At Linden Elementary School, and TTJC Karate, and perhaps in other places around Oak Ridge as well, I’m known by another name. People there don’t call me Kerra or Pastor; they know me as “Cade’s Mom.” Of course that’s how I know the other moms too – Sam’s mom, Isaac’s Mom, Abby’s Mom. And from what I understand from talking to George and Irene, in Ghana that practically becomes a woman’s name once she has her first child. It sounds kind of strange. Does that mean that women who are mothers lose their other identities? Or does it only mean that busy parents don’t take the time to learn each other’s “real” names in a town like ours? I’m not sure exactly.
However, I do think it speaks to childbirth and the raising of children as a life-transforming experience. It certainly was for me. Even more so than becoming someone’s wife - becoming someone’s mother changes everything. It’s more than the incredible journey through pregnancy and labor. It’s more than learning to adapt to those early sleepless nights. It’s more than sending your child off to their first day of kindergarten. And although I haven’t experienced it yet, it’s probably more than having your first real adult to adult moment with your grown child. It’s the culmination of all those things, all those growing moments for both children and parents. But it all happens in that amazing moment of first breath drawn in a new life. I was Kerra – child of Kermit and Frances, wife of Chuck, pastor, friend, colleague, and then it happened after a long night of intense pain, fear, and raw emotion, at 7:39 a.m. on March 19, 1999 I became Cade’s Mom.
There’s a reason that Jesus uses such warm parental images to talk about God. We can understand what it means. People don’t have to be biological mothers or fathers to understand the need for nurture and the pain of letting go. To think that God welcomes us unconditionally like a Father or could nurture us like a Mother are comforting thoughts for many believers. The first time you really understand yourself to be God’s child can be an overwhelming experience of love and gratitude. But then, Jesus uses the image of birth to say something different regarding our human condition – something that changes everything.
Nicodemus, a Pharisee, a leader of the Jews comes to him under the cover of night with a burning curiosity. “Rabbi,” he says, “we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do the signs you do apart from the presence of God.” And Jesus answer provokes even greater question, for he says, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”
Jesus seems to imply that an understanding of God’s purpose is not attainable without the impossible – without being born from above, or as many around us in the Bible belt South would say, without being born again. Physically, it just doesn’t happen that way. But what was it that Jesus was telling Nicodemus, and what might he have to say to us today?
There are two “birth” experiences according to Jesus – one by water, and by that I’m assuming he means our natural birth – and one by the Spirit, a birth that marks our entry into a second stage of life, one that renames us and transforms the very heart of who we are. Since the phrase has become so flippant in our culture, it might be helpful from a mother’s perspective to remind you of the nature of this metaphor. Being born again seems to conjure up a conversion experience, that much is true, but from the perspective of the one giving birth, it can be long and difficult as was my experience, or quite abrupt according to the experience of my sister-in-law who was pulled over by a police officer on the way to the hospital only to give birth less than 20 minutes after arrival. It’s messy. It hurts. It can be depressing. It focuses the mother inward and makes the outward world appear foggy and less real. It’s spiritual. It’s earthy. It’s not easily controllable – even by the medical community. Every birth is different – even with the same mother.
So I suspect that our spiritual births are no less varied than the natural ones. Some transformations happen over time, others in a heartbeat. It can be messy, sad, joyful, and confusing all at the same time. It can be an inward experience of grace, or an earthy experience of real life. What is absolutely true is that much like pregnancy and much like natural childbirth – little is left up to us to make it happen. We merely cooperate in the process. It’s in God’s control, not ours.
“The Spirit blows where it chooses” not where we choose for it to go. We may hear it but we don’t know exactly where it’s coming from or where it is going. We can only know that once we have been touched – somehow our lives are transformed.
Paul uses the metaphor of childbirth too in his letter to the Romans, although he says that the whole creation - human beings included - is groaning as in labor until the fulfillment of the kingdom. We may not be able to “see” in this lifetime. Perhaps the ability to truly understand comes in an afterlife experience, for Jesus mentions his role in bringing about eternal life through this discourse with Nicodemus as well. We may not exactly know if our spiritual births will be complete in this lifetime.
What we can be sure of in the meantime is that God loves us – in fact loves the whole world. Notice what isn’t said in scripture. The author doesn’t pick out the chosen nation of Israel, or the church that will be built, nor does he say that only certain people who believe the right things are the only ones God loves. This passage says that God loves the whole world – enough to let go of God’s most precious thing on our behalf.
Our children are our most precious things. Columbia Seminary professor, Anna Carter Florence articulated that in a recent visit to Maryville College. How we take care of our most precious things, children, scripture, our values, says much about who we are, and who we’re trying to become. God did not spare the most precious thing in love for us. God gave us Jesus, willingly and knowingly. Was death a guarantee? Yep. But at some moment every parent has that painful, gut-wrenching realization that one day their child, their most precious child, will die also. No one gets out alive.
I heard recently someone say that for God, every one of us is an only child – no comparisons – no sharing of time – no favorites. We are all uniquely special and wonderful and absolute treasures. I think this knowledge does have the power to change us, to make us different somehow.
I only wish that I could be more specific – to say what “spiritual birth” will be like for you. But I can no more tell you how to be born from above than I could tell my sister exactly what childbirth would be like. Not only did she have a C-section, and I didn’t. No matter what I would have said – surely on many issues I would have been wrong. Every birth is unique. Every story of being born into the Spirit is also unique and full of its own opaqueness. Jesus didn’t give us a formula to follow or a long-range plan for salvation. He promised us God’s love. That’s enough. What follows from that is something of a mystery. You can’t make it happen, but it does in the very fullness of time, it does.
Amen.