New Creation: A father's perspective from the delivery room—on birth, rebirth, and the Kingdom of Heaven.

When Nicodemus, a Jewish teacher, asked Jesus what one had to do to inherit eternal life, Jesus answered "you must be born again." Nicodemus mockingly replied, "what, a man must climb back into his mother's womb?" Apparently it was no less strange an idea back then as it is now. What did Jesus mean? Having just witnessed the birth of my son, I’ve been ruminating on just that. Yes that's me in the photo above, which is being used with my wife's permission of course! I write this now sitting by my wife’s bedside in the maternity ward, waiting for our newborn son to recover from the trauma of birth so that we can take him home.

 

My sister (who's given birth 7 times so is an authority on the subject) said to me, "Child-birth is like the gospel in action: our bodies are broken so that new life can come forth. God's presence fills the room." Being present during my son’s delivery, I can absolutely attest to that statement. When my son was being born and things started to go south (pun intended), I could do nothing but pray. I prayed fervently as the room filled with bustling blue-clad masked bandits, wielding cruel-looking utensils to the incessant battle-cry of blatting machines and my wife's anguished moans. If you've been in this situation you would know how useless I felt. Yet perhaps I was doing something crucial. Amidst my prayers the presence of God became suddenly palpable. Amidst the cries, a head, a shoulder, and suddenly a squirming mass flowed into the doctor's red-smeared gloves.

 

My heart overflowed. Then they laid him on the table and began to hook him up to tubes and masks and I could barely breathe, let alone talk. His little chest was heaving and sucking, his head all busted-looking and out of shape. My wife was in shock. There was blood everywhere. I was dumb-stuck. "What's his name?" The midwife asked. To my blank stare she asked again. "Malachi," I breathed, and he began to as well.  My mother-in-law and I exchanged a glance across the room, no words were needed, we were overwhelmed.

 

I wonder if God feels the same way when someone is choosing whether to accept or reject him. In that moment, the angels in heaven are hovering, tubes ready, masks ready, ready to cut the cord that will only work for a little longer before taking the person to their death (that is, their inevitable natural death whenever that occurs), ready to caress their lungs into their first breaths of new spiritual life. I wonder if God has his heart in his throat like I did. He is an emotional God, a feeling God, a personal God. He loves his creation, longs to be united to his human children. Every time a person says yes to God, all of heaven erupts in joy. A new birth! Another victory! Another person for God to enjoy in eternity! 

Eternal life is about quality, not just quantity. That's why Jesus said that you have to have it, in order to understand it. You have to be born-again. When my son was born, although he was already alive in the womb, he entered a different physical dimension of life previously unfathomable to him. When you accept Jesus, though you were already alive in the world, you will come alive to a new spiritual dimension previously unfathomable to you. New Testament writers use the expression "the eyes of your heart are opened." Just like a newborn baby opening its eyes for the first time, your spiritual eyes will be opened to new realities. Much like a newborn baby, you enter a new dimension of existence. Now you can begin to comprehend what eternal life is. I think this is what Jesus was getting at in response to old Nico: that you can't understand it unless you already have some of it. As well try and explain to a baby in the womb what it's like to breathe air.

The metaphor of birth is powerful in other ways too. Like a physical birth, spiritual birth does not come easily, nor is it pain-free. The difference is that Jesus bore the labour-pains for you. 2,000 years ago he laboured on your behalf, nailed to a wooden cross near Jerusalem. That moment somehow became eternal, stretching forward into the future for all those yet to be born. When you accept Jesus and ask him to lead your life, his suffering on the cross becomes the labour pains that give birth to your new spiritual life. Your old life dies with his death, and your new life is born with his resurrection. You become a new creation. It is not easy to understand, then again, if you didn't know how a baby was conceived and brought into the world, you would probably never guess that either.

When you are born-again, you enter into a new sort of world, you become plugged in to the spiritual realities around you. They were there all along, but you've been recalibrated to see them. Kind of like Morpheus choosing the blue pill. You've now become part of the kingdom of heaven, which Jesus brought with him when he came to earth, but which has not yet been fully instated. It hovers in the background but suddenly becomes foreground to you. You can see it and feel it because you are now of it. You are part of the advance party of the kingdom which is coming soon in force. You have access to the kind of power and life that only heaven bears. You have been given this in order to share it and to bless those around you. To help prepare the world for the next phase: New Creation. You see, Jesus didn't just come for you. God's plan is to recreate the entire cosmos. Jesus came to redeem all of creation, to set everything right and to recreate the world the way it was supposed to be. This is his plan. And it is imminent: it may occur at any moment.

 

If you think this sounds crazy, wait until we get into what happens when Jesus returns for the second time. We are then given new physical bodies, geared for immortal life. No more sickness or sorrows. No more sore joints or bad livers. You will be born again again, in a sense. You will go from Human Flesh 1.0 to Human Flesh 2.0. You might even get to do some of the cool stuff that Jesus did after his resurrection, like walk through walls—who knows? Sound like Sci Fi? No way, it's much crazier, and actually true. But hey, if it doesn't make total sense you are in good company. Paul, one of Jesus' apostles said, "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived, what God has promised to those who love him." 

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. This is not relevant to you unless you are first born-again, as Jesus said. You won't get the second if you don't ask for the first. It's a necessary in-between step. Take the invitation today. Ask Jesus to come into your heart and to change you. Ask for this new sort of life. Breathe for the first time. The agents of heaven are standing by. Like in the picture above, a new father awaits with abated breath, his heart in his throat. The doctor's hands are like the Holy Spirit, skilled, calm and assured, ready to bring you through safely. Jesus stands by to welcome you into a wonderful new creation, which you will enjoy now in part, and will one day inhabit in full for all of eternity.