The Third Time’s the Charm
If we live long enough, we may very likely experience three births. The first birth is natural. A mother and father conceive a child. A baby is born. There are tears of wonder and delight from new parents.
As God lays hold of our hearts and draws us to himself, we experience a second birth. We call this being born again, as Jesus says in John 3:7,
Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’
Joyful tears of fresh forgiveness, new identity, unconditional love, and the hope of heaven flood our eyes as a spring of water to our parched soul. Every Word of God comes new and fresh.
But if we live long enough and follow Christ in authentic relationship, I am certain we will experience a third birth. The Bible does not call it being born again again, but we catch glimpses of it in sincere followers of Christ. I see it in David’s cry of Psalm 6:6,
I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears;
I drench my couch with my weeping.
I hear it in Jesus’ cry from the cross in Matthew 27:46,
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
St. John of the Cross (b.1542) called it The Dark Night of the Soul in a poem he wrote from prison. About this poem Brennan Manning says it explains “the second conversion.” This birth in a person’s life is not marked by joy and enthusiasm but “dryness, barrenness, desolation, and a profound sense of God’s absence.” Yet, he writes, “The dark night is an indispensable stage of spiritual growth...” The kinds of tears in this birth, though painful, purify the ego and lead us on to a higher road to “Christian freedom and maturity. In fact, it is often an answer to prayer.”
Where do you feel the “dark night”? It may be in a sense of personal failure or spiritual emptiness despite your hardest efforts. But it could just as easily be in the staring down of overwhelming injustice and a sense of something that is not right in the world. The lesson I take from David, Jesus, and John of the Cross is not to give up, but to give in – give in to the sovereign work of God in this place we find ourselves. The dawn that comes after a dark night often is more brilliant than any we’ve experienced.
It is a third birth.
Even so, come Lord Jesus! Come quickly!