Nick at Night???? Nah... not really.

"I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." John 3:3

Well, I could take the Real Live Preacher up on a suggestion and write about "Nic at Night" but, I won't. I'll leave that for the more skilled amongst us. (BTW, Nic... as in Nicodemus... the one Jesus is addressing in the above verse.)

For years, I've always read that verse and wondered. Like Nicodemus, I wonder how can one be "born again". What does one have to do? I know, unlike Nicodemus, that this no physical birth or rebirth that Jesus spoke of. It's a spiritual birth. But just what work do we have to do, what books do we read, what changes do we have to make in our lives to accomplish this act of spiritual rebirth? When will we be ready for that rebirth?

I remember as a teenager being heavily involved in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in my town. When most normal teenagers were out gallivanting about on Saturday night, I was at Prayer Meeting. I met a girl there, we dated (almost always with both sets of parents present) eventually got engaged, and the married. I remember that night I prayed for the Gift of the Holy Spirit, and the experience of receiving that gift. I remember that was the night I experienced my "Born Again!" experience.

So much water has flown by that bridge since then. So many miles have been walked on my journey. The hands of the clock have spun far too many times to revisit that night, to renounce it or to embrace it. Was it genuine? I don't know. I can't say, and I don't really care to revisit my beliefs on that score.

Because today, I feel differently towards that verse than I did back then (almost 30 years ago!). I still wonder at what things do I have to do to warrant that experience of being born again. As I age, not so gracefully, I might add, I am gaining an inkling that we are not born again, in any sense, physical or spiritual, as a fait accompli. The rebirth Jesus spoke of must of necessity, it seems to me, be a process not an act. It's something we are constantly undergoing.

Today, however, I read two passages of scripture that really put my focus on this rebirthing process. The first one is the same verse, but from "The Message" version of the bible. "Unless a person is born from ABOVE..." That ever so subtly (or maybe not so subtly) changes the whole flavor of the verse. Now it's no longer "A person must be..." That kind of change answers, in part, the "What must I DO?" question that arises from the verse... we don't do anything, the rebirth is from above... it's, dare I say it? A gift from God, this rebirth is part of the constant flow of Grace from above that is ours for the taking.

But a second verse, one from the Old Testament (or as my church likes to term it "Ancient Hebrews") really makes this strike home. Isaiah writes that God says:

"I have done it, and I will carry you;
And I will bear you and I will deliver you." (Isaiah 46:4)

I have done it. What? I have caused your new you to come into being, perhaps?
I will carry you and I will bear you... now THERE'S a pregnant turn of phrase! I see it now, this image of a pregnant God, carrying my NEW, reborn spirit.
I will deliver you. Whoa! That's not a passive thought, to me... it's declarative... and more importantly it's a promise! I WILL deliver you.

This will come, it will happen, I WILL deliver you, you WILL receive this rebirth from Above.

And I believe that. I believe it because I believe in this journey I'm on, this process of ever becoming a new being... drawing nearer, chronologically and physically to the Other Within.

On the day I make that connection, on the day I come face to face with that One Within, that is the day I'll receive my full rebirth.