How Can This Be?

7 Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.' 8 The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." 9 Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?" (John 3:7-9)

Nicodemus went, in the darkness, to see the Light. He had seen and heard of the miracles Jesus had done, and he was certain these acts of compassion and power were from God alone.

But how could this be?

This wasn't what he expected salvation, or the messiah who would bring it, to look like. Born anew, born from above, born of water and the Spirit. Nicodemus wasn't sure how to understand Jesus' words. Wouldn't he and the other Pharisees have been the ones God spoke to? Wouldn't God's plan make sense to them? How could this be?

The first are last, the last are first, turn the other cheek, love your enemies, lay down your life to gain it. Jesus' words may seem as difficult to accept today as they were when he spoke them.

In Jesus we are born anew, from above, by the power of the Spirit. We may not understand how these things can be, but we can trust the great I Am who makes them so. Like Nicodemus, we can bring our doubts and questions to the One who was, and is and is to come, and we will find the

Light shines brightest in the dark.

14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 17 "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:14-17)