More Than a Silver Spoon
Summary
The resurrection of Jesus to a new kind of life means that those who believe in him also have a new life. The powers of evil do not have final control over them. Being born again is a gift, like the gift of life that a new baby receives. Christians setting out on this life are faced with hardships, but they also have the assurance of a tremendous inheritance.
The newborn baby is cute, but doesn’t own a thing and is completely helpless. She’s not as poor as you might think, however, because her grandparents have set up a trust fund for her. Even though she won’t have any control over the money until she’s an adult, she’s provided with everything she’ll need. It’s a little bit like our situation as newborn Christians.
Unfortunately the phrase “born-again Christian” has often been seen as “fighting words” - even among Christians! Sometimes saying that one has been “born again” is seen as a claim of moral superiority - like being a first-class Christian, in contrast to other second-class ones. Sometimes the phrase “You must be born again” is spoken almost as a threat. And in reaction, other Christians avoid the language entirely because they don’t want to sound intolerant or fanatical.
While we need to be careful with “born-again” language, it is biblical. Our reading for today is an excellent example: “By his great mercy [God] has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
The biblical concept of being born again isn’t a threat but a tremendous promise. This is a good text for this Easter season in which we focus on the meaning of Jesus’ resurrection. On Easter, Jesus did not just return to the same type of life he’d been living before but to a new level of life: “Death has no more dominion over him,” St. Paul said. And the new life, the born-again life that is
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