Are there questions about life and God and the world that keep you awake at night?
We don’t know what led Nicodemus to visit Jesus at night. Was he looking for a more private conversation after the crowds were gone? Was he avoiding the other Pharisees since they opposed Jesus and he had come to believe that Jesus was from God? Was he unable to sleep as he was struggling to make sense of the things Jesus was teaching and doing? For whatever reason, Nicodemus comes to talk with Jesus when hardly anyone else was around. What a luxury – one-on-one conversation about God’s vision for the world and humans’ role in it. Of course, true to form, Jesus is not clear, he offers teachings that confuse and befuddle Nicodemus, despite his learning and wisdom. They talk about being born from above, water and spirit and flesh, the mysteries of the wind and how it is like God’s spirit. Nicodemus finally says, “How can these things be?”
The life of faith can be confusing. We also ask, “how can these things be?” We look at ancient stories and try to sort out how God is speaking to us and our current lives through them. We struggle with literal words, symbolic language, questions and baffling answers. But also, there are moments of clarity. Like the final verses of this week’s gospel passage. In one of the most famous verses in the gospels, Jesus says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” Then, Jesus continues, “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
At the core of God’s action is love for the world. Love so deep that God is here beside us, with us, within and through us. Though God knows each of us better than we know ourselves, God hasn’t come close in order to condemn us and our world for failings (of which there are so many), but rather to save and heal the whole world.
Despite the questions that keep us awake at night, we know that God is here in this broken and struggling world. God is here with love. Of course we struggle to understand what God is doing. We certainly question ourselves and other people and even God. We struggle to make sense of the mystery of God and God’s world while we are grounded in the certainty of God’s love. Love that leads to new beginnings and new life.
Peace,
Alicia