That’s what Nicodemus said.

But I can’t tell what kind of “I don’t understand” it is.

There is the kind of “I don’t understand” which means, “Can you help me understand?”

There’s the kind of “I don’t understand” which means “No one could understand this and it’s of no value to understand.”

There’s the kind of “I don’t understand” which means, “That’s crazy talk.”

Then there’s the kind of question that looks like “”I don’t understand” but really means, “keep going, you are just showing your ignorance.”

No one exactly is sure which of these is what Nicodemus means. Some people think that he was wanting to be a follower of Jesus. Other people say that he was curious, but unwilling to be convinced.

What clues do we get from Jesus? Not many.

Jesus tries to help Nicodemus not be so literal. He tries to move him from the physical world to the spiritual world. He tries to help him understand that there need to be both physical birth and spiritual birth.

John had spoken in chapter 1 about God giving people the right to become children of God:  “children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”

Here that theme is again. There are biological children and there are spiritual children. And one person can be both kind of child.

But Nicodemus doesn’t get it. “How can that be?” he says.

I think, and this is just me, that Nicodemus has very clear ways of thinking, ways that are wrapped up in his leadership position, in his spiritual training, in his station in life. When Jesus is trying to teach using images, Nicodemus only can process literally.

When you don’t want to understand, you only process the concrete.

It’s still true.