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John 3:1-17—Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. ² 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.” ³ Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” ⁴ 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?” ⁵ Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. ⁶ That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷ Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ ⁸ 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.”

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 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. ¹² If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? ¹³ No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. ¹⁴ And 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, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Along with the rest of the world, we are all perishing. Like the poisonous serpents came into the camp of the Israelites (Nu. 21:4-9), the snake of sin has come and bitten everything in this world. All humanity has been stung with the sting of death, and the countdown to your death began from the moment you existed. Death is hereditary; it is written in your DNA.

As a child of Adam you are a child of sin and death. You slog through this life slowly, steadily marching towards your death. “The wages of sin is death” (Ro. 3:23). Payday is coming, and what you have earned will, finally and ultimately, come to you.

You get little pay advances of death as you journey through this life, and they all serve as reminders of what is coming. An illness is tossed into your tip jar as a reminder that one day your whole body will be broken. You find the loose change of death when someone gossips about you saying, “A real Christian would do such and such.” The world is always ready to hand you a stipend of death along the way – war, famine, and persecution. After months and years filed with despair, a parent, spouse, or sibling dies battling cancer and you hit the jackpot of death. Ultimately, your payday comes and death visits you personally.

As a child of death, you are what you are, and Nicodemus was what he was. Under the cover of the darkness of night, Nicodemus comes to talk with Jesus. He comes in wonder, for no one can do the signs that Jesus does unless God is with him. Nicodemus comes to talk with Jesus, this God-sent Sign-worker, but Nicodemus comes as an unbeliever. That is why Jesus doesn’t dilly-dally. Instead, He moves the conversation directly to the crux of the matter. “Unless you are born from above, you cannot see the kingdom of God.”

The word that gets translated again there in v. 3 almost always means “from above” only rarely does it mean again. Nicodemus wrongly thinks that Jesus means that he must enter his mother’s womb a second time to be born. That is conceivably possible (pun intended); though, I would tend to think very few mothers would allow their children to enter back into their womb a second time.

Jesus speaks to Nicodemus of a different kind of birth, a birth “from above.” But Nicodemus can only think of one type of birth, the natural type. All this talk about a birth that is “from above” is hard for Nicodemus to understand. He can’t even imagine a different type of birth. But this is not surprising because, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Co. 2:14).

But Jesus says exactly what this different “from above” type of birth is – a water and Spirit type of birth. Jesus speaks about baptism. Children of God are not born of natural, physical parents. They are born not of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man. They are born of the will of God (Jn. 1:13).

You did not chose to be born physically. No one consulted you about your conception. No one asked you if you were ready to be delivered into this world. But you delivered into this world you were.

In the same way, you do not chose to be born spiritually either. You are dependent upon a birth that comes only from the will of God. In your baptism, God has given you that different kind of birth, that different kind of existence.

Like Nicodemus, we ask, “How can these things be? How can water do such things?” We too come to Jesus in the darkness and night of our own sinful misunderstanding. Jesus says that baptism is not simply water, but water that is connected with the Spirit of God and the Word of God. In the waters of baptism, God gives you the kind of birth He requires. ”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.”

Your spiritual birth is all God’s doing. The only part you have to play in your salvation is to benefit from it. God has chosen baptism to “give life to the dead and call into existence the things that do not exist” (Ro. 4:17b). God could have chosen to do it another way, but He chose to do it through baptism – the birth from above of water and Spirit.

So that you can have this birth, God the Father sent Jesus, His only begotten Son. Jesus was sent to live a sinless life not for Himself, but for you. Jesus was sent so that you should not perish, but have everlasting life. God sent Jesus to die the death you deserve. Jesus was paid your wages of sin. Jesus has been lifted up to die so that all who look on Him might be saved.

And so that you could be connected to Christ’s death, God gives you baptism. In your baptism, the Holy Spirit dragged your sinful flesh back to the cross to kill it. He placed you into the tomb of Christ, and you were born anew with Christ out of the hopelessness of death. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, now and forever. Amen.