Fresh Air - Friday Devotional
A devotional written by Rev. Roy Atwood
John 3:1-17 (CEB)
There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a Jewish leader. He came to Jesus at night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could do these miraculous signs that you do unless God is with him.”
Jesus answered, “I assure you, unless someone is born anew, it’s not possible to see God’s kingdom.”
Nicodemus asked, “How is it possible for an adult to be born? It’s impossible to enter the mother’s womb for a second time and be born, isn’t it?”
Jesus answered, “I assure you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, it’s not possible to enter God’s kingdom. Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit. Don’t be surprised that I said to you, ‘You must be born anew.’ God’s Spirit blows wherever it wishes. You hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. It’s the same with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Nicodemus said, “How are these things possible?”
“Jesus answered, “You are a teacher of Israel and you don’t know these things? I assure you that we speak about what we know and testify about what we have seen, but you don’t receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has gone up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Human One. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so must the Human One be lifted up so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life. God so loved the world that he gave his only [Child], so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life. God didn’t send his [Child] into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”
Note: Gendered language for God replaced by bracketed words.
The fourth gospel in the New Testament, John, offers a distinct witness to Jesus’s life and ministry. The other three gospels - Matthew, Mark, and Luke - share many stories, structures, and themes, while John departs from that shared pattern to tell the story in a more overtly theological way. It places particular emphasis on Jesus’s divine identity, spiritual teaching, and the meaning behind his words and actions. Scholars date the book between 90 and 110 AD.
In John 3, Nicodemus approaches Jesus with honest curiosity. He is a Pharisee, trained in scripture and respected in his community. Usually, he wouldn’t feel shame about speaking publicly about God. Yet in John’s Gospel, he comes to Jesus at night, carrying questions he can’t settle on his own and sharing curiosities he can voice only under the cover of darkness. To preserve his reputation, he must present confidence about the divine in public. In private, however, he admits to Jesus that he still has more to learn.
Jesus responds with an image drawn from lived experience - birth. Instead of citing theological precepts, he compares faith to a moment thick with meaning. Birth signals newness and a blank slate, yet it also carries real risk for both mother and child. New birth holds opportunity and vulnerability together.
Nicodemus struggles with the metaphor, interpreting it in biological terms, as if an adult body could return to the womb. Jesus clarifies that he is speaking about spiritual rebirth, not physical rebirth. He compares God’s Spirit to a blowing wind. (Breath, wind, air, and spirit come from the same Greek word, pneuma.) For Jesus, the divine movement is like a breeze - felt and heard, yet beyond human control. People who live by the Spirit learn to pay close attention, the way sailors watch their sails or farmers read the weather.
The center of the passage rests on God’s love for the world. Jesus’s mission as God’s ambassador centers on rescue and restoration rather than judgment. Through Jesus, God reaches toward humanity in compassion. The call, then, is for us to grow attentive to the kindness and generosity God breathes into the world. Lent offers a focused season for that attention. May we use this time to open our lives to God’s Spirit like a house with its windows raised, ready to receive fresh air and new breath.
- Rev. Roy Atwood, Associate Minister of Finance and Administration