Happy Birthday!
My birthday is in June and last year I turned a milestone ending in a zero. Having a summer birthday meant I never had to deal with in-school birthday stuff like bringing treats for everyone or having my classmates sing to me and I enjoyed not having all that pressure. I’ve always scratched my head about the whole birthday thing. While I wasn’t a big birthday party kid, I sure did look forward to turning a year older which meant a year closer to obtaining my driver’s license. Then after hitting the last milestone birthday and I was fully an adult, birthdays were kind of a downer. Why the celebration?
It’s kind of funny that we celebrate birthdays. It seems to be a day of just celebrating you. Shouldn’t the celebration be for your parents that brought you into this world? I mean, you didn’t really do anything. Is it really worth celebrating that you were born?
We make a big deal out of our birthday, but some other cultures don’t. In Afghanistan, many people don’t know the exact day and year of their birth. It makes it difficult for them to obtain formal documents that are typical here in our culture such as ID cards, driver’s licenses, and passports. We are a very birthday centric society.
In the 3rd chapter of the gospel of John, we read about Nicodemus who was forced to think about his birthday in a new way. Nicodemus realized Jesus must have come from God because of the miracles Jesus was able to perform. Nicodemus was puzzled when Jesus told him “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus was quite confused by Jesus’ response. A complete spiritual rebirth was needed. Nicodemus needed to become a new man.
How about you? Do you have a second birthday, a spiritual birthday? Have you been born a second time? Nicodemus was curious enough to seek out Jesus and ask questions. Are you curious enough to ask questions? Come ask any of the Bondurant church pastors about Jesus. We’d welcome a discussion from someone curious to find out more about Jesus and what it means to be a Christian. Nicodemus didn’t want to be seen by the public coming to Jesus so he came at night. If you’d prefer to come ask some questions during the week and not Sunday, that’s fine too.
A million years from now, I will likely have forgotten my physical birthday but will be celebrating my spiritual birthday and I pray I can celebrate yours as well.