This week Jesus meets with Nicodemus, a Pharisee who came to Jesus by night to ask questions and better understand what Jesus has been teaching. When questioned about the power of his teaching, Jesus responds, "no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above."
Nicodemus is astounded. How can someone be born again?
From this point, Jesus talks about the nature of truth. On another day, I might talk about how what Jesus told Nicodemus was true...from a certain point of view. So many of the truths that we cling to are only true from a certain point of view.
For Nicodemus, the truth is a person is born a single time. We gestate in the womb and then we are born and must learn and live and grow in this world. How can a grown person enter the womb again to be born a second time? That's impossible. This is true, from a certain point of view.
But Jesus speaks of a different kind of birth. Not a physical birth, but a spiritual awakening. Enlightenment, rebirth, whatever you may want to call it. Some may even recognize here a barely veiled reference to baptism with the baptismal font as the womb of the church from which we are born into new life. Again, this is true, from a certain point of view.
And under normal circumstances, I would continue in this vein for a few more lines.
Instead, my first thought as I was reading the John text this week was on the scene in The Matrix when the one known as Neo begins his own rebirth. Like Nicodemus, he sought out answers in the night from one who knew the truth. He has come to suspect that something exists beyond the world as he knows it, but he can't quite comprehend it himself. He goes seeking answers.
And as they discuss the notion of reality and existence, things begin happening that he can't understand. How can a broken mirror reform itself? How can the surface of a mirror cling to me like some sort of putty? How is any of this possible?
He took the red pill.
In doing so, he took a step into the unknown. He was born into a new world. His prison from which he burst forth was shaped rather like a womb. He broke through the amniotic sac covered in goo and laid eyes on the world anew, a world that suddenly looked nothing like the world he had known.
Just as those that accept the call of Christ and emerge from the waters into a world that is both familiar and new at the same time, Neo is brought forth from the waters into a world that is not at all what he expected. But like those same Christians he emerges into a world that is suddenly filled with hope. While the world around may look bleak, we look on it with eyes that know something better is possible. We look on a world suddenly colored by hope for a better tomorrow, a hope brought on by that acceptance of the thing we cannot comprehend which leads us into a new life, a new reality.
Like Neo, we too have a role to play in shaping that new reality. But thankfully, we are not called to be the savior alone. Like Neo we work with others to shape that new reality. For us Christ is the One, the Source, the wind that blows but we do not know from where it comes.