“Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless one is born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.”
Not only can one not enter the Kingdom without being born again, one can't even see it. Prior to the new birth the kingdom is like seeing leaves blowing and hearing them rustling but without comprehending the wind that blows. The effects are visible but the cause remains a mystery. Nicodemus himself had seen some of the effects.
“Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God,
for no one can do these signs that you are doing
unless God is with him.”
But he was unable to make sense of them. Jesus explained that Nicodemus wouldn't be able to figure it out from his current vantage point, even though he was a teacher of Israel. What he needed was a new birth, or more precisely, a new kind of birth, one from above. Rather than trying to construct a tower of understanding from the ground up, the new birth would provide access from the top down. This new birth was baptism, and the access that it provided, the way it enlightened the mind, was by the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless one is born of water and Spirit
he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.
Once received the Holy Spirit would make sense of the Kingdom, for the wisdom guiding the Kingdom would then no longer be a merely external phenomenon to study and to question, it would become an inner reality guiding the heart. Deep would then call upon deep.
For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God (se First Corinthians 2:10-12).
Baptism is therefore enlightenment and the renewal of the mind, whereby we can truly and meaningfully say that "we have the mind of Christ" (see First Corinthians 2:16). Yet it is clear that we don't always avail ourselves of this gift of the Spirit. We often fall back into thinking as human beings do and not as God does. Especially in the face of hostile circumstances we tend to revert to previous survival strategies and the habits of our old way of life. Instead, we should learn from the disciples in our reading from Acts.
And now, Lord, take note of their threats,
and enable your servants to speak your word
with all boldness, as you stretch forth your hand to heal,
and signs and wonders are done
through the name of your holy servant Jesus.
Listen to the logic of Spirit in this reading. They did not meet the hostility of the world with threats. Rather, the boldness for which they prayed was a boldness for preaching, and, note this especially, healing. This is just the sort of Spirit wisdom that the unregenerate world will not understand. We see the world's fascination with this every time Christians make acts of forgiveness which to the world are unthinkable. Yet, like Nicodemus, the wisdom of the Spirit can captivate and draw the world in. Because of this we should be sure to fan the our gift into flames (see Second Timothy 1:6) just as the disciples did.
As they prayed, the place where they were gathered shook,
and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.
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