Nicodemus is one of those
figures in Scripture, that, if we could meet him personally, many of us would
find it easy to relate to him. Deeply
entrenched in the Jewish orthodox faith, he is a man of education, position,
and status. While others in his circle
regard Jesus with suspicion, Nicodemus recognizes a rare spiritual quality in
his life. Cautious by nature, he comes
to Jesus under the cover of darkness at a location far enough from the city to
allow them to chat discretely. In spite
of all that Nicodemus has going for him, he has a lingering, nagging feeling
within that something is missing in his life.
Simply stated, Nicodemus senses his life has been filling, but not
fulfilling.
In his book, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, the
famous psychologist Carl Jung makes this observation: “About a third of my
cases are suffering from no clinically definable neurosis, but from the
senseless emptiness of their lives. This
can be described as the general neurosis of our time.” His words ring truer today than when the book
was published in 1933.
If you ask the average person
what she or he really wants out of life, the answer (in one form or another)
will be “I want to be happy.” The
pursuit of happiness is a right guaranteed in the Constitution. We buy books, take classes, do charity work,
attend church, go on vacations, drink and flirt and spend a little more than we
ought, all in a never-ending attempt to find the elusive quality called
“happiness”. Even still, I suspect most
people do not feel very happy most of the time.
Our lives are full, but they are not fulfilling.
I read recently about a woman
who dreamed of marrying a successful doctor or corporate executive so she could
live in a fancy house in a posh suburb.
But once her dream came true she began to wonder if maybe there wasn’t
more to life. She made lunch dates with
friends and worked to raise money for worthy causes. She even opened a boutique, hoping if she
could fill her days so she could banish the gnawing sense of emptiness in her
soul. But no matter how busy she kept
herself, the hunger did not go away.
Why is happiness so difficult
to find and to maintain – both for those who get what they want out of life as
well as for those who don’t? Why do
people with so many reasons to be happy feel as if something is missing from
their lives? Rabbi Harold Kushner, in
his book When All You’ve Ever Wanted
isn’t Enough, observes the more we sacrifice our lives before the altar of
success the more we find things like money and power do not satisfy the
unnamable hunger in our soul. Kushner
writes:
Our souls are hungry for
meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives
matter, so that the world will be at least a little bit different for our
having passed through it. What
frustrates and robs our lives of joy is the absence of meaning.
In South Wales there is a
species of moth that has no mouth. As a
caterpillar it lays its eggs and then changes into a moth with no digestive
system. It has no way to take in
nutrition and therefore starves to death within a few short hours. Nature has equipped it for one purpose – to
reproduce. When the moth has assured
life for the next generation it has served its purpose and then dies. Are we like that? Are we here just to produce children and then
fade away? Or, is there some higher
purpose to our existence? In the end, do
we matter? Is there more to life than filling
our days? Can we feel fulfilled?
These questions about meaning
are the ones we turn to religion for answers and insight. Maybe they are the questions Nicodemus has on
his mind, but I don’t know. My guess is
he, like many of us, is looking for something more significant than he has
already found. He wants Jesus to say or
to do something that will lead him to a sense of meaning and purpose; to a
feeling of fulfillment. Jesus perceives
this and quickly brings their discussion to this very point.
Jesus says to Nicodemus, “No
one can see the Kingdom of God [find the one thing so significant in life that
with it all the other pieces fall into place] unless he is born from
above.”
I suspect many of us view with
skepticism the born-again rhetoric of revivalist religion. You only need to watch a few minutes of a TV
evangelist to come to the conclusion nothing close to a deeply significant,
life-changing insight is going to be mediated through born-again religion. But if we can separate ourselves from the preconceived
stereotype of the televangelist and listen again to Jesus’ words we might hear
something important. He says it is God’s
Spirit that not only fills us, but fulfills us.
He says what will fill the unnamed hunger in our soul cannot be found in
this world nor is there anything you can do to secure it. It comes to us freely from God by the means
of God’s grace.
The fancy name for the
Christian doctrine of new birth is “regeneration”. Now, regeneration is not a resolution – a
commitment on your part to turn over a new leaf. Regeneration is not morality – a desire to be
a better person. Regeneration is not
even religion, if by this you mean devotion to a religious institution or
practice. II Corinthians 5:17 states,
“If anyone is in Christ he or she is a new creature. The old has passed away and behold, new
things come.” This is regeneration.
There is a story about a
frustrated social worker that gets to heart of what regeneration and new birth
from above is all about. In the story, a
social worker tries in vain to persuade a family to clean up their trash-filled
home. When nothing succeeds, she creates
large, colorful arrangement of flowers, brings it into the house, and sets it
on a table in the center of the family’s living room. From there its beauty sits in judgment of all
the filth surrounding it. First the
family tidies up the living room to make it a more fitting place for the new
gift. Then the living room sits in
judgment of the rest of house until the family cleans it up too. Beauty comes into the house and changes both
it and the people who live there.
This is exactly how new
birth/regeneration happens. God’s Spirit
comes into us in ways we do not know, understand, or deserve, and yet there is
God… in us! When we recognize God is
within, even though we are not worthy to stand before God, much less have
intimate fellowship with God, we begin to change in ways we ourselves never
dreamed possible. We begin to move from
existing to thriving, from being filled to fulfilled.
Now, lest you send me packing
with a tent to preach my revivalist thinking to the less educated, let me point
out no less of an authority than our own cherished Rite I liturgy supports me
in this matter. We say in our corporate
prayer,
Here we offer and present unto
thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and
living sacrifice unto thee; humbly beseeching thee that we, and all others who
shall be partakers of this Holy Communion, may [1] worthily receive the most
precious Body and Blood of thy Son Jesus Christ, [2] be filled with thy grace
and heavenly benediction, and [3] be made one body with him, [why?] that he
might dwell in us and we in him.
By any measure these words are
a prayer for new birth from above. But
it is not the words or the actions that are important, it is, of course, the
longing of the heart and stirring of the soul brought about by God’s indwelling
which leads to regeneration. John
Lincoln, a scholar and critic of the late 20th century, once stated
that the time he was converted was when religion became no longer mere duty,
but pleasure.
Nicodemus comes to the Lord in
secret under the cover of darkness.
Although he has the best of all life can offer, although he is a success
by every standard of the world, he still wonders if there might be something
more. This is what he comes to Jesus to
ask. Jesus replies, “Nicodemus, if you
want to see the Kingdom of God, you must be born again!” You must allow God’s beauty to dwell within
you and let it begin to change everything about you. Embrace this intimate divine, holy fellowship
and your life will be fulfilling.
