March 1, 2026 Sermon
Sermon title: “Born Again”
Scripture: John 3:1-17
(Other lectionary suggestions include Genesis 12:1-4, Psalm 121, and Romans 4:1-5 and 13-17.)
John 3:1-17
Nicodemus Visits Jesus
1Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2He 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 apart from the presence of God.” 3Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” 4Nicodemus 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?” 5Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ 8The 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.” 9Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? 11Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. 12If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16For 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. 17Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
Today is the second Sunday of Lent, and the sermon title is “Born Again.” I don’t like that expression very much, because even though it comes from the Bible, and from the mouth of Jesus, no less, the term has taken on - in my humble opinion - a “my way or the highway” approach to Christianity. If somebody tells you he’s a Born-Again Christian, chances are he or she is an evangelical Christian, and if you don’t think the way he/she does, you or your faith will be looked down on by that person. I may be wrong, but I don’t think I am. And we should ask ourselves this question: Just what did Jesus mean by being “born again”? Our Scripture today has Nicodemus the Pharisee playing the part of the dunderhead, asking Jesus, “Does a man really need to go into his mother’s womb and be born again?” Jesus is a lot nicer than I am, and he treats Nicodemus with respect. He says, “No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.” We might ask ourselves what Jesus meant in THAT answer. He might have been referring to the early Church’s practice of baptism, which already practiced that rite. And going with a water baptism there also had to be a serious acceptance of God the Spirit.
The British scholar N. T. Wright says both a water baptism and a spiritual baptism go hand-in-hand. “From time to time,” he says, “the problem arose of people assuming that as long as you had water-baptism you didn’t need to worry about the new spiritual life. But the point in this passage is that this double-sided new birth ((both water-baptism and spiritual baptism)) was now required for membership in God’s kingdom.” And without that, as Jesus says in verse 3, you can’t even SEE God’s kingdom.
It had to be hard for Nicodemus to hear Jesus’s words. But if you and I are to understand what Jesus is talking about, how God is now joining heaven and earth together, “we must listen to him and walk with him on the road he is now to take.”
What Jesus is trying to say is that God’s kingdom is open to everyone. Did you hear those words about the spirit? It’s on the move, “like a fresh spring breeze” that goes where it will. The Spirit of God is like that, moving where it wishes to go. I like that! You can’t control it and I can’t control it. And neither can the church, or any other organization that assumes it speaks for God. God speaks for himself!
Pastor Skip
