I had forgotten that Jesus spoke the words of John 3:16 in a conversation with Nicodemus, the same conversation that begins so oddly.
Nicodemus: We know you must have come from God. No one could perform the miracles you do otherwise.
Jesus: Believe me, no one can be saved -- no one can experience God's decisive action in this world -- unless he is born again.
(Talk about a non-sequitur.)
Nicodemus: What do you mean? A grown man cannot re-enter his mother's womb! (Jesus' line about being born again must have sounded as improbable to Nicodemus as Jesus' later insistence that his followers eat his body and drink his blood.)
Nicodemus was a Pharisee, one of the leaders in the Jewish community. I imagine him as a man who lived in his head a lot. He came to Jesus to make sense of things, to get clear answers and figure out who he was exactly, but as with the rich young ruler yesterday, Jesus drives the stiletto. The work of God cannot be reasonably filed and sorted into manageable bits. "You want to know who I am? You want to experience God's kingdom? Then you must be born again. Who you are, what you've done up til now, none of that matters. You must start a whole new life -- born of water and the Spirit." I wish John had recorded Nicodemus' response, but I think we can be certain he left with a lot to think about that night .
Jesus was calling Nicodemus to abandonment: Give up your old life. Begin anew. But Nicodemus didn't need to take the first step. God already had. He set the standard for abandonment: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life," John 3:16. And what is this eternal life? "Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent," John 17:3.
Relationship -- that's the goal, the reason "God gave Himself absolutely." Our abandonment -- our disregard for every concern other than being with him, knowing him -- is the only appropriate response.
I watched a video of Timothy Keller, who wrote the book, A Prodigal God. I haven't read the book yet, but I'm intrigued. "Prodigal" means recklessly extravagant,not wayward like I used to think. In the story of the prodigal son, the father is recklessly extravagant -- first in giving his younger son the requested early inheritance and then in welcoming him back without remonstrance. God is not ordinary. He does not do the expected thing. Why do I always think he wants that from me?
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