The Holy City

Recently, several of us returned from a trip to the holy land. The picture to the left was taken from the Mount of Olives, near a church commemorating the tears of Jesus over Jerusalem.

In Jesus' time, the Mount of Olives was covered with... well... olives. After the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE, the Romans ordered the olive trees chopped down on the mountainside, as they felt the olive groves provided too much cover for the possible approach of rebel forces. Only a few olive trees remain, now, mostly on the traditional site of the garden of Gethsemane.

Between the mountain and the city lies the Kidron Valley. This valley has traditionally been a burial site for devout Jews. Even in the time of Jesus, the valley was cluttered with graves. This made travel by night through the area somewhat perilous for people unfamiliar with the lay of the land, since straying from the path might cause one to come in contact with a grave, and thus become unclean.

In short, the Mount of Olives made an ideal place for Jesus and his disciples to withdraw from the city and not be disturbed by casual wanderers. We read that Jesus did exactly this on the night of his betrayal, but the gospel writers also tell us that this was a habit Jesus practiced often (SEE Luke 22:39 and John 18:2). Is it possible that Jesus stood on the Mount of Olives for his famous "Night Discourse" with Nicodemus recorded in John chapter 3? If so, the picture above becomes both literally and figuratively a backdrop for that story.

Imagine for a moment that Jesus and Nicodemus are looking out across this valley to the Temple Mount as they speak. It's night, of course, but the city is illuminated by oil lamps and torches as the thousands of visitors that have arrived for Passover move about through the streets. The Temple itself is illuminated by the fire of the altar. It's quite a sight.

This is the same Temple that Jesus has just condemned by driving the animals out of the court. The local authorities have demanded a sign from jesus. They want to know by what authority he has prophesied against the Temple. The only sign he offers on the spot, they misconstrue and reject.

Maybe Nicodemus was there when this conversation took place. He is identified as a mover and shaker in Jerusalem, after all. Maybe he only heard about it, but he is clearly aware. He has threaded his way through the Kidron burial ground to present himself to Jesus. Perhaps he is alone, but he speaks on behalf of others, using the word "we."

"Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him."

This amounts to a confession of sorts. Nicodemus and a few others have seen enough to know that what Jesus has said and implied about the Temple must be true. He wants to hear what Jesus has to say. Together, Jesus and Nicodemus look out at the awesome spectacle of the Temple of Yaweh, the thousands who have gathered there to worship, the burning flames upon the altar.

"I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."

For many modern Christians, the idea of God's kingdom is a metaphysical thing, usually consigned to some era after the physical world has ceased to exist. This picture wouldn't have anything to do with what Nicodemus believed about the Kingdom. Nicodemus will have expected that the Kingdom would have something to do with what was going on in Jerusalem... who sat on the throne, who presided as priest, how the people of God presented themselves to the world. In some way, as he gazes across the Kidron Valley, Nicodemus believes he is looking at the Kingdom of God, or at the very least, he is looking at where the Kingdom of God ought to be happening. Jesus tells him that he cannot see the Kingdom of God from where he is standing beacause somebody (or something.. the greek here is ambigous) needs to be "...born again..." The language Jesus uses to describe this "born again" experience will be familiar to Nicodemus, as it is borrowed directly from the Hebrew Scriptures. Specifically, Jesus is evoking imagery from Ezekiel 36 and 37.

In so doing, Jesus is displaying a fairly high regard for Nicodemus. Ezekiel was considered by the ancient rabbis to be among the most difficult of scriptures to read and understand. In some traditions, students were not permitted to read Ezekiel untli they had reached the age of 30 years, the age at which one became eligible to interpret scriptures for others. Jesus not only assumes that Nicodemus has read this book, but that he is familiar enough with it to recognize its themes and images without citation.

Ezkiel 36 speaks of the rebirth of israel. She will be delivered from her enemies and reestablished as a kingdom by an act of God's sovereign grace. She is unworthy of such an honor, because she has made herself unclean, like a woman during her menstrual cycle. In other words, she has failed to bring forth life. What God intended her to bear has been stillborn. God promises, though, to cleanse her by the sprinkling of water, to take away her heart of stone and to give her a heart of flesh. All of this, God does by the power of the Spirit.

Likewise, Jesus says that the Kingdom of God must be born from above, by water and spirit, by spirit and flesh. Naturally, Nicodemus wants to know how we can make such a thing happen. The form of his question is silly, of course, to our ears. He is, however, following the classroom protocol of the day. He uses a "Socratic question" to invite Jesus to tell him more.

They gaze again across the Kidron Valley, a valley filled with graves.

Jewish burial customs in Jesus day are foreign to us today. Especially in and around Jerusalem, Jews practiced what we call "secondary burial." The body was not embalmed, but laid in a cool, dry place for a period of time to decompose. After perhaps as much as a year, when the flesh had all deteriorated, the bones of the deceased were collected and buried in a very small stone coffin called an "ossuary." As Jesus and Nicodemus looked across the Kidron Valley, then, they gazed across a valley of "dry bones."

How does this new birth from above happen?

"You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

It's totally appropriate that Jesus uses language of the Spirit, of course. But once again, it is language he has borrowed. Ezekiel 37 tells of Ezekiel's vision of the valley of dry bones and the great wind that reanimated them, the very breath of God. This vision is explained to Ezekiel as a sign that God will revive Israel as if from the dead. Jesus tells Nicodemus that the rebirth of Israel will happen as all life happens... when God's spirit moves.

Is there a barb in this observation? Does Jesus invite Nicodemus to ask himself where the spirit of God may be moving as they speak? Does he ask Nicodemus to put two and two together... the miraculous signs and prophetic ministry of Jesus and Israel's need for a new movement of God's spirit?

I believe in personal salvation and rebirth. I've experienced it myself, and I have celebrated again and again in the lives of others. But I'm not really sure that's the conversation Jesus and Nicodemus were having. I think Jesus and nicodemus have in sight a much larger idea... not the rebirth if an individual, but the rebirth of an entire people, a people intended to transform the world that God "so loved," but a people that has fallen radically short and become something else.

I think Nicodemus came to Jesus because he recognized the truth of what Jesus was saying about the Temple. Somehow, all of this has failed to be what God intended. It needs to be made over again. It needs to be "made clean." It needs to surrender its heart of stone and rediscover its heart of flesh. God's people need a resurrection. Their bone have become dry and brittle. They have become something which is a hideous caricature of holiness, and they need to become once again fully His. This can only happen by the life-giving spirit of God.

And that Spirit is moving and acting in the person of Jesus of Nazareth and those who follow him.