Born Anew

In the Gospel of John, Jesus was talking to a Pharisee named Nicodemus. He said to Nicodemus, no one can see the kingdom of God, without being born anew.

Nicodemus doesn’t quite get it. He replies, “How can anyone be born after having grown old?”  

Nicodemus would have made a good literalist!

But it is not a bad question. Sometimes it is hard to imagine rebirth after we have grown old. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine rebirth after we become settled in our ways. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine rebirth during those dead moments in our lives. But so often those are exactly the times when the Spirit wants to do something new in us.

When I was in Atlanta I sometimes would help serve breakfast to the homeless at the Open Door Church. After serving breakfast we would then sit down to eat together. One day I happen to sit across from another volunteer who was a little older, newly retired, maybe in his early 70s. As I sat down, I noticed tears running down his cheek. He said he had been serving grits that morning, and near the end of the line, a homeless man grabbed his hand, looked him in the eyes, and said very sincerely, “Thank you.” This really touched him. Reflecting on this he said, “I can’t believe I waited 70-something years to start giving back. And another guy sitting at the table said, “Yeah, but what a blessing not to have missed it altogether.”

I remember a friend in seminary telling me that it was in the midst of a painful divorce in her early 50’s that she first started hearing God calling her into the ministry. She told me it was almost as if God was saying to her, I know you think this is an end – but there’s a whole new chapter ahead….

I don’t know what you might be going through in your life, but I pray you would come to expect that the same Spirit who blew life into the dry bones of Israel, the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead, the same Spirit who blew life into the early church on the first Pentecost, that same Spirit can and will birth something new, even in you, even in me.  

Let us pray: Holy Spirit, Author, and Renewer of Life, like a mighty wind, blow anew into our lives, into our families, into our churches, and into our world. Bring healing, mercy, grace, and new life. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.