Deeper in me than I

Genesis 12:1-4a

Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. ²I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. ³I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him.

John 3:1-17

There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a Jewish leader. He came to Jesus at night and said to him, 

“Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could do these miraculous signs that you do unless God is with him.”

Jesus answered, “I assure you, unless someone is born anew, it’s not possible to see God’s kingdom.”

Nicodemus asked, “How is it possible for an adult to be born? It’s impossible to enter the mother’s womb for a second time and be born, isn’t it?”

Jesus answered, “I assure you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, it’s not possible to enter God’s kingdom. Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit. Don’t be surprised that I said to you, ‘You must be born anew.’ God’s Spirit blows wherever it wishes. You hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. It’s the same with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Nicodemus said, “How are these things possible?”

“Jesus answered, “You are a teacher of Israel and you don’t know these things? I assure you that we speak about what we know and testify about what we have seen, but you don’t receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has gone up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Human One. 

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so must the Human One be lifted up so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life. God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life. God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world,  but that the world might be saved through him.

I’ve been thinking about this story about being born again this week from the perspective of the incarnation, and what I mean by that is this: what would it mean to take very seriously the incarnational nature of being born again?

Remember, incarnation is all about the body—it is about being a body in space, about inhabiting a form that can hurt and be hurt by the world. We take seriously the incarnation whenever we meditate on the suffering of Christ, and whenever we stand before the communion table, take bread and cup, and allow ourselves to be fed by the literal promises of Jesus.

So what then, does it mean that Jesus tells Nicodemus, in the dead of night, that he must be born again? And what, especially, does that mean for the one who is being born?

My first thought is this- that to be born is a always a trauma. It is to come out of what you know, and into a completely new world. 

Birth is life-changing for the parent and for the child—for the parent, because what was within is now outside. The promise of a baby that cries in the parents arms is that she will grow and will change. The child will become his own person, with his own ideas and thoughts and perspectives. The child will make choices, some, perhaps many, that her parents will disagree with. And one day, he will leave and make his own life beyond the fold of your care. They will cease to be an extension of you. 

Birth is also a trauma for the child—in order to be born, one must leave the safety of the womb. The womb is the only place a child has ever known, before birth. It is the water that the child swims within. And even as they grow, it grows with them. Until it can no longer contain them. And then, they are squeezed, and pressed, evicted from that place, because that place was never meant to be permanent.

In birth, a child is forced into the light—a light that can be bright, and blinding, and terrifying at first. At birth a child feels cold for the first time in her life. She feels hunger, and thirst. Perhaps even fear.

In other words, to be born is to join the experience of humanity, in all of its beauty and all of its sorrow. No matter who you are, or what you believe in, you share in the experience of being alive with every other person that has ever lived, including Jesus. To be born is both beautiful and terrible, and absolutely necessary, if we wish to keep on living.

So what does it mean that Jesus calls for a rebirth? What could that mean for us, that we are invited into a new way of life?

I suspect we need to let go of the idea that it will be easy, first of all. Or that we will be doing all of the labor, or be in control. To be born is to let go of control—to let the forces of God be the ones that move you. And not your own power. To allow yourself to be carried, where, you do not know.

Abram, perhaps, understood this as well as anyone—for his rebirth carried him out of his life in what would today be modern Iraq, to a new land. And while the promise was beautiful—that you will be a blessing, not just to your own people, but to all the nations of the world—that promise also implied a responsibility to the world. A responsibility to dwell in solidarity with all of God’s peoples, to understand that their sufferings are your sufferings.

And it still does. To be born in Christ requires sacrifice. We must yield, and put down our weapons, and allow ourselves to be carried through.

Rebirth in Palestine—I thought I knew what it looked like there, until I saw.

So much was familiar—the landscape, the weeds, the plants.

So much was utterly new—the stories of the people and what they have endured.

But what I saw, over and over again, was the same incarnational affirmation—that we are all alive, on this beautiful, unpredictable earth. And all of us what the same thing: to live. To endure. To see what is on the other side of the pain and trauma of revealing. 

Friends, this very weekend, so much is being revealed in our world—war and rumors of war are shaking the foundations of the land that I just left. And our brothers and sisters—fellow images of God—are suffering. There are children who are dying because of this war. There are young people being asked to carry weapons for this war. We are being asked to sanctify this killing, to accept that it was necessary, when our God teaches us that war is never just. When our peace-seeking Savior teaches us that we must lay down our swords in order to take up the cross. We are being asked: are you willing to be reborn in Christ? To endure the suffering of incarnational love?  To stand in solidarity with your neighbors?

As we approach this table, I pray that this would be true. That we might find our eyes open to the world, and to the promises of Jesus. And in that knowing, we might act for peace, and justice, and hope.