There are unceasing debates about when life begins and when it ends. As a child I was fascinated with nature shows about animals that appeared to be dead but were just hibernating. Science fiction movies featured suspended animation as themes were creatures or people seem to be dead but were really alive. I just read an interview of one who was clinically dead, but then revived. She said she didn’t know how to react or what to feel. Now scientists are trying to use thousands of years old DNA to recreate extinct species of animals.
Dead or alive? We are not always so sure! And what really is the definition, meaning, or purpose of life? A more practical issue with some of the same confusion rears its ugly head with guilt or issues we try to hide or bury but keep surfacing. Memories of moments we want to hang onto often fade away as if dead and we wish we could remember what we have lost. So much living is conflicted with life that isn’t really life, and buried stuff that keeps coming back to life. In the account of Nicodemus from the Gospel of John we see his similar confusion with his own life.
Nicodemus was a man of faith but often felt empty. He had seen the light but often felt burdened by shadows. He was one of the most religious in his community, full of life and full of faith – but often felt empty and lifeless. He was intrigued by what he had heard of Jesus’ teachings about the life of God and how it was changing all who opened their hearts to his message of Good News. John’s comment that that Nicodemus came to Jesus “at night” was important as it suggested he wasn’t simply hiding for fear of being caught but trapped in shadows of confusion and doubt. He was full of the life of faith in God, but hoped Jesus might something he felt was just beyond his grasp. He was literally in the dark!
How often are we troubled and trapped in the same shadowy confusion? We want to do the right things. But there is always a fear lurking that there should be more. Jesus told Nicodemus, who was guided by his faith that he needed a breath of fresh air in his lungs and a new spirit to fill his heart, as if he could be born in a new way.
Nicodemus believed keeping rules would be enough. Deuteronomy instructed faithful children of Abraham to remember the law, even going so far as tying a verse of it on one’s forehead, writing it over the doorway of one’s home, or wrapping it on one’s arm. But in following such laws literally, righteous Jews took scraps of parchment and wrote a law or commandment and literally nailed them to a doorpost or tied them on their body. Nicodemus had done all that but wrestled with his life that still felt not fully alive. Following the letter of the law felt good but had no life in it.
The intent of such guidance to the faithful was never to forget what God had shared. The point was to take God’s guidance and ingest it, digest it, live it! To make it part of every action of daily living! To love God and love neighbor! But just knowing, reading, or staring at the words didn’t aways motivate one to live the love behind them!
We often approach God in similar darkness. We would prefer more specific instructions for each situation, desiring to make sure we are rewarded if we go to all the trouble. . For instance, we assume remember the Sabbath means one hour of worship, when in fact it means rest in God’s presence and take time to let God communicate with and touch you, so your faith and weekly living is empowered and full of God’s light! We do that on a special day with our family of faith, to remember how to do so with family, friends, and strangers in every hour of our week.
It is like the difference between plunking notes on a piano or filling notes with passion and joy! Like the difference between monotonous recitation of words from a story or listening in Dolby surround sound. It’s like saying I love you, in the same way you ask for the salt. When God breathes into our lives, our lives breathe with God! +++
Jesus told Nicodemus it was time for faith to be his new life. The Greek word used is translated to be born from above or born anew. Jesus told Nicodemus to open his heart so God’s breath and love and peace would fill every moment of his living. Nicodemus didn’t get it and asked, “You mean re-enter the womb?” Today some Christians don’t get it and say, you need more baptisms until one finally takes hold.
It is not enough just to keep from sinning or breaking rule. It is the breath of God giving life to those rules so that living celebrates our oneness with God. If you love God and neighbor, you won’t break any rules. If God’s breath inspires, He will guide, strengthen, forgive, and shine through you even when you don’t know how or why! This story follows the wedding of Cana which is really about God’s marriage to us, and the new life which results from that relationship. (If you are still hung up with the “born again thing,” remember what would come later as Jesus would suffer and die and be buried in a tomb, and many lost hope. Yet on Easter morning, the same holy breath that initiated Creation, filled Jesus’ lungs and a new life ensued.
Actually, Nicodemus was right. Everything that has an earthly life must re-enter the womb and be born in a new way. That womb is a tomb, and Jesus’ death and resurrection brings the miracle of a new birth! That new breath of faith that fills our lungs brings daylight to darkness, and new life out of old. Our time of hibernation is over forever! Our best response is to surrender our living to join Jesus in his foot washing, servant love and celebration of our new lives that will never end.
This moment in Lent offers us the opportunity to catch our breath. Or maybe it is better to say, test our breath. Are we hibernating? Is our breath foul like the brokenness of a sinful world? Are we in the dark? Are we unsure? Jesus wanted Nicodemus and each of us to bury all of the earthly confusion in the womb of Calvary’s tomb and allow God’s breath of life to breathe life into your life! This is the heavenly birth!
Fred Buechner wrote: “When you are WITH somebody you love, you have little if any sense of the passage of time, and you also have, in the fullest sense of the phrase, a good time. When you are WITH God, you have something like the same experience. It doesn’t mean you have to be thinking about being with God, or feeling religious, or sitting in church, or saying your prayers, though it might mean any or all of these. To say that a person is “with it” is slang for saying that whether he’s playing an electric guitar or just watching the clouds roll by, he’s so caught up in what he’s doing and so totally himself while he’s doing it that there’s none of him left over to be doing anything else with in the back of his head or out of the corner of his eye. Being “with it” may not be the same as being with God, but it comes close.”[1]
When Lazarus was raised and Jesus said, “unbind him and set him free!” that is what Jesus meant about a new birth and new life. We are indeed set free! We have been born from above! The death wrappings are gone! In the womb of earth (Jesus’ tomb) God’s creative breath would restore what was lost! His Holy Breath fills us with faith, hope and love in the same creative miracle that made the rings of Saturn and enabled crickets to chirp and birds to sing. Our living in faith is all about surrendering to God and allowing his breath to fill our heart and lungs.
And then, even what might appear to be useless, or immovable, comes to life! This is the miracle of Easter and the love of God of life! In other words, God has breathed his love into us – and it is time for us to exhale that love in daily living. When a diver goes into the water, he or she must first check their tanks to make sure of what they are breathing. This Gospel is all about the same issue. What are you breathing? What is the life that is keeping you truly alive?
My Mom’s simple way of reminding me of how that worked was “remember whose you are!” That is her way of reminding me to breathe what will keep me alive. That takes all the guesswork out of how I am to faithfully live! It is all about God’s breath being one and the same as mine. It’s about breathing life into life.
[1] Frederick Buechner. “Wishful Thinking”