The born-again Christian! To the rest of the world and probably to many of us - the phase born-again conjures up a particular image of a Christian. For some of us it's a stereotype that makes us shudder.

Nicodemus was a scholar, a learned man and a religious leader of the people; Nicodemus was a religious man who paid very close attention to the religious laws of his day. He was a moral man. He had a good reputation. He was shocked by what Jesus told him

Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." There are three translations of the words Jesus would've used, and only one of them is "born again"

The first translation means regeneration - "from the beginning, completely and radically". It's not the complete transforming of a person's physical appearance like in Doctor Who - but it does mean we are starting a new life, retaining all of the memories and experiences of our former lives.

A literal interpretation is what Nicodemus took Jesus to mean, literally having a second birth involving our mothers. Now, with Nicodemus being such a learned man, I find it a bit difficult to take it that this was his real understanding of what Jesus had said. Within the customs of the Jews if someone converted to Judaism from another faith then this was a phrase often used to describe their life-change. So perhaps what Nicodemus was actually asking was "is this possible?" or "could I actually get a second chance?" but as for the practical getting our mothers involved for a second time, this isn't what Jesus was referring to.

The third possible meaning is "born from above" defining that God is involved and a part of this re-birth.

The reality is that as baptised Christians we are all born-again Christians. Even if we were christened as children and don't have an adult baptism, then we will probably go through a phase in our life when our faith is renewed - when the faith of our childhood, which will probably have been influenced or dictated by the school we went to or the faith of our parents or family, becomes our faith - it stops being behaviour and starts being belief - we start our own journey of discovery.

At this point, having just been born (again) we become spiritual infants - there is no harm in recognising that we have much to learn and that we want to be born again in the Spirit - it's alright being born again - the difficult thing is that we then have to grow up.

When we don't - well, our behaviour doesn't reflect that of the mature Christian - we are still focussed on our own questions rather than how we can help other people answer theirs - we are obsessed with our own journey rather than sharing the walk with others - we continue to focus on our own needs rather than the needs of others.

And then there's the adolescent Christian - at a point in life when everything seems to revolve around conflict and no one understands them - the one who's only too happy to bear a grudge - the one who prefers argument rather than action - the one who is more interested in courting other people's approval rather than God's!

The mature Christian is one who recognises their own call in the world - who enters into a mature relationship with God:

because God wants us to connect with him
as one who nurtures us
as a mother nurtures her children
as the rain nurtures the dry ground
as a friend nurtures another friend at a table - with bread and wine -
and a communion of mind and heart and soul.

Coming from a family with an atheist background, I wasn't christened as a child, so when I decided to get baptised as an adult it was a very big thing for me. I didn't want it to be some brief splashing with water - I wanted it to say something about what the step meant to me. So, even though I can't swim I ended up having a full immersion and it was a truly memorable occasion for me, because it did indeed mark a change in my life.

I am not the man I once was - the person I used to be was really not very nice to be around most of the time, I remember standing in the pool and wanting to leave that person behind, wanting to leave so many mistakes and wrongs behind. And God did indeed answer my prayers.

Being born again isn't about suddenly getting a new personality or suddenly finding the time in your life to do new things. For those of us familiar with working with computers, perhaps one of the most interesting analogies is when Bill Gates releases a new version of Windows - you still get the same life you had before - but you have the power to do new things - to find that the things you used to find really hard, maybe they just got a little easier. Accepting Jesus and God into our hearts forces us to upgrade our lives - there are still bugs in the way it works and things we may still want to change - but we can move forward into the world confident that we are one of gods children and that we are not alone.

Amen.

(Dan Joseph)

This sermon was first preached in the Metropolitan Community Church of Manchester. Click here for further information.