John Chapter 3 - Windbreaks in Church? Part 2 of 2
John’s Chapter 3 - Part 2 of 2
The Eleventh Commandment
The Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not bring a wind-break to church
Part 1 explored Jesus’ vision for Nicodemus, and, by extension, for us that we must drop our rules-based attempts to please God and become wind-blown individuals, blown around by the Spirit of God; the more adventurous and less predictable life in the Kingdom of God.
Nicodemus replied: ‘How can these things be?’
Jesus continues: ‘Are you the teacher of Israel and do not know these things?’
Is this tongue-in-cheek or genuine astonishment?
Maybe a friendly put-down. Nicodemus was a man who taught others. He appears twice more in John’s gospel. In Chapter 7 he reminds the ruling council, the Sanhedrin, that Jesus should not be tried without being heard. And after the crucifixion, it is Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea who prepare Jesus’ body for burial. He had clearly sided with Jesus.
He may have taught others and yet, Jesus is pointing out, the scriptures always pointed to the life of the Spirit that was to come, through the death, resurrection, and ascension of the Messiah.
For example, in Ezekiel 36 v 26,27 ‘I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh and I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes…’
It was always there in the scriptures. Religious fervour and human efforts to obey the Law are doomed because we have ‘hearts of stone’ and our repeated failure to keep the Law, or any moral code or religious discipline, only serves to reveal the truth of the hardness of our hearts. But Ezekiel’s prophecy opens the hope that God will do the heart surgery needed, and come and live in us, so that we are empowered by His Spirit, just like Jesus.
Jesus was the forerunner. The Son. But through His death and resurrection – as he said ‘Unless a seed falls into the ground it remains alone. But if it dies it produces many seeds’ John 12 v 24. Each believer is to be – in the well-known words of C S Lewis - a ‘mini-Christ’. In technical language: the ‘only begotten Son’ (John 3 v 16) has become the ‘firstborn among many brothers and sisters’ (Rom 8 v 29)
Jesus was gently chiding Nicodemus for not knowing this. Jesus did not criticise his attempts of keeping the Law or trying to live a good life and one in reverence to God, but He did open, I like to believe, Nicodemus’ eyes to what God could do for him rather than what he could do for God.
Repentance in this context is the abandonment of trying to please God with religious observance or even trying to live a good life as an agnostic, humanist, or atheist. It is the taking down of any windbreaks and yielding to the Spirit of Jesus to do His work.
Yielding…trusting
Pastors, elders, Ministers, Vicars, Priests, leaders…must have faith in the wind of the Spirit blowing through the lives of your congregations, reminding everyone to trust in the Spirit and be ready. As Paul says ‘be filled with the Spirit’, which means go on being filled. It’s so easy to replace the spontaneous life of the Spirit with human planning and ability.
Jesus’ reply to Nicodemus ‘Are you the teacher of Israel and do not know these things?’ could equally be applied to many today: ‘Are you a Vicar, Priest, Minister, Pastor, Leader, Deacon, Worship Leader, Small Group Leader, Youth Leader and do not know these things?’
Nicodemus’ reaction seems to be thoughtful rather than to avoid its implications: it’s so easy to pretend to be offended when, in truth, all we are doing is running away. Judging from his actions later in John’s gospel he responded to Jesus’ words and took the courageous decision to leave the apparent security of his Pharisee identity and take the step to trust in Jesus’ words.