Dear Children of God,

Sometimes when I’m struggling to understand something, it’s helpful to see an illustration to explain the concept. It helps if it’s something that connects with personal experience. So, if you’re trying to explain something to me, and I have that “deer in the headlights” look, see if you can put into a different context I’d understand. Things that work best for me … an illustration using sports, military, or gardening. 

Jesus often used illustrations, called parables, to get His point across. Generally, people had little idea what He was talking about. So, Jesus might use a parable to illustrate a greater truth through a common experience they could understand. 

One night a Pharisee named Nicodemus came to Jesus under cover of darkness to avoid detection by the other Pharisees. He knew Jesus was a great teacher because of all He’d been doing. Unfortunately, Nicodemus didn’t understand who Jesus truly was. First, Jesus tried explaining through the illustration of being “born again.” Nicodemus, though born of woman, couldn’t get the idea that when you’re born, you receive life. To be “born again” would mean to receive “new life” … to have new life by believing in Jesus and His work to save mankind from sins by bring them into the kingdom of God. All Nicodemus could see was reentering his mother’s womb …

So, Jesus, knowing Nicodemus was among the most educated of the religious elites, steeped in God’s Word, adds to the illustration. Jesus recounts the story of when the Israelites, complaining incessantly about God’s provision of manna in the wilderness, were bitten by a swarm of fiery snakes. The people were dying for mocking God. Realizing it, they repented and asked Moses to save them. God said, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live. (Numbers 21:8)” All who looked on the serpent, raised on a pole, and had faith in it’s healing powers were saved. Referencing this incident, Jesus says to Nicodemus, “And 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 3:14-15).” Surely, Nicodemus could see what Jesus was saying to him through this illustration … Jesus, the Son of Man, would one day be lifted up … and all who look on Him in faith would also be saved.

This encounter must have had some effect on Nicodemus. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we next see Nicodemus defending Jesus’ rights to a fair trial against the accusations of the temple authorities. Then, after Jesus’ crucifixion, Nicodemus, along with Joseph of Arimathea, takes Jesus’ body for burial. 

We, like Nicodemus, can’t grasp the truth of God’s Word by on our own. However, by the power of the same Holy Spirit, God gives us understanding. And illustrations can help us too … as we learn and as we seek to help others understand God’s Word. What’s crystal clear is the gospel proclaimed after Nicodemus’ encounter with Jesus, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)”

                                                                                        In the Love of Christ,

                                                                                        Pastor Jim