Earth+Water+Breath = Life
Round Two: “My point, once again, is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically,
but that they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally.[i] -John Dominic Crossan
Case in point, John 3:1-17: almost everything in the Gospel
of John is either symbolic or referential to Hebrew Scripture – The Old
Testament. This is particularly true of this story about Nicodemus, a Pharisee
and a community leader.
The Pharisees were just one group among many in 1st
century Israel. There were also Sadducees, Essenes, Zealots, followers of John
the Baptist, and then sub-groups, or “Schools” with individual leaders among
the Pharisees like Hillel, Shammai, Akiva, and Gamaliel, some of whom were
contemporaries of Jesus.
In this pluralistic stew of parties, the Pharisees taught
and interpreted Torah, the Way of the Lord God of Israel, And, they were among
the most popular party among the common people. In part because, according to
the Jewish historian Josephus, they “alleviated the harsher prescriptions of
the Bible in civil and criminal law.” [ii]
They also made efforts to incorporate certain holiness practices meant for the
priests and Sadducees in Jerusalem and the Temple common in the home: such as
washing one’s hands before a meal. This would introduce a sense of Temple
holiness into the life of the household. They also believed in resurrection,
unlike the Sadducees who did not. The Pharisees also held different
interpretations of Torah amongst themselves, and as such had much in common
with Jesus and his way of living and teaching. Of those with whom Jesus challenged
the teachings of others, the Pharisees were very much the good guys.
Nicodemus appears to know what Jesus has been up to so far:
the wedding reception where Jesus turns water into wine, and his symbolic
turning of the tables in the Temple precinct, which had more to do with the
Temple officers collaborating with the Roman occupation than any financial or
theological issues. Not that the priests and Sadducees had much choice in the
matter – they were appointed, forced, by Rome to be a liaison between the
Empire and the people. Most everyone came to resent them. One might guess that
the Pharisees would have found Jesus’s action at the Temple to be an
appropriate prophetic judgment on the current state of affairs.
Nic wants to know more about Jesus. His arrival at night
surely foreshadows what will soon be a dark time to come when Jesus confronts
the authorities once again in Jerusalem. Nic recognizes the signs Jesus
performed in Cana and Jerusalem. He concludes that Jesus must be a man in whom
God’s presence is revealed here and now. Jesus answers him, “Very truly, I
tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”
The Greek word “above” can mean “again,” and has often been translated as such.
But as the conversation continues, “from above” seems to recall Jesus’s baptism
by John in which God’s breath, God’s ruach, comes down from above to
land on Jesus, declaring him as God’s Son, God’s Beloved. In the past
translators usually translate the Greek word for ruach, pneuma,
as ‘spirit’ instead of breath, but as we will see, breath is what makes the
most sense. So far, though, none of this is making sense to poor Nic who asks, “How
can this be?”
Jesus goes on to say that one must be born of breath and of
water – just as God from above all the way back in Genesis 2 took a handful of
earth and water and breathed into it to form the first human – Adam. Sometimes referred
to as ‘earth-guy,’ or, ‘mud-guy.’ Those who first heard or read storyteller
John’s account would know that Jesus symbolically takes us back to the
beginning. Indeed, the Gospel of John begins with the very first words of
scripture, “In the beginning…” Jesus goes on to say, ‘Don’t be confused. Surely
you know this. We know not where the breath comes from or where it goes.’ Again,
Nic asks, “How can this be?” To which Jesus says, in effect, ‘It just is –
surely you Pharisees know this as well as I do. Like many things, it is not
easily explainable, and yet, we know it to be true. We need to accept that the
breath of God can neither be explained, nor can we control it – yet, we know
that the breath is life. We know water is life. We know that we are of the
earth, we are dust, star dust at that! Earth+Water+Breath = Life!
Then follows yet another reference, now to the time Moses held
up a bronze serpent on a pole in the wilderness! The people were being bitten
by snakes because they had complained about being in the wilderness for too
long, and were tired of eating manna; tired of daily bread. So, God relented,
and told Moses to erect the bronze serpent, so that when the people looked at
it they would be healed, they would be saved. For our God is a gracious God,
abounding in steadfast love, merciful, slow to anger, and relents from
punishing.[iii]
This reference foreshadows the cross of Christ, which when we look up at him we
too can be healed, made whole once again.
Here the translator’s punctuation is confusing. It looks as
if Jesus says the following, when it seems to make more sense that this is a
summary of this episode by the narrator:
“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.
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.”
We are so used to seeing John 3:16 displayed in the end zone
during extra-points, or behind the catcher in baseball stadia, that we tend to
miss the Good News here. For we, descendants of mud-guy, created in the image
of God – a God whose primary attributes are that God Loves, and God Gives. We
are to be those people who Love and who Give. What God loves is the World –
literally, the kosmos! All of creation, all that is seen and unseen! God
loves us. Like Jesus, we are God’s Beloved! And the best news of all: despite
our lack of love for one another, despite our lack of love for the world itself
– evident in how we mistreat one another, and how we mistreat creation itself –
God sends Jesus his Beloved Son to us, not to condemn us, but to save the
world, to save the kosmos, and ultimately, to save us, or rescue us,
from ourselves, just as he rescued the recalcitrant people in the wilderness from
the oppressive Empire of Pharaoh, and from their own lack of gratefulness for
each breath they take, and each morsel of daily bread they are given from above
by the gracious and loving hand of God.
Nicodemus appears to have understood all of this, as later he
returns. First, to remind his colleagues that the law requires that a person be
heard before being judged (John 7:50–51), and again after the Crucifixion to
provide the customary embalming spices, and assist Joseph of Arimathea in
preparing Christ’s body for burial (John 19:39–42). May we, like him, begin to
see the symbolic dimensions of the Bible’s stories so we might hear the good
news and rejoice in it!
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