You Must Be Born From Above

On Wednesday, 19 March 2025, the Holy Father's catechesis concerned the meeting of Nicodemus with Jesus at night, when he heard the Lord's teaching on the new birth.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Good Morning!

With this catechesis we begin to contemplate some of the encounters narrated in the Gospels, to understand the way in which Jesus gives hope. Indeed, there are encounters that brighten life and bring hope. It can happen, for example, that someone helps us to see a difficulty or a problem we are experiencing from a different perspective; or it can happen that someone simply says something to us that makes us feel that we are not alone in the pain we are going through. At times there can even be silent encounters, in which nothing is said, and yet those moments help us to get back on track.

The first encounter I would like to look at is that of Jesus with Nicodemus, narrated in chapter 3 of the Gospel of John. I will start with this episode because Nicodemus is a man who, with his history, shows that it is possible to emerge from darkness and find the courage to follow Christ.

Nicodemus goes to Jesus at night: it is an unusual time for a meeting. In John’s language, temporal references often have symbolic value: here the night probably refers to what is in Nicodemus’ heart. He is a man who finds himself in the darkness of doubt, in that darkness that we experience when we no longer understand what is happening in our lives and do not see the way forward clearly.

If you are in the dark, of course you seek the light. And John, at the beginning of his Gospel, writes: “The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world” (1:9). Nicodemus therefore seeks Jesus because he has sensed that He can illuminate the darkness of his heart.

However, the Gospel tells us that Nicodemus does not understand immediately what Jesus is saying to him. And so we see that there are many misunderstandings in this dialogue, and also a lot of irony, which is a characteristic of the evangelist John. Nicodemus does not understand what Jesus is telling him because he continues to think with his own logic and categories. He is a man with a well-defined personality; he has a public role, he is one of the leaders of the Jews. But probably something no longer adds up for him.

Nicodemus senses that something in his life no longer works. He feels the need to change, but he does not know where to begin.

This happens to all of us in some phases of life. If we do not accept changing, if we close ourselves up in our inflexibility, in habits or in our ways of thinking, we risk dying. Life resides in the capacity to change to find a new way to love. Indeed, Jesus speaks to Nicodemus of a new birth, which is not only possible, but even necessary at certain moments in our journey. To tell the truth, the expression used in the text is already ambivalent in itself, because anōthen can be translated as either “from above” or “again”. Slowly, Nicodemus will understand that these two meanings go together: if we allow the Holy Spirit to generate new life in us, we will be born again. We will rediscover that life, which was perhaps fading in us.

I chose to begin with Nicodemus also because he is a man who, with his very life, shows that this change is possible. Nicodemus will succeed: in the end he will be among those who go to Pilate to ask for Jesus’ body (cf. Jn 19:39)! Nicodemus has finally come to the light, he is reborn, and he no longer needs to stay in the night.

Changes sometimes frighten us. On the one hand, they attract us, at times we desire them, but on the other, we would prefer to remain in comfort. Therefore the Spirit encourages us to face these fears. Jesus reminds Nicodemus — who is a teacher in Israel — that even the Israelites were afraid when they were walking in the desert. And they focused so much on their worries that at a certain point those fears took the form of venomous snakes (cf. Nm 21:4-9). In order to be freed, they had to look at the copper serpent that Moses had placed on a pole, that is, they had to look up and stand before the object that represented their fears. Only by looking into the face of that which frightens us can we begin to be set free.

Nicodemus, like all of us, will be able to look at the Crucified One: the One who defeated death, the root of all our fears. Let us, too, lift our gaze to the One they pierced, let us, too, allow ourselves to be met by Jesus. In Him we find the hope to face the changes in our lives and be born anew.

L'Osservatore Romano
19 March 2025