So, the other day I was sitting in my home office preparing for an upcoming class on the Book of Judges when I happened to look out of my window out into the graveyard. Tomorrow is Memorial Day, and during national holidays, it's not unusual to see an larger number of cars pull up with people getting out to place flags or flowers or various and sundry mementos on this or that grave. It's always a bittersweet scene, love and loss always is. Time sometimes heals those wounds; sometimes it doesn't, at least not yet. And out of that window I can see a lot of people dealing with a lot of things. Especially around Memorial Day.
It was windy at the time. Storms were blowing in later, but for now it was just really windy. I had noticed an elderly couple I didn't recognize, puttering around one of the graves like people do, changing out the silk flowers or some such. At least the woman was. The old man was just standing there, leaning on a cane. But like I said the wind was blowing, and it was beginning to knock over some of those tiny American flags that people push into the ground.
I went back to work for a few minutes, but something caught my eye. The old man was on the move. He wandered over to another grave and knelt down to put a flag back up. He was down on all fours, and I noticed he wasn't getting up easily. I watched his wife go over to him, and she was struggling to get him up with no success. So I went out and asked if I could give him a hand. He automatically responded that he was fine, but the look on his wife's faces said he really wasn't. After several attempts, we got him back up, no harm, no foul. I handed him the cane he'd left too far away. I talked to the old man for a while, learning his story. He showed me his parents' graves and told me a little about them. In some ways, their story was typical New Berlin. And that's ok by me.
I needed to go back and finish what I was doing before I lost my muse, so I said my good-byes. I gave him one last look and realized he must easily be in his late 80's or early 90's. He said good-bye, thanked me for my help, and said, “I guess I must be getting old. I used to know better than to get down like that anymore…”
I’m not quite there...yet. He had 30 or so years on me, but I'll admit that I find myself groaning when I get out of bed in the morning. And occasionally my knees twinge going up and down stairs. Since I can't do sitting crunches at a gym right now during the pandemic, I get on the floor to do them, and I find that I have to roll over to those aging knees when I’m getting up from the mat. And just the other day, my doctor did an X-ray on my hand to determine that, yes, I have arthritis in my thumb.
Fortunately, next month, the gym is opening back up to old dudes like me, so I may be able to drop my Covid 15 and strengthen the muscles and tendons around those troublesome knees. But I know that I'll no longer have the rubbery, resilient bones I had as a kid, jumping out of swings and tumbling down hills. I can delay aging with regular workouts and healthy eating, but I'm no fool. Age will catch up. And really there's no turning back.
And it's with all this on my mind that I come to meet up with Nicodemus in our Gospel lesson on this Trinity Sunday. He's one of my favorite supporting cast members in the New Testament.
Nicodemus who is so curious about this Jesus guy that he's sneaking around in the dark trying to get to Jesus without anyone else seeing him.
Nicodemus, who legend tells us is not too young himself, and is probably wondering why he doesn't know any better than to be out so late, knowing that he'll pay for it later if he catches a cold.
Nicodemus who responds with wonder or skepticism, “How can anyone be born again when he has grown old?” when Jesus says, “No one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above.”
Nicodemus who, hearing this, is probably thinking, “What in the world have I gotten myself into? I used to know better.”
I mean let's face it, Nicodemus’s question makes sense. There is a normal progression to things. In fact, we begin to grow old as soon as we take our first breath. We know from hard experience that knees and backs and thumbs wear out, and there comes a time when there is no turning back. We know that the place where I met a 90-year-old tending his parents' graves is where we all will end up one day. So what Jesus is saying to Nicodemus simply doesn't fit with much of what we have learned from hard-earned experience day after day after day. The hope that Jesus offers Nicodemus runs against most everything else the world has taught us.
And sometimes its hard to understand what Jesus says, even now, even after all we know about Jesus that Nicodemus, in this story, does not. Because “born again” is a phrase that has a certain meaning in today's society. It sometimes leaves a bad taste in our mouths because of the way it has been crammed down our throats. And as a result we sort of push the idea away.
But Nicodemus doesn't, he doesn't have that baggage, and he doesn't push the idea away. And maybe Nicodemus, after he went home and settled in for the night...maybe this teacher of Israel begins to think. Maybe he began to think that this is not so far-fetched, this born again. For birth, whether its being born the first time or all those small and large re-births that happen along the way in our lives, in mind and heart and spirit, this 'birth' is not something we do, but is something that must be done to us and for us. It is always, always, the work of God, the gift of God.
And that maybe when we age, when we grow old, we aren't moving farther away from birth, but we are given opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to be reborn in God's love. Always being able to start anew in Christ. Always being able to start again, on this day and the next, loving God and loving our neighbor. Age does not prevent love. Week knees don't prevent prayer. Having more past than future does not stop us from being children of God. Because this Spirit, this Holy Spirit, refreshes us over and over, renewing us again and again. If we just let it. If we just let God renew us.
I suspect I knew this on that day when I was helping that old man to stand again. I know I felt renewed by offering God's love to a stranger and lending an ear to hear an old man's story. And I know he felt born again in some way by reliving his old stories. A sense of the hope of God, born again between us in that moment, a kindness that we shared, our being together in Christ for that purpose in that place in that single moment in time.
It was more than a hand up to stand up on legs weakened by time and age. It was the gift of understanding that regardless of time and age and weakness, we can be born again to serve God and each other.
That old man on that day was old, yes, but he shared his life with me in his stories. And now that I carry those stories, he has been reborn in my memory. And Nicodemus was an old man, with little left of his life to make much of a mark with. But he went on to spend a small fortune on the spices that would be used to wrap Jesus for his burial. And he will be remembered for that.
Remembered for being an old, old loving man...who loved God, and through that loving, helped usher in salvation for the world.
It's never too late, I suppose, to let God renew us, to bring us into life anew or just help us back to our feet. Just keep your eyes and hearts open. It will happen. I promise.