil or "the evil one" has the meaning of pain.  But Christ's power works in a particular way regarding all of these elements of death:  He comes into the world to experience all that we do, and transforms the reality of this darkness and death.  We are no longer bound to it, but liberated through Christ to transcend, to be reborn into a greater abundance of life.  So it is through our journey with Christ even as we experience small "deaths" - whether that be of false dreams or hopes, disappointing outcomes, false beliefs.  The light is on the other side, through the experience, and with Christ.  He leads the way through any form of death to a greater gift of life -- just as He did on the Cross.   In this we must also see baptism -- for baptism is a form of death and rebirth.  We are submerged into water as a form of death, and reborn through the Spirit as we emerge.  At baptism we also renounce evil and its forms -- thus, as in the Paschal Hymn of the Orthodox, death is trampled by death.  That is, through the Incarnation and Christ's own experience of it, even death becomes an instrument of transformation into the life of God.  This paradoxical and complex reality is mirrored in the lifting up of the serpent by Moses as directed by God,  to destroy the effects of the serpents who bit the Israelites.  We note the realities of Christ which extend backward and forward in time:  the act of Moses which reflects the Crucifixion, and the discussion of baptism by Jesus with Nicodemus, which touches upon things to come at the Cross.  If all of this is dizzying, peculiar, and next to impossible to follow, consider that it is in the experience of our faith that we really come to know it, the living of the faith that gives us true wisdom and insight, and simply trust in Christ and in that journey of faith.  For today, consider the power of water as sacrament in the Incarnation of Christ, how His human experience sanctifies the waters for all the world, and our repeated reliving and commemoration renews this promise over and over again for us all.