How Can You Be Born Anew After Having Grown Old?

My friend and his wife were up in Charleston recently celebrating their anniversary. They were walking along one of those quaint streets and this guy stopped him and said, “Hey brother,  if you were to die tonight, do you know where your soul would go?” My friend said, “Yes.” “So,” the guy asked, “have you been born again?”  

Now my friend is a pastor and he knows perfectly well what this guy meant by being born again. He could have easily just said, “Yes.”

But my friend also knowing that the way this phrase was being used as a type of litmus test — didn’t capture the richness and nuance of what Jesus was getting at, made the terrible mistake of asking this guy, “What exactly do you mean when you say being born again?” 

Of course, the conversation totally devolved into a debate about the monk Pelagius and the difference between Anabaptist and Reformed theology. And his wife said it almost ruined their night out.  

In the Gospel of John, chapter 3 (1-10), in a conversation with a religious leader named Nicodemus, Jesus says to him, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

This word in the original language translated above – also means anew.  And it can hold both meanings at once. So there’s no easy translation to English.  Born anew – from above.

Nicodemus latches on to one translation of it and he replies, “How can anyone be born after having grown old?”  (He was a good literalist!)

But it is actually not a bad question. Sometimes it is hard to imagine re-birth after we have grown old. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine re-birth after we become settled in our ways. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine re-birth during those dead moments in our lives. 

If you’ve been baptized – you’ve been born of water and the Spirit. And the answer to that question if someone asks you – is an unequivocal yes!  But, maybe you could also add to yourself; but hopefully, God’s not through with me yet.

Let us pray:  As we sit on the edge of this new year, O God, Grant us an openness to your Spirit’s movement in our lives.  Prepare our hearts and minds for you do a new thing in us; through Jesus Christ. Amen.