Costumes & Dead Bones

 

“October is my favorite color.” Not sure where I read that, but yes. An extra month of autumn, please.

Fresh air, orange pumpkins, green gourds and Halloween memories. As a kid, I bet you did what I did: Rummaged through Mom’s big box of old shoes, purses, dresses, fedoras, and flannel shirts. Those were the best costumes.

But, what about in our everyday life? It’s easy to put on masks, isn’t it?

Performing and people-pleasing can overshadow who we want to be on the inside.

Sometimes we wear our religion like a label. “Hello, I’m Baptist … I’m Catholic … I’m Lutheran … I’m a Christian …”

It’s become a cultural habit.

We grip it like a magic ticket. Punched and done, we act like it reserves us a place in heaven. As if that’s enough.

Maybe our faith is more like fire insurance. We’re not quite sure where we stand with God so we keep it in our back pocket “just in case.” We whip it out when things get bumpy.

Is it enough to obey rules? To check the boxes on a list of dos and don’ts? Do we want to stay in a dry, guilt-driven, and self-defeating system?

Nicodemus had an inkling there was more to this Jesus he’d been hearing about. He was a prominent member of the Jewish ruling council, the Supreme Court of Israel. Pharisees were all about power, prestige, and performance. Many were puffed up with pride, setting themselves above the common Jew. They relied on their strict rules and religious systems to make them right with God.

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, the Pharisees didn’t like Jesus much. They watched him close and asked loaded questions to set him up. All that talk about the Spirit and healing people on the Sabbath messed with their power and their comfortable, religious habits. They liked to keep things surface level with a few private sins on the side. They liked hard-set rules that kept people in line.

But, Nicodemus wanted more. Empty rules and religion no longer satisfied him. So, he risked his reputation and talked to Jesus, one-on-one.

“Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miracles you are doing if God were not with him.”

Jesus told him it’s good to believe his teachings and miracles. And it’s also good to obey laws 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.”

What? Born again? Is that really a thing?

God created us: Body, mind, and spirit. Until we allow our spirit to be reborn, part of the real us is hiding—is dead actually. We aren’t fully  living our divine design. Like Nicodemus, we sense something is missing inside. And we’re right.

Our relationship with our Creator is incomplete.

At Jesus’ last meal with his students ~ his diciples ~ he 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 person we were born to be is fully formed by something we can’t see and touch—the Spirit. 

The only way to be right with God is to have a relationship with Jesus. One-on-one. We do that by inviting him in to live in our spirit and to teach us to live without sin so we can be his hands and heart to a seriously  messed-up world.

So, what about Nicodemus?

We don’t hear about him again  until after Jesus’ death. He wraps Jesus’ body in spiced linen and puts him in a tomb. Which seems nice and appropriate, but here’s the kicker: It was a huge no-no for Pharisees to touch dead bodies. Nicodemus would have been “unclean,” and unfit to do his religious duties. Displeasing his colleagues, he’d  have lost respect. His position and performance sullied.

But, you see, Nicodemus shed his church-y costume. I believe he was born again and grieving. He chose a relationship with Jesus to fill the longings of his soul. Jesus filled that empty space in Nicodemus. The place  reserved only for the God who made him. His insides became more important than his outside. He was tired of being defined by performance and his need for approval. So, he gave up surface level religion and chose a one-on-one relationship with Jesus.

Nicodemus was reborn and he was free.  To live a new life in that spirit-to-Spirit connection. 

And it all began with a simple conversation.

😎❤🕊☮

 

“If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” ~ Romans 10:9

“So there is now no condemnation awaiting those who belong to Christ Jesus. For the power of the life-giving Spirit—and this power is mine through Christ Jesus—has freed me from the vicious circle of sin and death. We aren’t saved from sin’s grasp by knowing the commandments of God because we can’t and don’t keep them, but God put into effect a different plan to save us. He sent his own Son in a human body like ours—except that ours are sinful—and destroyed sin’s control over us by giving himself as a sacrifice for our sins. So now we can obey God’s laws if we follow after the Holy Spirit and no longer obey the old evil nature within us.” ~ Romans 8:1-4