Confusion in the darkness.

^{John 3.1-17  NIV    courtesy of www.biblegateway.com
1} Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. ² He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
 ³ Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.^[a]”
 ⁴ “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
 ⁵ Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. ⁶ Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit^[b] gives birth to spirit. ⁷ You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You^[c] must be born again.’ ⁸ 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.”^[d]
 9 “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
   ¹⁰ “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? ¹¹ Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. ¹² I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? ¹³ No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.^{[e] 14} Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,^{[f] 15} that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”^[g]
 16 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. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.


When you first read this it appears that Jesus is not truly paying; it appears that Jesus' doesn't come close to answering the question asked. 

Without a doubt, this is not unusual in the gospel of John.   Instead of speaking in concrete, down to earth terms, Jesus speaks of 'bigger things' - you could say Jesus' takes a spiritual perspective, bringing a God perspective, an eternal perspective to the question at hand.  He can leave the reader scratching her head.

The gospel of John is a different experience than the other three gospels.  John's is a big picture gospel from the first verse, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God."  John paints a picture where Jesus has descended from heaven to bring God's plan to this world; Jesus will then ascend back to the divine places from whence he came. 

John develops his story with a rich collection of symbols.  The list of words or images to watch for in John is quite long:  light v. dark; flesh v. spirit; abiding, signs, 'the hour' and several others.  It means that any passage in John needs to be interpreted in view of the entire story and the rich nuances of symbolic language must be taken into account.

With that little bit of background, we turn to Nicodemus. 

This passage is a good introduction to Johannine writing.  Nicodemus arrives at night  (darkness is representative of being closed to God, evil intent, poor understanding) because he has heard of Jesus' signs (healings, exorcisms, ????  not specified) and he wants to learn more.

But he can't wrap his head around what Jesus is saying, 'you must be born again.'  Here Jesus (and John) are playing with us.  In Greek, the word here translated again can also be translated above.  Therefore Jesus is [not] clearly saying you must be born again/from above.    Nicodemus takes this literally, speaking of re-entering his mother's womb.

Jesus then begins to speak about flesh and spirit.  It appears that Jesus is speaking about a second birth  of the Spirit  (the first being a birth of flesh).  But he goes on to speak about the wind - blowing where it will!  And we are confused again.  But once again John is playing with the words.  Spirit in Greek is pneuma - the same word used for wind and breath.  In fact in Genesis 2, God brings life to the person created out of dust by breathing into the little guy.

All well and good but what is Jesus trying to say?  Is he reminding us that true life - that breath of life that comes at birth and leaves at death - is from God?  Is there a more powerful/ different breath/Spirit that can give us life beyond the life that comes at our birth? 

In other words, is this a different kind of birth?  an additional birth?  a better birth?   Or as Nicodemus puts it, "How can this be?"

Poor Nicodemus.  It is all too much for him.  It reminds me of my time in Africa when my hosts and I were both speaking English and we couldn't understand each other!  It had to do with word choice (they use more British English) and pronounciation, but how comical and frustrating.   Jesus is issuing a call to Nicodemus to come and discover true life from the one who was present at creation and can bring life wherever he wills - and Nicodemus is stumbling over the specifications and word choice. 

But that shouldn't surprise us:  the whole idea of God sending his son to us in order to save the world (v 16) is radical.  We might know the individual words but the sum total of the gift is beyond our comprehension. 

So how do we respond?   We don't get a clear idea of Nicodemus' response in the 3rd chapter.  But he defends Jesus against the Jewish leadership in chapter 7 and by the end of John he is traveling to Jesus' grave with spices. 

Over the next four weeks we will be reading and thinking about 4 people who receive a call from Jesus to come to faith - and we'll watch their response.  Perhaps Nicodemus can be seen as a 'newbie' - the earliest and first response to this call to faith, and therefore, he represents all of us when we first encounter Jesus.    Clearly, all his learning does not ensure that he will 'get it' quickly or even correctly.