The gospel reading for Sunday, March 5th is John 3:1-16. This Sunday is the Second Sunday of Lent. Unlike the low-dialogue, patterned scenes Matthew has given us so far this year, what John gives us is dialogically dense, and this post will spend more time simply trying to understand the conversation.
It helps to know
That Nicodemus is no fool. John doesn’t waste ink telling a story about Jesus proving a phony wrong. Nicodemus had served as a local judge, advanced two circuits, and was finally promoted to one of 70 seats in the Great Sanhedrin (John 7:50). Think country clerk to SCOTUS. The term, “teacher of Israel” (3:10) suggests he is one of, if not Israel’s chief theologian and teacher. What’s our analogy; the N.T. Wright of Israel? This contextualizes the significance of his name: Nicodemus is “The Victory of the People.”
The value of their dialogue. Nicodemus, employing his expert knowledge of the categories of Israel’s law and theology, is earnestly attempting to conceptualize regeneration (3:4). He persists in discussion with Jesus, like Glaucon does with Socrates. A close reading of their dialogue will help us understand regeneration.
The ambiguity of “born again”. Jesus says, “unless one is born again (anothen)…” (3:3, 7). It helps to know that there were clearer words for “again” and clearer words for “from above”, but that John chooses neither of them. As it excludes neither notion, we can take the text as offering both notions simultaneously.
What kind of “man” Nicodemus is talking about. When Nicodemus asks, “How can a man be born when he is old?” he doesn’t use aner, which refers to a grown man, but anthropos, which often refers to mankind (3:4). This is not a slam dunk point. But this word choice underscores the seriousness of Nicodemus’ question, which he asks metaphorically, and not sarcastically. My paraphrase of the passage: “How can mankind be born, when he is an old race? We cannot enter our mother’s womb, as it were, a second time, can we?” Reading the passage this way, Nicodemus is less concerned with how an individual person experiences being “born again” and more concerned with how humanity can start fresh.
The natural division of the passage. The dialogue between Nicodemus and Jesus runs form 3:1-15. John reflects on this conversation from 3:16-21. I think we just include 3:16 because it’s such a treasured verse. If you sense a disconnect between vv. 15 and 16, you’re not wrong. If I was leading a church Bible study, because I wouldn’t cut a lectionary reading short, I’d extend the reading to include vv. 17-21.
What “so” means. When John says, “For God so loved the world”, he doesn’t mean this: “For God loved the world sooo much that…”. He means this: “For God loved the world in this way: …”. What difference does it make? The first sense implies that the reason God sent his Son is that his love for the world had crossed a certain threshold: “so much”. God’s love, and I would argue all love, is not the kind of thing that can be measured in that way, though the way we speak of it often mis-characterizes it along those lines.
John 3:1-16
Now 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 him, “Truly, truly, 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, “Truly, truly, 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 its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
What I noticed
In the gospels, the Pharisees and Sadducees and often depicted as serious men asking insincere questions.
Nicodemus, by contrast, is a serious man, asking a real question. The first three verses are introductory. Nicodemus affirms that Jesus is from God (vv. 1-2), and Jesus introduces the topic: being born again and from above (v. 3). Jesus reestablishes his framework of knowing: there are those who “see” and those who “hear”. Those who are born again, from above, will see.
Nicodemus states the problem he sees: How can mankind, who is an “old” race, be born in this way? (v. 4) Mankind is old. By the time Jesus has come, Paul says that time is “full” (Gal. 4:4).
One thing that makes mankind “old” is the sheer number of times he has already been reborn. Mankind was reborn when Eve fathered Seth, after Cain had killed Abel. Mankind was reborn when God flooded the earth and spared Noah’s household. Mankind was reborn when Abram was made father of many nations. Mankind was born again at Sinai, when it received a new law. Mankind was born again when Cyrus sent Israel and Judah out from exile and commissioned them to build a new temple.
I also think of the Sabbath Day, the Sabbath Year, and Jubilee, which commemorate mankind’s birth and new birth and serve as a fresh start— to the week, the seven-year cycle, and to the generation. And, later, of Abraham Lincoln’s hope for a “new birth of freedom.”
How can man, who is old, be born again?
This resonates at the individual level, too. It’s the question of how many fresh starts are too many. At what point can you say that you’ve tried everything and know, with experimental certainty, that it won’t work.
Man would have to return to the womb, as it were. The earth—the mother from whom Adam was born.
Can mankind re-enter that prehistoric dust from whence he came and be born, again, from the ground?
He can, of course. And Nicodemus was there to place him back into the ground, adorning his body with a hundred pounds of spices (19:39).
Next, Nicodemus asks, “How can these things be?” Scholar Jim Jordan teases the rest of the conversation out compellingly:
Nicodemus, if there’s anything you as THE teacher of Israel should understand, it’s how this can happen. Someone has to die, Nicodemus. It has to be a Better Isaac. It has to be the Seed of the Woman-Tree. The Son of Man will be lifted up like the bronze serpent. Do you see, Nicodemus? Have you seen all the crosses the Romans used for the rebels? Can you see what’s going to happen to Me? Do you see how?
Lectionary Resonances
Mankind had been born again when Yahweh took Abram from his country and gave him a new land (Gen. 12:1). Ultimately, it didn’t “work” in the way that Jesus did. Jesus is mankind’s true fresh start. He was buried, and became the “firstborn of the dead.” We must die with him to be raised with him. Still, Jesus is the God of fresh starts, and he is what makes them effective.
The argument about Abraham’s justification in Romans 4 ends in v. 17 with an appositional description of the God Abraham believed: “God…. who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.”
Psalm 33 maps onto this. Yahweh looks down from heaven and “sees all the children of man,” especially those who fear him (vv. 13, 18). Just as Abraham is not saved by works, neither is the king “saved by his great army” (v. 16). That means that the people can’t look to a king to give them a new beginning. Yahweh alone can save them—lest we get too spiritual—both in body and in soul: Only Yahweh can “deliver their soul from death and keep the alive in famine” (v. 20).
This has me thinking
We could all use a positive, encouraging word. That’s one reason Ted Lasso is such a compelling (and award-winning) TV character. Sometimes, fresh starts work.
But sometimes they don’t and Nicodemus knows this. Wounds run deep. Habits don’t break easy. I’ve been moved by the way the Avett Brothers put it: “The weight of lies will bring you down / And follow you to every town 'cause / Nothing happens here that doesn't happen there.”
Jesus hears him. Yes, to really start fresh, mankind would really have to turn back the clock. They’d have to return to the primordial dust. They’d have to be made into a new Adam, a new man (1 Cor. 15:45; Eph. 2:15). A new Spirit would have to be breathed into him. A new Eve would have to be fashioned from his side as bride and mother (Eph. 5:32; Gal. 4:26). There would have to be another definitive face-off with Satan (Matt. 4:1-11). There’d have to be a new way of making acceptable offerings, negotiating brotherly conflict, and handling anger (e.g. Matt. 5:21-26; 18:15-20).
But it couldn’t be a metaphor again. “New birth” had always been a metaphor. It had to be a new birth from death.
And I can’t help but think there’s something significant about Nicodemus’ devotional attention to the dead body of Christ (John 19:39). Not just relating our own death to his, but discerning our own death in his.
Liked point 6. I heard the same comment on Issuesetc.org , looking forward to Sunday.