Reflection - Fourth Sunday of Lent
Cross = love. Photo: Neal E Johnson/Unsplash
This is such a dramatic scene and exchange between Jesus and Nicodemus a leading Pharisee. Nicodemus visits Jesus in the night, presumably because he wants to remain anonymous and inconspicuous. He is in turmoil about Jesus.
John’s gospel describes Nicodemus as a Pharisee who believes that Jesus has come from God because the signs he works, the healings he performs, must come from the presence of God in him.
Yet his fellow Pharisees are hostile towards Jesus because of the works he does and just as importantly, the words that he says.
Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believed in him may not be lost but may have eternal life. John 3:16.
These words from Jesus to Nicodemus are an explicit description of what Jesus was doing, encouraging people to believe in him and because of their faith in him to receive eternal life!
These are popular words which we see printed on the billboards of churches, in many articles and books. They summarise what the Good news of God is all about.
Nicodemus is attracted by the person of Jesus and by his actions. The signs and healings attract many people who come to believe in Jesus. But Nicodemus struggles.
He also knows that many Pharisees, men with whom he had studied and prayed and who were trying to protect the Jewish people from their Roman overlords and other powerful elites trying to take their culture away from them and replace it with a Greek culture, were good men.
But they were opposed to Jesus in the strongest terms. Eventually, they plan to kill him.
Nicodemus cannot make a decision to believe in Jesus fully. His training, his beliefs are strong in his Jewish faith; he cannot take the step which will make him a disciple.
Jesus had also said: "God sent his Son into the world, not to condemn the world but so that through him the world might be saved." John 3:17
These are uplifting prophetic words! In the history of Christian living, we have seen people move their focus from these words of salvation to words of condemnation: hell and judgement from a just but implacable judge about the rightness and wrongness of our actions. We call these judgements heresies when they go too far in blurring the message that Jesus has given.
Pope Francis has promoted a way of living the Christian message which depends on talking to people with whom we do not share the same beliefs. No doubt people are fearful that they will be’ contaminated’ by the words and actions of those who oppose us in our Christian faith.
But, we must remember that God’s plan was to send the Son who would not condemn the world… but THROUGH HIM the world would be saved and changed.
John uses the symbols of light and darkness to describe those who chose Jesus or reject him. Nothing has changed.
Columban Fr Gary Walker is currently living at the Columban house in Sandgate, Brisbane.
