How to see the kingdom of God.
The baby chick is one of the standard images for Easter, which we are told represents new birth and new beginnings; and of course, the archetypal new beginning is the resurrection of Jesus. By faith in Jesus, we can participate in his death and resurrection, and have a new birth.
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs You are doing if God were not with him.” Jesus replied, “Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born from above.”
Nicodemus, in this passage from John 3, seems particularly dense, for even though he clearly perceives Jesus’ divine origin because of what is happening, he doesn’t see what Jesus is talking about here. For a spiritual leader, Nicodemus appears to be particularly spiritually dull; but this is the danger of talking about God too often and not listening to God often enough. Then again, nobody, even among Jesus’ twelve disciples understood very much of what he was saying, not until after his resurrection, in fact, and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
But Nicodemus’ answer concentrates on the obvious, the material, and neglects the spiritual:
“How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time to be born?”
Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh is born of flesh, but spirit is born of the Spirit. Do not be amazed that I said, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes. You hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
For us to have a true spiritual rebirth, there is only one way: it is to be baptised in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and be given the gift of the Holy Spirit, and this gift can only come from God the Father, through Jesus Christ.
Many prophets and self-styled holy men, therapists and gurus offer spiritual rebirth, through many means: some through some sort of perception of the divine, others through certain practices or meditation, others through ceremonies, and still others through faith in some sort of spirituality or god, but there is no God except the God of the Jews and Christians, the God of the Bible, who is a living God, who can actually save anyone from their sins and give them the spiritual rebirth.
Nicodemus still does not understand that someone can be born of the Spirit.
“How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
“You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, and yet you people do not accept our testimony.
If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the One who descended from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.”
The snake in the wilderness was a winged serpent on a pole, which saved anyone who had been bitten in the plague of fiery flying serpents in the wilderness.
Interestingly, there is some sort of linguistic debate about whether these serpents were actually flying serpents: that there might have been pterosaurs in the wilderness of Sinai does not seem completely unlikely, however, considering that there are numerous ancient depictions of pterosaurs from the area1 and the Greek historian Herodotus visited Egypt in 450 and described hearing the stories of such creatures and seeing their bones:
There is a place in Arabia, situated very near the city of Buto, to which I went, on hearing of some winged serpents; and when I arrived there, I saw bones and spines of serpents, in such quantities as it would be impossible to describe. The form of the serpent is like that of the water-snake; but he has wings without feathers, and as like as possible to the wings of a bat …at the beginning of spring, winged serpents fly from Arabia towards Egypt; but that ibises, a sort of bird, meet them at the pass, and do not allow the serpents to go by, but kill them. Herodotus Historiae 18; 2, 75-76
We should take this plague of fiery serpents as a warning to us about complaining too much, for it was God’s punishment on the people who were complaining to Moses, “Why have you led us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread or water, and we detest this wretched food!” (Numbers 21:4-9) How often do we complain about not having the comforts we might have? How often would we rather trade in our freedom, for comfort and security? This is one of the great temptations, and is exactly what happened, for the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, and now they longed for the security of slavery; I think we saw a bit of this during the Covid era, didn’t we?
This winged serpent on a pole was called the Nehushtan, and was kept in the temple, up until the time of the good king Hezekiah, who destroyed it, for like many things that are initially good, it had become an idol (2 Kings 8:4). It is quite possible that the image of a flying serpent on a pole which brought healing became quite famous in ancient times, for it is very similar to several other symbols: the two intertwined serpents on a winged pole, which is the sign for Hermes and has become the contemporary symbol of medicine, and the rod of Asclepius, a serpent wrapped around a pole.
Like the winged serpent on a pole, which when it was lifted up the Israelites looked upon and were healed, Jesus was lifted up upon the cross, so that everyone who looks upon Him might be healed of the one thing that is the source of all our afflictions and the cause of our death, which is the guilt from sin. This is wonderful news, really, the best possible news, for none of us can get rid of guilt by our own power; it is an objective thing as real as the ground beneath our feet, and can only be suppressed or redirected or ignored. Only the blood of Jesus shed on the cross is able to completely wipe out guilt; even the great psychotherapist Jung had to admit that Christian confession was able to do what all the psychotherapy in the world could not do, that is, take away guilt.
For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
And this is the verdict: The Light has come into the world, but men loved the darkness rather than the Light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come into the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever practices the truth comes into the Light, so that it may be seen clearly that what he has done has been accomplished in God.”
After this, Jesus and His disciples went into the Judean countryside, where He spent some time with them and baptized.
John 3:1-22
This last sentence is significant: many people might say that to turn to Christ all one must do is believe in Him and turn to Him: this is of course true, under certain circumstances: one may turn to Christ at the last moment on one’s death bed, and be saved, or even on a desert island or while dying in a crashed car. But to anyone who thinks that they will wait for this opportunity, I would say, why wait, for an eventuality that may not come? How do you know that you will repent? You might die without repenting yet, indeed you might spend the time praying to be healed or saved from death as you may have done many times before, when it is actually your appointed time to die, and if it is then, you will die, while still thinking you are going to survive, and then you will miss out on eternal life. Please turn to him today if you are thinking like this, ‘repent and be baptised.’ (Acts 2:38)
Indeed, Jesus clearly thought that to receive the new birth, baptism is also important, for straight after preaching this sermon, in which He says, “no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit”, He is baptising people.
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