THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS
John 3:1-21
Introduction:
I’m not sure what your house looks like this morning, but my living room is filled with toys, open boxes of clothes, cast aside ribbons and wrapping paper. Yesterday morning the Burdette house was filled with excited screams, laughter and anticipation.
This morning was different…up early, but getting ready for church. Everyone else was asleep and it was quiet. It felt exactly like what is was…The day after Christmas.
All the preparation, all the anticipation reached its apex—yesterday. Now what?
I remember last year my whole family left for Florida on the day after Christmas. I helped them pack up the van and get on the road. I wasn’t able to go with them, so as I stood in the driveway watching them drive away I knew it would be really quiet in my house for the next week.
On that original Christmas day over 2,000 years ago most of the world had no idea God’s greatest present had been delivered, wrapped up in swaddling clothes and then had been laid in a manger. The shepherds knew. Christmas was an experience they would never forget. Mary knew something amazing was happening on the day after Christmas and she would treasure these memories. Dr. Luke says this about the shepherds after their visit: Luke 2:17-20
The day after Christmas for Mary and the shepherds was a day to ponder, to wonder, to be amazed at what God was doing and to testify about all they had seen and heard. I still believe this is an excellent way to spend the day after Christmas. It’s a lot more exciting than worrying about putting away decorations and taking down lights.
What does the birth of Jesus Christ mean for me and the whole world in the days that lay ahead? His birth, the birth of the King of Kings, Mary’s little lamb. The world would soon discover He was born so we might have the opportunity to be born again.
1. The same spirit that brought about His birth would bring our new birth.
Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council. He had heard about Jesus’ miracles, he had heard about Jesus clearing the temple. He comes to visit Jesus at night. Why at night? Because he’s afraid? Because he’s cautious? Who knows?
But he says, “Rabbi (teacher) you must have come from God, because no one can do the things you’re doing unless God sent him!” A nice compliment but Jesus cuts to the chase. He gets right to the core of things immediately. “I tell you the truth; no one can see the Kingdom of God unless he is born again.” Nicodemus doesn’t understand, but Jesus pushes the issue. “I tell you the truth no one can enter the Kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the spirit.”
It is extremely hard, if not impossible to have a spiritual conversation with someone who is thinking in worldly ways. We’ve all been there—the blank stare, the “I have no idea what you’re talking about” expression. Nicodemus wore both of those. “Surely a man can’t be born again when he’s old. He cannot reenter his mother’s womb. This is impossible. What are you talking about?” Jesus explains there’s a huge difference in a baby’s real birth and spiritual rebirth. “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the spirit gives birth to spirit.”
Nicodemus was thinking biology. Jesus is thinking theology. The Rabbi from heaven was informing the Rabbi from Israel to see through God’s eyes and to enter His kingdom didn’t include sex education, but spiritual transformation. Eighteen inches separate most of mankind from seeing and entering God’s kingdom…the distance between the head and the heart.
Nicodemus knew about God. He was an expert in God’s laws. He was a Pharisee devoted to obedience and faithfulness to the Torah. But Nicodemus does not understand this new birth. And Jesus rebukes him: John 3:10-13.
Nicodemus was trying to be good enough. He was a seeker of answers. He’s visiting Jesus for answers. He had influence and prestige. He had religion. Jesus was trying to teach him about a relationship and for this to happen he had to be reborn, spiritually changed from within and from above.
The miracle of the virgin birth was because “the Holy Spirit came upon Mary and the power of the most high overshadowed her.” (Luke 1:35). It is that same spirit that gives us new birth, opens our eyes to see God’s kingdom and pulls us toward the door so we can enter it. The same spirit that brought about Jesus’ birth brings our new birth.
Nicodemus might have been familiar with the words of Ezekiel the prophet, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26). But Nicodemus didn’t know the truth of what that scripture meant. Being born again means an inner reawakening. The literal translation is “born from above.” Jesus is saying for you and me to be in right relationship with God He has to perform heart surgery.
On February 24, 1948, one of the most unusual operations in medical history took place in Ohio State University’s department of research surgery. A stony sheath was removed from around the heart of Harry Besharra, a man thirty years of age. When only a boy he had been shot accidentally by a playmate with a .22-caliber rifle. The bullet had lodged in his heart but had not caused his death. However, a lime deposit had begun to form over the protective covering of the heart and gradually was strangling it. The operation was a delicate one separating the ribs and moving the left lung to one side. Then the stony coating was lifted from the heart as an orange is peeled. Immediately the pressure of the heart was reduced, and it responded by expanding and pumping normally. "I feel a thousand per cent better already," said the patient soon after the operation.
"There is a parable of life here. Our hearts develop a hard protective coating because of accidents and incidents in life. They are coated by the deposits of a thousand deceits and rebuffs. They are hardened by the pressure of circumstance. Inevitably, they become smothered and insensitive to the divine. Ever so easily we find it easier to sneer than to pray. It becomes simpler to work than to worship. Self-satisfied, proud, often cynical, our hearts need a spiritual operation that only Christmas can perform.”
Here’s the most essential truth I can share with you the day after Christmas and every day I breathe:
2. Jesus is the great Physician!
Jesus lets Nicodemus know he’s spoken of earthly things and didn’t get it. How will Nicodemus understand God’s intricate spiritual plans? No one knows God’s plans but the Son of Man. Jesus even uses an Old Testament story to illustrate how God is going to save people. It’s a story that took place in the desert with Moses. God sent venomous snakes into the Israelite’s camp to judge them for their sin. As the snakes bite the people Moses is instructed by God to make a serpent, put it on a stick, lift it up and all those who looked upon it were saved. In the same way this serpent was lifted up to bring salvation Jesus would be lifted up on a cross, and those who look on Him will be saved. “Whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Here’s the key to entering God’s kingdom, the key to seeing God’s purposes, the key to being born again. “Nick, you might be really religious, successful and influential, but until you look to the great physician for spiritual healing you’re dead, you’re lost, your heart will remain stony.”
All day Tuesday I spent praying for an amazing young woman named Simone Potts. She’s Brittney’s twin. But Tuesday she was acting more like Jesus than anyone I’ve seen for a while. There is a woman she loves deeply named Teresa who needed a kidney transplant. None of her family matched; Simone did. So Tuesday they took one of Simone’s healthy kidneys and put it into Teresa’s body so she could be healed. “For God so love the world He gave…” (John 3:16). “Greater love has no man than this…that He lay his life down for his friends” (John 15:13)
God didn’t send Jesus into the world to condemn it. Jesus didn’t come to judge us this first time. He came to save us. He came to be lifted up on a cross. I stare with hope and amazement at the one who died in my place, bore my sins in His body, was condemned by God so I might be redeemed.
All the preparation was over, broken lives and confusion scattered around the foot of the cross like old ribbons and cast off boxes. The baby of the manger named Jesus “because He will save His people from their sins.” This present has been ripped open to bring about the truth of His name!
This is the verdict “light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.” Evil tried to extinguish the light. Evil hates what it reveals, avoids it at all costs. Evil wants the light to die. And it died. But darkness would not win. Come with me to the cross. Jesus’ body is still there, his spirit has departed. But the body remains. Look what John says: John 19:38-42
I love that Nicodemus is there, don’t you? He and Joseph of Arimathea are the pallbearers. They lay Jesus in a new tomb near the cross. There could not be a time when it was more risky to declare that you were Jesus’ friend, even his closest disciples were in hiding. These men publicly declared they were Jesus’ friends! Their last act of love for Him is recorded in the Gospels. They both risked their reputations and more to give their friend a proper burial.
Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus could not have known at the time that they were participating in the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy from the book of Isaiah. Here is the scripture telling about the Messiah written over 600 years before Jesus’ crucixion: Isaiah 53:8b-9, NLT: “But he was struck down for the rebellion of my people. He had done no wrong and had never deceived anyone. But he was buried like a criminal; he was put in a rich man’s grave.”
He wouldn’t stay there. He rose from the dead and the Great Physician has conquered the enemy of the physicians: death. The light now shines with a glory that can never be extinguished. “And whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”
It’s the day after Christmas. Is He still Savior and Lord?
Let’s pray.
