In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

     Today's Gospel lesson includes what is maybe the most familiar, most popular Scripture verse in the whole Bible-John 3:16. But, was John 3:16 always the most familiar, most popular? Probably not. But it was popularized, supposedly, by one guy who for a period of ten years or so, tried to make his mark on society by attending sporting events, getting on camera, and holding up a sign that said, "John 3:16". The fellow's name is Rollen Stewart, whose story is told in a documentary titled, "The Rainbow Man/John 3:16", made by San Francisco filmmaker, Sam Green. It seems Stewart's problems started during his childhood, when his parents were alcoholics, his father died when he was seven, and his mother was killed in a house fire when he was 15. That year, his sister was strangled by her boyfriend. Rollen got into drag racing in high school, married his first love, and opened a racing shop. When his wife left him, he sold the shop, moved to a mountain ranch where he became a marijuana farmer, tried to grow the world's longest mustache, and watched a lot of TV. In 1976, hoping to gain some attention, he conceived the idea of becoming famous by constantly popping up in the background of televised sporting events. So, putting on a multicolored Afro wig (hence the nickname "Rainbow Man"), he'd carry a battery powered TV to keep track of the cameras, wait for his moment, then jump in to the camera frame-grinning and giving a thumbs-up. Celebrity didn't follow, however. So, depressed after the 1980 Super Bowl, he had a conversion experience while watching a TV preacher in his hotel room, finding Jesus as his personal Savior. At which point, he began showing up at sporting events wearing T-shirts emblazoned with "Jesus Saves", and most frequently holding a sign which said, "John 3:16". Later accompanied by his second wife, a fellow Christian, he spent all his time traveling to sporting events around the country, living in his car, existing on just savings and donations. All in all, he figures he was seen at more than a thousand sporting events in all. But then, unfortunately, his wife left him because he supposedly choked her for holding up a sign in the wrong location; his car was totaled by a drunk driver, his money ran out, and eventually he wound up homeless in L.A. Feeling harassed by TV and stadium officials, and convinced that the end was near, he set off a string of bombs in a church, a Christian bookstore, a newspaper office, and other locations. Meanwhile, he sent out apocalyptic letters warning of the end time, including a hit list of preachers. Until September 22, 1992, believing the Rapture was only six days away, wanting to make a big media splash, he took a maid and two laborers hostage in an LA airport hotel, and demanded a three-hour press conference. Unfortunately, the police threw in a grenade, kicked down the door, and Rollen is now serving three life-sentences for kidnapping. What can be said about the guy is that he certainly started a trend-as you can hardly watch a sporting event on TV, without somebody holding up a John 3:16 sign!

     And was that, then, worth it? Having John 3:16 become a "household word"-so that maybe, just maybe millions of people might, through the years, look up the passage and read, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life"-was that, alone, a worthy life accomplishment, such that Rollen can sit in jail the rest of his life and feel vindicated, that at least, he started the practice of getting the word out about John 3:16?

     Well, as a life goal, that's not so bad, is it? Some of us accomplish far less in life than that! And yet, John 3:16 is only part of a larger section of teaching from Jesus, that includes far more than just "For God so loved the world." As we heard today, this passage begins with the encounter between a Pharisee named Nicodemus, and Jesus, over the question of how one enters the kingdom of God. And the whole encounter-and Jesus' instruction that follows, turn, not on John 3:16, but on John 3:3, when Jesus says, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born again-being born from above." That, really, is the main point of this lesson we've read today-as all that comes after, even John 3:16, explains how it is that one is born from above-how it is that one enters the kingdom of God, and how it is that God sent His Son, not to condemn the world, but to save the world, through Him. And all of this is important-but first, Jesus says, "Ye must be born anew." And that's something that poor Rollen Stewart missed. Oh, I'm sure he would claim to have been born again-and he could point to that motel room and that TV preacher who brought him to Jesus. But being born again, being born from above, has to do with more than just "finding Jesus". It has to do with a change of life, it has to do with a new start, it has to do with repentance and a real turn around. And we have to say, it would seem that Rollen had some psychological problems as well. We can't just say that Rollen wasn't truly repentant-he also appeared not to be truly, sane and right-minded. But apart from Rollen Stewart, we need to keep John 3:16, within the context of the whole of John chapter 3-and the call of Jesus for us to be reborn, of water and the Spirit!

     And of course, we have all sorts of problems with that concept as well. There are some Christian traditions who have that "being born again" thing all figured out. They can tell you on what day, and where they were born again. Like Rollen, they might say it was in a motel, watching a TV preacher. Ask a Lutheran, however, if they are born again, and many will get a kind of pinched up look on their face, and maybe a look of displeasure, or just confusion-because generally, Lutherans don't talk about "being born again". Which is kind of odd, because here it is, right in the Scriptures, from the mouth of Jesus, who says plainly, "no one can see the kingdom of God without being born again, or born from above, or born anew." The Greek can actually be translated in all three ways. There's nothing wrong with talking about this regeneration in any of those ways-so long as we understand it to be, indeed, a re-generation. An actual new beginning-as new as being born again from our mother's womb. And just how does that happen? With Nicodemus, we wonder, "how can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born again?" And fortunately for us, Jesus gives the answer. Jesus answered Nicodemus saying, "no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the 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." About this so-called "second birth", St. Athanasius wrote in the fourth century, "Once the likeness painted on a panel has been defaced by stains from outside itself, the one whose likeness it is needs to come once more to enable the portrait to be renewed on the same wood. And, for the sake of his picture, even the mere wood on which it is painted is not thrown away, but the outline is renewed upon it. In the same way, the most holy Son of the Father, being in the image of the Father, came to our world to renew humankind once made in his likeness. He came to find such lost individuals by the remission of their sins. He says as much himself in the Gospels: "I came to find and to save the lost." This is why he also said to the Jews, "Except one be born again", not meaning, as they thought, birth from a woman, but speaking of the soul being born and created anew in the likeness of God's image." And this renewal, this regeneration, this new birth, of the soul being born and created anew in the likeness of God's image, not in the image of our biological parents, happens by both water and the Spirit. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, also writing in the fourth century, says, "we are a compound of both body and soul. The one part is visible, the other invisible. In the same way, our cleansing and rebirth also is two-fold, that is, by water and the Spirit. The one is received visibly in the body, the other concurs with it invisibly and apart from the body.The one that comes to the aid of our first birth makes us new instead of old, and like God instead of what we are now. It recasts us in the image of God, without fire, and creates us anew without breaking us apart. For.the virtue of baptism is to be understood as a covenant with God for a second life, and a purer relationship with Him."

     Now, does that finally help us understand how the second birth happens? Does that finally ease our astonishment and allow us to grasp this being born anew, by water and the Spirit? Maybe, maybe not. But the point is this-we do not enter the kingdom of God, as we were, as we left the womb of our human mother. Cute as we were, as babies, we were tainted and soiled with sin-and we continued in that sin, as the disobedient people we are, from our mother's womb. Such carnal, unspiritual persons will not enter the kingdom of God. Before that entrance, we must be reborn, born again, to be, not children of man, but children of God. And that second birth, happens, not by flesh and blood, not by a man and a woman coming together physically-but by water and the Spirit-by being washed in the waters of Baptism, to symbolize the cleansing of our outer nature, and being washed in the power of the Holy Spirit, to recreate the image of God, in us. And God causes this regeneration, not to condemn us, but that we might be saved, through Him-and through the Son whom He has sent. As we were born, once, the first time, of our earthly mothers and fathers, we must also be born again, of our heavenly Father-that we may be new beings, in Christ Jesus, who was lifted up on the cross, for us and for our salvation. To be new beings in Christ, we are to be born from above-born anew, by water and the Spirit. And these new beings in Christ, will be new-created anew, every time we return to the promise of our Baptisms into Christ-created anew, daily, as we return to the washing of regeneration, daily, to be more and more, in the image and likeness of Jesus Christ-to be more and more, Christ-like, in our thoughts, words and deeds. This is the new being, and the new life-that we are to live, as we enter into the kingdom of God. The life of Christ, in us. The life of Christ, for us. The life of Christ, reflected through us, that the world might be saved. For, God so loved the world, that he gave His only Son, that everyone who believes in Him may not perish, but have eternal life.

     In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.