John 3:1-17 1 Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2 He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with that person.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ 8 The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” 9 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?
  11 “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. 12 If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
  16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
  17 “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Mercy and grace find you in Jesus, from the dark of night into the light of day.

For centuries the Jews had been proclaiming their unique relationship to God. They were the chosen people, who had been led out of the wilderness into the promised land. They owed their existence as a nation and their land to God. They were expected to obey God, to keep their worship uncorrupted and maintain their status as the people of Israel. They had worked long at creating the boundaries of their country and protecting the boundaries of the people they were, by adhering to a strict set of laws that were established to govern their behavior, purity and worship practices. It was the way to define themselves and keep them separate from their neighbors. Their many rules determined who they were: they ate this food but not that, washed items and themselves to have purity. They were to wall themselves off to protect themselves and their ways and see who was in and who was out. Nicodemus was a leader who taught those rules and observed them faithfully.  

Then Jesus came.  “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with that person.” All that Nicodemus thought he knew and had practiced seemed it may not have been all there was to know. Jesus told him that to enter the kingdom of God, to be a part of God’s rule, he needed to be born from above. Perhaps those borders they had drawn were not that which was to define them after all. They were to be born of the Spirit, identified by the activity of God’s love and direction and not the law alone. Nicodemus was used to life the way it had been. But he was intrigued by Jesus and wanted to understand what he was now bringing into being. It seemed Nicodemus could sense that something new was about to begin.

Like me, perhaps you received a new seed catalog in the mail. The snowbanks block off the church garden from our sight and the ground is frozen, so we don’t need to rush. Yet we know that change is on the way, not this week, but before too long spring will indeed appear. You have time, of course, to look at the catalogs, to visit the garden shops, and make plans for your flower beds and garden. Israel was rather like that stable & planned arrangement that many have in their yards and gardens; each type of plant has its place adding its color and distinctive style to create a beautiful effect. There is a design and only places that have died out need to be refreshed.

Then Jesus came. Nicodemus began to realize that the possibilities for God’s kingdom may be greater than he imagined. As you think about spring, you know what happens after the grass sprouts and things get green! Almost overnight there appear an array of yellow headed flowers. A whole field, entire yards, are suddenly, virtually covered by those blooms. You do not need to order them from a catalog. We call them dandelions and perhaps see them as a nuisance. They have no respect for boundaries, happily showing up in your neighbor’s yard and also in yours. Even when you have taken preventative action to eliminate their growth, they will often still burst forth. Their seeds have been born on the breezes, floating and sailing wherever the winds take them. When they land, only a little soil and water are needed for them to take root. Before long they are in your organized flower bed, in the yard, coming up in the cracks of the sidewalk and driveway, in the garden and fields, just about everywhere. 

Then Jesus came, explaining to Nicodemus that the kingdom of God would come, but not only to those places that expected God’s presence. It would not be a controlled growth that Israel could direct, that the religious leaders would be able to confine in their own field. Those patterns they knew and understood were not the only way for God to work. Springing up all over, wherever the windblown Spirit went, the kingdom of God could sprout and grow. It would be like a sudden burst of spring, with dandelion yellow blanketing places where such growth had never resided before. New life springs forth without restraint and could not be contained inside the borders Israel had made.

Jesus has come.  We too must be born from above. We need to see with new eyes, using the viewpoint of God. To be born of the Spirit is to honor what God honors, to love as God loves. Not with restrictions and within certain boundaries. God is not limited to a singular group of people. The kingdom of which Jesus speaks transcends fences and labels; it is not bound by traditions and stereotypes. All are welcome to be children of God; they were already in God’s heart and cared for; we are all brothers and sisters in Christ. 

With that in mind, let me share a story of a young man who understood this vision of God’s, that our standard ways of defining who we are, may not be sufficient. Sometimes we need to blow into a new place and bloom there.

The nurse escorted a tired, anxious young man to the bedside of an elderly patient. “Your son is here,” the nurse whispered into the ear of the dying man. She repeated it several times before his eyes opened. He was sedated and struggled to breathe through the oxygen mask. He could barely see the young man by his bed; he simply reached his hand out, which the young man took, wrapping his fingers tightly around the old man’s hand. He squeezed it with tender care and assurance. The nurse brought him a chair and left. For the rest of the night he sat by the bed, holding that hand and stroking the man’s forehead. The old man said nothing.

As dawn broke, the old man slipped away into death. Only then did the young man release the lifeless hand he had held all night. Then he went and found the nurse. She began to offer the young man her condolences when he interrupted her. “Who was that man?” he asked of her. The startled nurse said, “I thought he was your father!” “Oh no, he wasn’t. I never saw him before.”

“Why didn’t you say something when I took you in there to him?” The young man said quietly; “I knew he needed his son, who obviously was not here. My own father just died, so I understand what he and his son have been going through. When I realized he was too sick to tell whether or not I was his son, I knew how much he needed me.”

That young man viewed this situation through the eyes of God and that enabled him to be the ‘son’ the dying man needed. 

Jesus came to the young man and he was reborn in the Spirit, transformed to be a son that he needed to be. That young man did not focus on himself but on the things of God and the need of an elderly man. May you be so born from above, allowing new life to spring forth through you.  In unexpected ways and in unexpected places the Spirit blows.  God sent His Son to save the world. God sends each of His children to bring new life.  Through you it can happen, bloom where you sprout.