Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever...1 Peter 1:23
There is a young palm tree named Methuselah growing in southern Israel right now. What's so special about that you ask? Well, the seed it was planted from was carbon dated at 2,000 years old.
Excavated from the ruins of Herod's Palace in Masada during the 1970's, the patient seed was sitting in a professor's drawer waiting for someone crazy enough to plant it. (Enter Dr. Soloway) In 2005 she soaked it in hot water and stuck it in some fertile dirt. The date palm tree that now grows is expected to bear fruit in 2010.
Around the same time those seeds first hit the ground, there was another patient seed being planted in the heart of a rabbi named Nicodemus. One dark night, he asked Jesus, "How can someone be born if they are already old?"
Jesus answered him with poems and parables. It's like Christ was saying, "I couldn't explain it to you if we had another thousand years to discuss it. Just be born again and see for yourself..." It's not that Nicodemus wasn't sincere, he was just selectively stubborn, much like us.
This week we'll be exploring the inexplicable thing that happens when someone is born again. Is it just a psychological gimmick or does something supernatural actually take place? I don't know about you, but I'd like to know if Jesus was giving Nicodemus more than a spiritual riddle.
So riddle me this...How can someone be born if they are already old?
Maybe we should ask Methuselah...
Brandon and Pamela Munoz
Freedomhouse Church, Camden
Excavated from the ruins of Herod's Palace in Masada during the 1970's, the patient seed was sitting in a professor's drawer waiting for someone crazy enough to plant it. (Enter Dr. Soloway) In 2005 she soaked it in hot water and stuck it in some fertile dirt. The date palm tree that now grows is expected to bear fruit in 2010.
Around the same time those seeds first hit the ground, there was another patient seed being planted in the heart of a rabbi named Nicodemus. One dark night, he asked Jesus, "How can someone be born if they are already old?"
Jesus answered him with poems and parables. It's like Christ was saying, "I couldn't explain it to you if we had another thousand years to discuss it. Just be born again and see for yourself..." It's not that Nicodemus wasn't sincere, he was just selectively stubborn, much like us.
This week we'll be exploring the inexplicable thing that happens when someone is born again. Is it just a psychological gimmick or does something supernatural actually take place? I don't know about you, but I'd like to know if Jesus was giving Nicodemus more than a spiritual riddle.
So riddle me this...How can someone be born if they are already old?
Maybe we should ask Methuselah...
Brandon and Pamela Munoz
Freedomhouse Church, Camden
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