Lifting the Weight

Preached at Silverton Friends Church

April 26, 2026

Maybe the most memorable religious phrase from my early life was “born again.” I went forward at every altar call, knowing for a fact I had not been completely good since the last one, and usually felt renewed, what I thought of as “born again.” Unbeknownst to me, I was more correct than mistaken about that phrase, as I understand it today.  I want to explore the interaction between Jesus and Nicodemus in John 3, wherein Jesus says to a mature man, “You must be born again,” and he says, “What?” As I sat with this passage, several thoughts opened up to me that spoke to my heart and chimed with other things I’ve been thinking about since Easter.

First, to review the story, retold in my own style. Here’s Nicodemus, a man of status and holiness, a Pharisee and a “ruler of the Jews.” He will show up again after the crucifixion with about 100 pounds of myrrh and aloes for Jesus’s burial, so he respects Jesus. This respect shows up right away when he says, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher come from God.  No one could do the things you do unless God is with them.” Jesus sees that Nicodemus has come after dark. It is costly for him to be seen conversing with the man who had driven the animals out of the temple and overturned the moneychangers’ tables. (When asked who said he could do such things, Jesus retorted, without clearing anything up, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”) 

Jesus says to him, “No two ways about it, unless a person is born again, they cannot see the kingdom of God.” “How can an old person reenter the womb and be reborn?” Nicodemus asks.

“Don’t be surprised that I said you must be born again,” says Jesus. “I’m speaking the simple truth that unless a person is born of water (natural) and the Spirit (supernatural), they cannot enter the Kingdom of God. The wind blows where it wishes and you hear it but cannot explain where it comes from or where it is going. That’s what it’s like to be born of the Spirit.”

“How can these things be?” asks a puzzled and perhaps skeptical Nicodemus.

Jesus replies, “Are you a teacher of Israel and you do not know these things?” This pulls Nicodemus up short and challenges his security in his identity as a man, a ruler, a Pharisee, a scholar of the law, an elder.  He can be glad Jesus didn’t go on to say that children understand this better than Nicodemus does, which he said to God about the disciples at least once in their hearing.

As an aside, Jesus explained to his disciples during his ministry and after the resurrection how someone like Nicodemus should have known these things from the Jewish scriptures. I’m going to take a guess that some of the passages are those referring to God writing God’s law in their hearts and minds (Jer. 31:33); creating a clean heart and renewing a right spirit in the contrite (Ps. 51:10); giving them a new heart and a new spirit (Ezek.36:26). But what this suggests is that Nicodemus kept the law and considered that he was righteous, which is why Jesus spoke to him like this. 

The long speech which follows is full of things to think about.  Jesus asserts that he came down from heaven, he takes on the prophetic title given Ezekiel, the Son of Man, and he foretells that he will be lifted up like the serpent which Moses lifted up in the wilderness. That story all by itself deserves a sermon.  And then Jesus tells why it is important to recognize who he is and start over anew:  whoever looks to Jesus on the cross and trusts him will not be annihilated, but will have everlasting life.  Jesus asserts that God sent the Son into the world not to condemn the world but to save the world, and that this is God’s gift of love to us.  What condemns any one is that Jesus has brought God’s light into the world and some have loved to stay in the shadows because they do not want their evil deeds exposed.  But those who love and do the truth run towards the light, where their deeds are clearly seen to have been done in God.  

This is so dense with hope for humanity. God loves us and the world. God wants to save us and the world.  Jesus came to make that obvious and to do the necessary work.

The song that has been going through my mind this Eastertide is “Big Bad John.” I won’t read all the lyrics to you, and they don’t all apply well, but this is the main story.  An outsider, a loner, and a somewhat terrifying figure, John came into town, no one knew from where, and took up working at the mine.  

Then came the day at the bottom of the mine

When a timber cracked and men started cryin'

Miners were prayin' and hearts beat fast

And everybody thought that they'd breathed their last, 'cept John

Through the dust and the smoke of this man-made hell

Walked a giant of a man that the miners knew well

Grabbed a saggin' timber, gave out with a groan

And like a giant Oak tree, he just stood there alone, Big John

…

And with all of his strength he gave a mighty shove

Then a miner yelled out, "There's a light up above"

And 20 men scrambled from a would-be grave

Now there's only one left down there to save, Big John

With jacks and timbers they started back down

Then came that rumble way down in the ground

And then smoke and gas belched out of that mine

Everybody knew it was the end of the line for Big John

…

Now they never reopened that worthless pit

They just placed a marble stand in front of it

These few words are written on that stand

"At the bottom of this mine lies a big, big man, Big John.” (written and sung by Jimmy Dean)

What Big Bad John did for the miners reminds me of what Jesus does for us every one of our days.

What’s been on my mind is that Jesus came into our dark, dusty, dangerous mine with us. This mine represents the way we often see our world. We’re like the servant who fell into a ditch on his way to run an errand for his boss, and who cannot get himself out of the muddy disgusting ditch.(See Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, ch. 51,https://www.gutenberg.org/files/52958/52958-h/52958-h.htm#THE_THIRTEENTH_REVELATION).  When the timber cracks, and it is always cracked and cracking, we start crying and praying. And then Jesus strides under the timber, or onto the cross, and lifts the rubble off of us, and we can see the light and escape. Jesus lifts this weight up for everyone all the time. It is an eternal job, an event in eternity. Jesus is always and forever lifting our shame, our guilt, our fear, our selfishness up so that we can escape into the light of day, the love of neighbor and the love of God.

Jeremiah wrote in his Lamentations, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness, O God.”

We also need to be born again every morning, born again into our confidence in the steadfast love of God. We lay it all down, every single morning, and invite the Spirit to tell us what to do in the moment.  

What do we lay down every morning, what do we let the Spirit blow through or away?

Nicodemus brought a lifetime of doing the right thing, of studying the scriptures, of being careful in his judgments, of caution—and of being male, a religious leader, well-off, spiritually comfortable.

Start over. Jesus says. We might feel a bit smug about Jesus setting Nicodemus straight, but we are Nicodemus in this encounter; we’re not Jesus.  We need every day to hear Jesus say, “Be born again.” Not words of comfort, but challenge.

In the first letter by John, he tells us what a being-born-again person does. When we do harm by our actions or by our inertia, we must not deny it or hide it, but instead admit it to God. When we tell the truth, running into the light of God, God is faithful and just and forgives us, and washes us clean from all of it.  Every time, not just once. Every day, be born again, start anew. Let Jesus lift the timber and rubble, and live the windswept life of the Spirit.