As a progressive, I believe there are many names for God and many ways to God – this article reflects one of those ways. Take from here what works for you. Celebrate life with joy and peace!
This story of Nicodemus, a scholar and legal expert, coming to see Jesus in the middle of the night is one of the best known from the book of John. Many sermons around this scripture usually focus on the meaning of Jesus’ saying to Nicodemus: “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom or realm of God without being born from above.”
Now, Nicodemus was one of those literalists. He’s one of those people who think that what you see is what you get. He’s so well educated and, at the same time, so limited by his literal mind, that he misses the many meanings of what Jesus is saying.
During Lent, some people thought of things that they would either “give up” or “take on” during this season of spiritual preparation of the soil of our souls. In the middle of Lent I love asking in a teasing way, “So, how’s it going? Still not had any chocolate? How’s the prayer and meditation time going? What are the positive changes? Are you able to see the results yet?” Oh we want to see results right away don’t we, like where’s my six pack, I’ve been exercising for a month now!
The change Jesus is talking to Nicodemus about is a change of vision: a change in the way Nicodemus sees things, himself, the world and God. Jesus said, “No one can “see” the realm of God without being born from above.”
This is a different kind of “seeing,” not seeing with the physical eye as much as seeing with the mind and spirit. It is a “seeing” with new eyes, eyes that have been born anew, born again; it’s a seeing of things the way God does with new, washed-by-water-and-Spirit vision.
Pulitzer Prize winning author, Annie Dillard, talks about seeing with new eyes in her memoir, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. When she was 6-7 years old, growing up in Pittsburgh, Dillard says, she used to take a precious penny of her own and hide it for someone else to find. It was almost a compulsion. She would hide it along the same stretch of sidewalk on her street. Sometimes, she’d place the penny in the roots of a sycamore tree or in a hole left by a chipped off piece of the sidewalk.
Then she would take a piece of chalk and, starting at either end of the block, draw huge arrows leading up to the penny from both directions! Sometimes she’d write, “Surprise ahead!” or “Money this way!” She was thrilled, at just the thought, of the first lucky person to see her artwork and find this free gift from the universe.
Oh, to have those childlike eyes! As she grew and matured in her faith, Annie Dillard could see that the world actually was filled with pennies from a divine and generous God. Pennies from heaven! But who gets excited by a mere penny?
My dad and step mom love to take long walks, and I’ve gone on plenty with them, and they actually get excited about finding pennies! They see it as a blessing from God, stop, and pick it up with gratitude. But how many others just pass by the free gift? Not able to see the gift as a blessing from God and a reminder that God, whose eye is on the sparrow, is also watching us.
“No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”
I like how one preacher put it, “Silly Nicodemus, it doesn’t mean that you must somehow return to your mother’s womb. It does mean that we must learn to see with new eyes, like the eyes of children.”
There are two types of people: task-oriented and process-oriented. The task-oriented folk run through life trying to get everything done, rushing past the pennies placed so lovingly by the hand of God in the cracks of the sidewalks of life. The process-oriented folk are the ones who notice them, stop to pick them up, enjoying the moment, and making their task-oriented friends late for the next appointment and driving them crazy!
Counselor Margaret Hess says that her first approach to her clients is to invite them to be curious about their lives. Why do they think this or that? Where did they learn that such and such was bad or good? Why do their families function in a certain way?
When someone becomes curious about their own life, she says, they open the door to transformation and healing. A childlike curiosity about the world is the first step in seeing with new eyes. It can lead to beautiful things, like seeing our lives in the light of hope and redemption.
Let’s go back to Nicodemus as he’s making his way through the darkened streets, to the place where Jesus was staying. He was a scholar, a man of reason. But here he is, traveling in the shadows, driven by his curiosity, filled with this desire to figure out just who this man Jesus was.
He starts his conversation with Jesus with, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God.” But don’t you think underneath that statement he had a million questions? So might we. Who is this Jesus?
Let’s look at our Scripture reading again. Half way through the story Nicodemus seems to disappear. His last words to Jesus are in verse 9: “How can these things be?” We simply don’t hear from him after that. And then, Jesus’ words are directed to us. In verse 11, the “you” spoken by Jesus, switches from the second person singular, “you, Nicodemus,” to the second person plural, “you, hearers and readers of the Gospel.”
“Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?”
What do you think it means to “see the realm of God by being born again?” I like how a United Methodist pastor from Michigan puts it: “if you are born again, then you must grow up again. Think about your life. What would you do differently if you had the chance? How would you change? How would you re-edit the narrative of what has happened already so that it changes what is to come?”
Jesus is inviting us to be curious about our life. About everything we were told about God, about life, about acceptance. Jesus challenges us not only to look at our past, but to look to the future through the eyes of hope, and redemption, and possibility.
Think about it. How might your life be different if you were born again? How would your life be changed if you really believed, from a very young age, that God loves you with such a great and sacrificial love?
To see with new eyes is to let go of the way we have seen things up until now. It’s not only about seeing things in a new way, but also allowing ourselves to be seen by God; the God who loves us so richly, and completely, and deeply and tenderly, that the gift of God’s own Son was not too much to give us.
The love of God is for everyone. Let’s share it; like hiding pennies from heaven and drawing arrows. What a gift. All you have to do is receive it.
Thank you, God!
