Advent: December 3, 2024
Ezekiel 36:24-27 (ESV) I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
John 3:5 (ESV) Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
The Chosen is a fantastic effort at filmmaking about the life of Jesus. It is so worth your time to watch and enjoy. Don’t be overly critical. It’s your job to know your Bible. Of course, watch everything with discernment. But watch these to enjoy the metanarrative. Enough of that.
My favorite scene is Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus from chapter 3 of John’s gospel. You can watch it right here.
While reading John 3, it’s easy for me to miss Nicodemus’ sincere inquiry and passion when he comes to Jesus because of his spiritual blindness. This scene depicts Nicodemas in context beginning to break free from his unbelief because he comes to Jesus to ask questions and gets the powerful gospel dropped on him.
In Jesus’ answering Nicodemus, he references what Ezekiel said a few hundred years earlier when he was describing how God would raise a valley of dry bones to show Ezekiel that God is powerful and able to raise children for Abraham from a completely dead state.
In Ezekiel 36:25-27 the Lord tells how he will raise the dead to life by causing them to be “born again”. He will wash them with clean water; give them a new heart; and give them his Spirit.
When Nicodemus is stumped by how a person is born again, Jesus preaches this scripture and proclaims this good news to Nicodemas. The flesh can only produce flesh, but God, by his powerful work of salvation, causes people to be reborn…remade…reconstituted…from death to life by the powerful working of God who washes, remakes, and empowers.
How does God do that? He does it by sending Jesus, the eternal Son of God, the faithful Israel. Jesus obediently and joyfully comes, lives perfectly, dies in the place of sinners, is buried, rises on day three, ascends back to the Father to return on the appointed day and receive his prepared people by gathering all who received him by faith. In his mission work Jesus makes the raising of an army of dry bone into a living people by the good news. Nicodemas is a living example of dry bones beginning to rattle and come to life because Jesus preaches the good news to him.
Advent. We remember what God has done, what he is doing, and look forward to what he is going to do.