2nd week in Easter, Monday – 20th April 2020 — Gospel: John 3, 1-8
Need for an enlightened rebirth
To be born again, as Nicodemus understood it, would mean altering one’s ascribed honour status in a very radical way and he was not ready to trade his honourable position in society for an uncertain new status. Therefore Jesus answers him with two synonymous parallelisms. The first is: “no one can see/enter the kingdom of God.” The second is: “without being born from above/of water and Spirit.” Seeing and entering the kingdom are two ways of expressing the same reality, as are also being born from above and being born of water and Spirit. For John, the person who has been enlightened by an experience with God’s only Son, Jesus, can contemplate (see) the kingdom and participate fully in it (enter it). Experiencing the kingdom is a present possibility but only for those who have been spiritually awakened to it (compare to Rom 4,13-17). Water and Spirit refers to one thing, not two, and could be linked as “water which is Spirit”. Water is used in John to point at the lower, physical world (1,33; 3,23; 2,6-7; 4,6-7; 5,7) but also at the spiritual world (4,14; 7,37-39). Spiritually, water and Spirit can also refer to baptism and the new life in the Spirit that was linked with this sacrament. At any rate, Jesus is pointing at a spiritual dimension of life that has been completely missed by Nicodemus.
