“Re-Souled”

Pastor David L. Hansen

2nd Sunday in Lent

February 17, 2008

John 3:1-17

Grace and peace to you in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. Amen.

Before all of the current regulations about pilot flight time, a commercial pilot named Jim spent most of his time in the air.  He had his routine everyday: flight in the morning, flight in the evening, and then the shuttle to either the hotel or home at night.  Jim loved flying, and he loved his job.

So, when he in his wife Laura decided to take the kids on a vacation, Jim was, understandably, a little thrown off by the loss of his daily routine.  The family had rented a large RV, and was traveling to Yellowstone Park.  They were about half-way there, and Laura and the kids were surprised to see Jim walk to the back to join them.

“Jim,” asked Laura, “Why aren’t you up front driving?”

Laura was already running up to the driver’s seat as Jim answered, “Nothing to worry about.  I Set the autopilot when we reached cruising altitude.”

Autopilot is great thing in a 747.  It’s probably less of a good idea in an RV on the interstate.  It’s an even worse idea in our daily lives.

We all, at times, set the autopilot, and just kind of go through the motions.  Sometimes it’s at work, where we just do what we have to do in order to get a paycheck and then get back home.  At one time, we probably found our job exciting.  But then, after ten or twenty years of doing the same things over and over again, we got worn down and burned out.  Somehow the job lost its luster, and we set the autopilot, and started just going through the motions.

Sometimes we set the autopilot at home.  I would bet that everyone in here can point to a time in their marriage and family life that they were just going through the motions.  Certainly, it was all once very exciting.  But as the years wore on, things got stale.  You have the same conversations over and over again, you do the same things over and over again, and somehow, the excitement is gone.  So we set the autopilot, and just go through the motions in our homes.

And we all know the results of autopilot in our jobs or in our marriages: autopilot is a great way to lose a job or get passed over for a promotion; autopilot is a great way to ruin a marriage, to make things more difficult between you and your loved ones.

And we can also set the autopilot on our faith, going through the motions in our relationship with God.  We come to the same old church on Sunday morning and sit in the same old pew.  We hold the same old bulletin, sing the same old hymns, say the same old prayers without thinking about them, and listen to the same old pastor.  It’s the same old same old, just on Sunday morning.  Maybe that’s never happened to you, but I know it has happened to me. 

At times, even in our faith lives, it all gets a little stale, a little routine, and so we just go through the motions. 

I have always thought that Nicodemus must have been a man whose faith was on autopilot.

Nicodemus was a leader among the Jews.  He taught the faith to others, he knew the books of the Law and the Prophets.  Yet, he was looking for something.  Though the years, it had all become routine.  He said the right prayers, he did the right things, but it had all lost the excitement that it once had. 

And then he saw and heard Jesus.  And he saw that old spark that he once had – that exciting relationship with the God who created us.  And so, Nicodemus snuck off and visited Jesus during the night.

“Nicodemus,” Jesus said, “I understand your frustration.  To regain that excitement, to see the kingdom of God again, you must be born again.”

At this, Nicodemus was a little confused.  He was an old man, and he did not see how he was to be born a second time.  “Ah,” said Jesus, “It is not your body that needs reborn, but your faith.  You must be reborn of water and the Spirit.”

Now, I don’t know about you, but I am pretty sure that I have never heard Lutherans speak of being born again.  Indeed, for years I lived in areas where the religious scene was dominated by “Born-again” Christians, and I watched many a Lutheran stammer and look at the ground when asked if and when they were born again.  It’s just not the way we talk about such things.

But, if we are to get out of our rut, if we are to stop just going through the motions and turn off the autopilot, if we are to regain the excitement of our faith, perhaps we should pay a little more attention to Jesus’ words to Nicodemus.

“You must be born of water and the Spirit” says Jesus.

Like a child being born, we can’t do it on our own.  We can’t get out of this mess by ourselves.  In fact, if a child is too active, it actually makes the birth worse – perhaps it is a baby who has turned himself around, or gotten an arm in the way, or gotten tangled in an umbilical cord.  Like that child, we can’t fix this stale routine we have gotten into, we need outside help.

Now, we know full well that we are re-born in the waters of baptism.  And that is a great and wonderful gift we have been given.  But it doesn’t help how stale our faith might feel today.  We need something now, today.  We need to be reborn, once again, by water and the Spirit.

Martin Luther knew this.  He knew what it was like to feel like your faith was on autopilot, like your relationship with God had gotten stale.

That’s why he said that what happens here, in the waters of the font, does not end on the day that you are baptized.  Rather, it begins a process that lasts the rest of our lives.  We must, said Luther, be reborn daily.

That’s right, we should all be born again Lutherans.

When we wake in the morning, we should remember our baptisms, and pray for God to give us the strength for the day.  When we falter mid-day, we should remember that we are baptized and pray for God to give us a new birth again.  At the end of the day, we should remember that we are baptized, and give thanks for the grace we were given during the day.

I have been born again.  I was born again when God’s Word of forgiveness came to me at the start of this service.  And I will be born again when we gather around this table.

All that we need do is be ready.  If we are open to God working through us, if we are open to being re-born through God’s Spirit, then God can do what we cannot do for ourselves.

I have a favorite pair of boots – my Sunday morning boots.  Recently, I was down at the cemetery for a funeral on a rainy day.  When I go mack to the church, I noticed that my socks were soaked through.  I looked, and the soles of my boots had been worn clean through.  Just through normal use, they had become worn out, exhausted.  So I took them into town, and had them re-soled.  They are now even better than the day that I bought them.

In the readings for Good Friday, we will hear about the two Jewish officials who provided the tomb and ointments for Jesus’ burial.  Joseph of Aramathea, and another Pharisee named Nicodemus.  It seems that following his conversation with Jesus, Nicodemus was re-souled.  He was born again.  And he found that excitement once more.

It seems impossible to us – as Lutherans in this modern world – to be born again, to regain the excitement we once had for our faith, to renew our relationship with God.  We certainly can’t do it on our own.  But thank God, it does happen.  We can be re-souled.  It happened to Nicodemus, and it can happen to each of us.

God loved us first, in the waters of our baptisms.  And God loves us still, as we are reborn by the power of the Spirit.