A TALK ABOUT THE BREATH OF GOD.
Jesus was in the Temple most of the time during the Passover Feast. He
taught the people standing among the marble pillars of the outer court.
He also did miracles among them, and many believed on Him because of
the miracles, but He, knowing their hearts, saw not one among them whom
He would call to be with Him in His work, for He could not wholly trust
them. The Pharisees and Doctors of the Law also stood and listened to
Him, and among them was one whose heart turned toward Jesus. He was
one of the highest of the Pharisees, but his heart was not so proud and
full of self-love as the hearts of most of the Pharisees. His name was
Nicodemus. He longed to talk with Jesus, but he was afraid of what the
other Pharisees would say.
He found out where the camp of the Galilean company was, and one night
went out of the city gate, across the Kedron bridge and up the slope of
the Mount of Olives and found Jesus. There was no place to talk
quietly in the crowded tents, so they must have gone out under the
shadowy olive trees to talk.
"Master," he said--and it was much for the wise Pharisee to speak so
humbly to the young carpenter of Galilee--"Master, we know that Thou
art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles that Thou
doest except God be with him."
Jesus looked through the heart of Nicodemus, though it was night, and
saw what he needed most, and so He made no reply about Himself or His
miracles, but said,
"Verily, I say unto you, except a man be born again he cannot see the
Kingdom of God."
Nicodemus could not understand how a man could be born when he is old,
so Jesus explained that it was a spiritual birth. "That which is born
of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit."
And as the wind softly stirred the leaves of the olive trees above
their heads He said,
"The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof,
but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it bloweth. So is
every one that is born of the Spirit."
Nicodemus had always thought that religion was the keeping of the law
as all Jews were taught by the priests, so he was astonished, and said,
"How can these things be?"
"Art thou a master in Israel and knowest not these things?" said Jesus,
and then He spoke to the soul of Nicodemus of the things of the Spirit
of Heaven--The Heaven in which He already lived,--and of the new
kingdom that had begun on earth.
If you will find what Jesus said to Nicodemus in the third chapter of
John's Gospel you will find among other things these beautiful words,--
"For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting
life."
Nicodemus found out that life was the breath of God in man, and that by
it man lives. Perhaps he felt it within him as he went down the valley
under the trees and heard the wind among the leaves; and as he came up
the steep way and through the city gate in the silence of the night,
perhaps he resolved to be a disciple of Jesus.