The way to life is death

by Jeremy Lie

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For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him (John 3:17).

Read John 3:1–17

I’m not sure if you’ve ever noticed this, but did you catch that Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night? He’s curious, cautious and carrying questions he can’t quite ask in daylight. He’s a respected teacher, deeply religious, yet something is missing. Jesus doesn’t ease him in with compliments or comfortable theology. Instead, he goes straight to the heart: ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’

Nicodemus is confused. How can someone start over? How can a life already lived be reborn? Jesus explains that this new birth is not something we can manufacture. It is not achieved through increasing knowledge, morality or effort. It is the intimate work of the Spirit – mysterious, unseen, yet unmistakably real, like the wind. We may not be able to control it, but we can feel its power and see its effects. In fact, the Greek word for Spirit, Pneuma (πνεῦμα), is also commonly translated as breath or wind.

At the centre of this conversation, though, is self-sacrificial love. Jesus hyperlinks his own story to the story of the bronze snake being ‘lifted up’ in the wilderness. He is both prophesying his journey to the cross and laying out the roadmap to be born again. If we want to be born again, the way is the cross. The way is daily death to self and resurrection in Christ. It is not a death anchored in piety or self-pity, but self-sacrificial love.

‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son.’ God’s love is not distant or conditional. It is active and intimate. He gave. Giving of self is in God’s DNA and, as people created in God’s image, so too is it in ours. When we fast forward to John’s account of Jesus’ crucifixion in John 19:30, as Jesus breathes his final breath before death, it tells us he ‘gave up’ his spirit. In Greek, paredōken (παρέδωκεν) is also translated ‘hand over’ or ‘entrust’. That is the invitation of the cross. To let go of control and to entrust our spirit to God so that we may be born again with Christ.

Heavenly Father, help us entrust our spirits to you so that your Holy Spirit may work in us and through us. You are the potter, and we are the clay. Shape us and mould us daily into the image of love that Jesus demonstrated to us most fully on the cross. In his name, we pray, Amen.

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