NOTES for Joh 3:5

How much better a position we are in than Nicodemus, who was the first to hear these words! Of course, it was very difficult for him to understand them, while for us, already knowing what happened afterward, it is much easier.

Our whole life, all our thoughts and actions from birth itself, are permeated by sin: selfishness, pride, self-exaltation, condemnation... Sin leads to wrong, sinful actions, which have very heavy consequences, in turn provoking new sins in us ourselves and in the people around us. And all this rolls like a snowball, gaining more and more momentum. Of course, such a life has nothing in common with the Kingdom of God. Can this be stopped, and if so, how?

Jesus says that for this a new birth, or rebirth, is necessary, because the old life must cease completely, and only after this can a new life begin. Here our participation, our desire, is needed, what is called by the word "repentance." It is precisely through repentance that we come to voluntary death in the water of Baptism, where our sinful life ends; the next step is the acceptance of the new life that the life-giving Holy Spirit grants us, sent to us by the loving heavenly Father. And then we, newborn infants, washed with water and the Spirit, enter the Kingdom of God...

That is how it is ideally. In practice, everything with us is only partial. Our repentance is incomplete; we continue to repent even after Baptism. This means our sinfulness does not die completely, and we still have cleansing and cleansing ahead. And birth from the Spirit is less a rebirth than the beginning in us of a new life, like a mustard seed that has yet to grow and grow. May the Lord make us that fertile soil in which the growing Kingdom reaches maturity and bears fruit!