“October is my favorite color.” Not sure where I read that, but yes. Year round autumn is fine with me. It’s the weather and the colors and the Halloween memories. Like rummaging through mom’s big box of old shoes, purses, dresses, fedoras, and flannel shirts.
It’s fun to dress up and pretend on occasion. But, do we wear costumes in our everyday life?
Is performance and approval more important than who we are on the inside?
We can wear religion like a label. “Hello, I’m Baptist … I’m Catholic … I’m Lutheran … I’m Jewish.”
We can grip it like a ticket. It’s punched and done and we’re bound for heaven. Or perhaps our faith is more like fire insurance, because we’re not quite sure where we stand in our relationship with God.
Is it enough to obey rules and do all the “right” things?
Nicodemus had an inkling there was more. He was a prominent member of the Jewish ruling council, the Supreme Court of Israel. Pharisees were all about power and performance. They wore faith like a costume.
Jesus called them “white-washed tombs, which look fine on the outside but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all kinds of rottenness.”
Whoa.
As you can imagine, Pharisees didn’t like him much. They watched him close and asked loaded questions. All that talk about the Spirit and healing people on the Sabbath messed with their religious system and comfortable habits. They liked to keep things surface level. They liked hard-set rules. They kept people in line.
But, Nicodemus wanted more than rules and religion. He wanted relationship. So, he talked to Jesus, one-on-one.
Jesus told him it’s good to believe his miracles and teachings. It’s good to obey rules and do what’s right, but “Unless a person is born from above, it’s not possible to see what I’m pointing to: God’s kingdom.”
Born from above? That’s a bit weird.
My friend, we are designed with a body and a spirit. Our spirit is part of our original creation. Until we allow it to be reborn, part of us is hiding—is dead actually. Without spiritual rebirth, we aren’t fully alive. Our relationship with our Creator is incomplete and we feel something’s missing. We won’t have the abundance Jesus offers.
At his last meal with the disciples, Jesus told them, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Then he made a promise.
“I will ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate [helper], who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth.”
The next time we see Nicodemus, he wraps Jesus’ body in spiced linen and puts him in a tomb. Pharisees weren’t supposed to touch dead bodies. But, Nicodemus had shed his churchy costume.
Who he was on the inside was more important that who he was on the outside. He gave up surface level religion and chose a soul-deep, one-on-one relationship with Jesus. He decided to stop being defined by power and performance and a need for approval and live in that spirit-to-Spirit connection. Nicodemus was reborn.
And he was free.
New, abundant life. And it all began with a simple conversation.
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