Good Shepherd, Pocatello and Emanuel, Blackfoot – March 1, 2026

John 3:1-17

There are things I absolutely love about this morning’s gospel passage (the promises, the abundance, the curiosity), and I promise I will get to them. But I think we first must contend with how harmful interpretations of this story of Nicodemus and Jesus nighttime conversation has been to some. This is the passage of scripture, after all, where we get the phrase Born Again. I have rarely been able to satisfy people who have asked me if I have been born again. 

My story is utterly boring. My parents took me to the Baptismal Fount in Roseville, Minnesota when I was two months old. They read the scriptures to me at home, took me to worship and Sunday School, taught me how to pray. They encouraged my questions and inquiry. Along the way, I had some mountaintop experiences, moments when I felt particularly close to God and to the Body of Christ, the church, but I never had one born-again moment.

The problem with born-again moments is not the experiences people had. I never want to discount that people have experiences like the one the Apostle Paul had on the Damascus Road or maybe even the immediate conversion or born again experience one of you had. They are real! The problem is when those experiences are the measure of authentic faith. The problem is when the born-again moment, or lack of, becomes one more reason to say that some people are in and other are out. 

Nothing about Jesus’ ministry indicates that he wanted to build up the Body of Christ simply so that human beings will break it apart. This is the same Messiah, the same Christ, who will break several rules for the sake of relationship when he talks with a Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus will heal a man born blind, restoring him to community. He will even raise a man from the dead. This is a Messiah whose agenda is restoration, transformation, and abundant life for all of creation. It is not an agenda of shame or division or cutting people or entire communities down. 

It does little good and can actually lead to a great deal of harm, to compare stories of how precisely we experience new life in Jesus Christ. Jesus also is clear that “the wind blows where it will.” People who try to dictate the activity of the Holy Spirit are asking for trouble. We can be sure that we do receive abundant life through Jesus. We can be sure of this without dictating how it happens for each individual. What is certain is that Jesus offer to be born anew or born from above is for everyone, including you, and it is pure gift. 

At the center of this story of Jesus and his night visitor is the beloved John 3:16, perhaps the best-known verse is the New Testament, if not the Bible. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him many not perish but may have eternal life.” Is it enough to say we believe Jesus? Is that faith? Yes, we trust God for mercy and abundant life. There’s nothing we can do to earn such gifts, ever. And usually, we get in trouble when we put our trust in only ourselves, when we turn in on ourselves and forget to trust God. To be born anew or born from above is to be reoriented—to trust God above all else. 

When parents bring a child to the baptismal font or when an adult comes to the font, they come putting their trust in God as the source of mercy and abundant life today, born anew. Baptism is then once and for all—you are baptized once and that sign on your forehead is never erased—sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.

And at the same time, we remember our baptisms daily. In many ways our understanding of remembering our baptismal identity daily is mirrored by people who are going through addiction recovery. People in Alcoholics Anonymous never quit introducing themselves as alcoholics. They are never cured. Their introduction at each meeting is the same. “My name is …. And I am an alcoholic. And every time they are triggered, they work the twelve steps.” What’s more, they know that they cannot do any of their recovery work in isolation. 

Likewise, each day we remember our identity as a child of God. We will encounter adversity, evil, temptation. We will, as the old confession states, sin against God and one another. We will hurt individuals in our lives and we will participate in cultures and communities that hurt people, some of which we are aware of and some of which we have to be made aware of. But sometimes we get it right, sometimes human beings do bear fruit in acts of kindness or advocacy or solidarity with the downtrodden. We also become followers of Jesus in community. And in the midst of all of it, our sinfulness and our fruit-bearing moments, we remain God’s beloved children. I was reminded of this a few days ago.

Friday night I went with a friend to see the Broadway musical The Lion King. I listened to the Broadway soundtrack often during my first call in rural Iowa and Friday night I realized the music is still in my bones. My favorite song is sung during the second act.

Rafiki, the sort of shaman figure, finds a lonely and forlorn young adult Simba in the jungle and explains to the lion that his father Mufasa lives on through the song He Lives in You. Simba follows Rafiki to a pool of water, which always reminds me of baptism, in which Simba sees only his own reflection at first and is skeptical. As the song becomes quieter, however, the face of Mufasa appears above the stage in the starry night sky. He tells Simba to “remember who you are” before fading away. 

He lives in you
He lives in me
He watches over
Everything we see
Into the water
Into the truth
In your reflection
He lives in you

It’s an imperfect comparison, but I often substitute God lives in you for He lives in you. We believe that in the waters of Holy Baptism we are united with Jesus Christ. We are bold to say that we attempt to be Little Christs in the world. Created in God’s image, marked with the cross, you are never separated from the love of God and you never lose your identity as a child of God. You are born anew to this identity each day. God lives in you. If that isn’t new life, I don’t know what is.

We may laugh at Nicodemus, who is trying to imagine crawling back into a womb and seems to misunderstand Jesus at every turn of phrase. I am thankful for the way today’s story makes room for some wonder. Somehow it allows me to trust that the Holy Spirit is as active today as it was that night so long ago. “The 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.” 

We do not have to have PhDs in theology to trust the triune God who sustains you and gives you faith when we are unable to believe or trust on your own. Please keep asking questions even as you trust the God who took on human flesh and began turning the world order upside down, was crucified and then rose from the dead. God said yes to the abundant life in the age to come but also in the here and now. God’s big yes at the resurrection makes your ongoing yes at the font possible. Amen.