NEW BIRTH

“Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.” – John 3:7

Back in 1978, Barry McGuire wanted to help his little boy understand the new birth experience that had taken him by surprise. So, he wrote a song called “Bullfrogs and Butterflies.”

It went like this, “Bullfrogs and butterflies; they’ve both been born again.”

It celebrated the amazing metamorphosis that takes place every time a caterpillar inches its way into a cocoon or a tadpole undergoes the remarkable change from a swimming creature to a hopping and croaking wonder of nature. Even more remarkable is the transformation that Jesus brings to the human heart.

The butterfly emerges with new beauty, freedom, and a second life. It has been transformed. The tadpole becomes a frog with a different outward expression of life and brand new habits for its survival.

A baby comes out of the womb as a brand new human being.

“How can these things be?” That was Nicodemus’s response to Jesus’ patient and personal penetration into the soul of this teacher of Israel.

“Marvel not,” Jesus says.

Nicodemus was shocked at the prospect of being born a second time. More than just shocked, he may have been a bit scandalized and offended. He was, after all, an elder and a man of distinction in his community. How could he be a small, helpless, status deficient child again? Yet, it was necessary for him and for us.

Something happened to Nicodemus between the time of that late night, private audience with the Master and the time of Jesus’ burial. Perhaps it was that new birth, because Nicodemus came out of hiding as a disciple and assisted Joseph of Arimathea in claiming the body of Jesus for burial.

Nicodemus became the human equivalent of a bullfrog or a butterfly. He was transformed from a respectable and honest legalistic seeker of truth to a baby believer with new beauty, new freedom, new prospects, and a new life.

The same thing can happen to each of us.