Born Again into the Light and Life of Christ

You have come to Jesus to learn from Him, to know God and enter His Kingdom.

It is already the work of the Spirit, through the Word and works of Christ Jesus, that you are here.

But it is something far more, and more radical, than information or education that you need.

You are in the dark, apart from Christ and His Spirit, not only because you are ignorant or uninformed, but because you are sinful and therefore mortal; you have inherited your father’s fallen flesh, which wears out and dies and withers and fades like the grass.

If you are to live in the Kingdom of God, you must be born again and become a new man. The old man must die, and a new man be born of God the Father, by the Word and Spirit of His Son.

Such regeneration and rebirth is made possible for you, and for all the children of men, by the Incarnation and Holy Nativity of Christ Jesus, and by His Cross and Resurrection from the dead.

It is because He who is the Word of God, by whom all things are made, has become flesh, born of flesh and blood like yours, that you may now live in and with God forever in the flesh.

It is because He has died in your place, bearing your sins in His own Body of flesh and blood, and because He has risen from the dead, bodily, in that same flesh, now glorified, that your body, though it die, shall also be raised unto life everlasting.

The key is that He has come down from heaven to earth, in order to raise you from the dust of the earth to the Father in heaven.

He is the Light who now shines in the midst of your darkness, to enlighten you with His Spirit in heart and mind, body and soul.

You could not ascend to heaven or climb your own way into the Kingdom of God, but heaven has come down to you in earthly ways and means, and the Kingdom of God is at hand, on earth as it is in heaven, in the Person of Jesus Christ: in His Word, which is spoken here, and in His own flesh and blood, given and poured out for you here.

Thus, it is by water — with the Word of God — that you have been born again of the Spirit of God, in Christ; and it is with bread and wine, at the Word of Jesus, that your body is here fed with His body (crucified and risen), so that you shall not die, but live in the light of eternal day, both body and soul, in the presence of God.