If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe,
how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?
Jesus tried to help Nicodemus to raise his mind to heavenly things by way of earthly analogies. But Nicodemus was still stuck at trying to figure out, not so much the spiritual realities, but what they implied about the earthly and empirical. "How can this happen?", may have been a sincere question. But the true answer to that question could not be understood at a merely earthly level of thinking. If Nicodemus could not avail himself of the analogy of the earthly to the heavenly, the bridge that Jesus was able to offer in his teaching, and this because he was himself that bridge in his person, Nicodemus would not be able to understand what exactly how baptism could produce the effect of new birth that Jesus described.
No one has gone up to heaven
except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.
Because of the divinity of Jesus, which came from the Father he was uniquely able to reveal heavenly truth. Because of the humanity of Jesus, which came from Mary his mother, he was able to speak that truth to other women and men of earth. He had full access to the answers, but also the ability to communicate those answer at a human level. But that level of communication required that the minds of the human receiving the communication be lifted up. Those walled off against spiritual and heavenly realities could not hope to understand.
And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.
This response from Jesus may have seemed to Nicodemus to come out of left field. But it was in fact the answer to his question about precisely what made it possible for baptism to have its effect of regeneration, of new birth, for those who believed. The primary limitation of the old birth was that of sin. Sin darkened the mind, set one at enmity with God, and made him resistant to learning and following God's ways. It caused him to be limited by his ego, his life unable to rise to the level of consistent and genuine love. This in turn presented such a gulf between him and God that he was unable to live forever in his presence. But the lifting up of Christ was powerful precisely because it had the ability to reveal the true toxicity of the poison while at the same time offering a cure. In a way, it said, 'These are the consequences of keeping your mind at an earthly level. But here also is a new possibility to look higher'. It was an extreme indiction of the earthly while at the same time making the heavenly so inviting that "when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself" (see John 12:32).
We can tell that we have not fully realized this promise. The first disciples were much closer since, there "was no needy person among them", so fully had they given themselves over to lives of love. It seems we need Apostles in our own times to bear witness with great power to the resurrection of Jesus. It is from his rising that we receive great favor, as they did. Once we know this favor in our lives we too many become daughters and sons of encouragement.
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