Scripture: John 3:1-21, John 19:38-42
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Nicodemus came at night, his silhouette barely visible against Jerusalem’s shadows. The darkness wasn’t just physical—it shrouded his soul. A Pharisee, a teacher of Israel, a man who had spent a lifetime mastering the Law, now stood face to face with something he could not grasp. The very structure of his faith trembled beneath the weight of one radical idea:
“You must be born again.”
These words must have shattered Nicodemus’s carefully constructed theology like a stone through stained glass. How could a man return to his mother’s womb? How could decades of certainty crumble in a single conversation?
But rebirth is rarely instantaneous.
We are not so different from Nicodemus. We, too, approach the divine with intellect bristling, reputations carefully guarded. We want revelation without vulnerability,
transformation without disorientation.
But the soul doesn’t work that way.
Nicodemus left that night unsettled, unanswered. And yet, something had shifted.
We meet him again at the foot of the cross. The man who once hid in darkness now stands in broad daylight, cradling the broken body of the one he once questioned. Between these two moments lies a journey—not a lightning strike of conversion, but a slow awakening. A gradual surrender. A quiet death to his former self.
And then, the most remarkable act: he anoints Jesus’s body with myrrh and aloes—seventy-five pounds of burial spices, an extravagant amount fit for a king. The man who had approached Jesus in secrecy now honors him with a burial that speaks of allegiance, of love.
The one who once questioned now proclaims—not with words, but with action.
The Long Road of Rebirth
What parts of ourselves are we protecting from rebirth? What cherished identities or beliefs might need to die before something new can emerge?
Jesus’s call to be “born again” isn’t about a moment—it’s about a process. In Greek, the phrase can also mean “born from above”—a transformation so profound it must come from beyond us. Rebirth is rarely comfortable. It undoes us before it remakes us.
Carl Jung once wrote, “There is no birth of consciousness without pain.” Nicodemus understood this in ways his first-night questions couldn’t yet fathom. The kingdom breaks in not through our certainties, but through our wounds, our questions, our darkest nights of not-knowing.
And yet, if we are willing to endure the slow undoing, the emergence from the shadows—there is new life waiting.
Prayer
Divine Mystery, I come to you as Nicodemus did—curious yet cautious, drawn yet resistant. Illuminate the parts of my soul still hiding in darkness. Give me courage to ask the questions that frighten me, to embrace the death of my false certainties, and to surrender to the slow, painful rebirth you offer. Walk with me through this labyrinth of transformation, knowing I cannot rush what must unfold in its own sacred time. Amen.
Daily Practice
Identify one belief or aspect of your spiritual identity that feels threatened or uncomfortable when questioned. Sit with this discomfort in meditation for 15 minutes, not trying to resolve it, but simply witnessing it as Nicodemus witnessed Jesus. What might need to die before something new can be born?