Word to the Wise
Monday, April 16, 2012 - 2nd Week of Easter - Mon
[Acts 4:23-31 and John 3:1-8]"Amen, amen, I say to you, unless one is born of water and Spirit he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit...
The scriptures for this week present us with a strong contrast between the adventures of the apostles in the aftermath of Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles, and the dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus in the Gospel of John. The first shows the power of the preaching and the reaction to it, the second has a rather ethereal and abstract quality, yet it, too, is about the working of the Spirit. As usual, John presents us with an interesting character for the dialogue, Nicodemus, a Pharisee. This dialogue will occupy my reflections for the next couple of days.
The usual dramatic devices are in place. Light and darkness, above and below, misunderstanding and "clarification" - all of these are at work. Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night for fear that he could be persecuted if his interest were known. It may be that he is what we might call a "closet Christian" in today's slang. He will appear twice more- in chapter 7 and chapter 19. (In chapter 7, he makes an indirect and timid defense of Jesus, and in 19, he is part of the burial party.) His approach gives Jesus the opportunity to say more than Nicodemus might want to know! Today we begin with the idea of being born of water and the Spirit - an early statement of baptismal significance.
Nicodemus "misunderstands" Jesus' statement to mean physical rebirth. Jesus "clarifies" by speaking of being "born from above." Baptism is an act of faith that brings us face to face with the power of Christ. We often fail to take account of this in our desire simply to have a child "christened" for entrance in heaven. Thus baptism becomes a thing of the past done for a thing in the, hopefully, distant future. However, baptism is a matter of life going on in the present, just as we breath until we die. The Spirit breathes in us. The dialogue will continue tomorrow! Stay tuned! AMEN
config
view
logs
3840.0 KB
119 ms
4
