Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?
“Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
John 3:1-17 (NRSV)
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
My long-time fascination with the idea of time travel recently lead me to a television series on Hulu called Timeless. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen this show before. Three people from different walks of life are recruited to be part of a team who travel in a time machine to stop the bad guys from altering events in history in order to allow them to rise to power and basically run the world. In the course of doing this, a couple of the characters decide they want to try to use the time machine to alter the past in order to save family members who had historically died in one way or another. They thought if they could go back in time and change the outcome of certain events that lead to the deaths of their loved ones, then when they returned to the present time, they would find their lost family members alive and well since the events that lead to their deaths were stopped from ever happening.
Much to their frustration, these time travelers discovered that no matter what they did to try to change past events, they were not successful in preventing the death of their family members. One of them finally succeeds, but not because of trying to do so. You will have to watch the series yourself to see what happens.
The point I find relevant in all of this is that we often wish we could go back and change things. I’ve heard people say, “If only I had a time machine, I could go back and do that differently.” We all have things we would like to change about ourselves, our past and present behavior, things we have said and done, our relationships with others, etc. Unfortunately, time machines do not exist, so we can’t go back in time to change things. Even if we could, there is no guarantee that it would change the present situation by doing so.
The only sure thing we can turn to is the power of God to transform us, to renew us through rebirth in Jesus Christ. In the fullness of time God came into the world and became one of us in order to set us free from sin and death (Galatians 4). We can allow God’s grace to take away the guilt of our past and present sin, born of the Spirit, as we repent and commit to living for God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We can’t save the world, nor will our technology ever be powerful enough to invent a machine that can, but God can and has, and God invites us to be part of the new thing God is doing in the world.
First United Methodist Church 