The scripture reading for The Journey today is John 3:1-8. I saw something in this passage that I’ve never seen before (after 40+ years of reading this familiar text). Nicodemus says to Jesus, “we know that you are from God.” Then Jesus does not deny it, nor does he say that Nicodemus couldn’t know that. He simply states that only a person who has been born from above can see the Kingdom. In verse 8 he says that the person who has been born of the Spirit is like the wind. It is hard to see, but you can tell it is working.
I’ve always read this to hear Jesus telling Nicodemus that he cannot see the Kingdom and needs to get the Spirit into him. This time, as I read it, however, it sounded to me that Jesus was acknowledging that Nicodemus would not have been able to recognize that Jesus is from God if he wasn’t already born of the Spirit. Therefore, the Spirit is moving in unexpected places, even in the Sanhedrin and in the supposed enemies of the Way (I’m thinking about the author and readers of John that are looking back on this encounter from their perspective).
Ironically, Nicodemus doesn’t understand it in these terms and within this metaphor. Can this enemy of God already have eyes to see and ears to hear before he correctly understands or has the proper vocabulary?
How might this reading impact our interpretation of the rest of John 3?
