Homily for April 29th, 2019: John 3:1-8.
Most of those
who responded to Jesus’ teaching by coming to believe in him were “little
people,” as the world reckons such things. In today’s gospel we meet an
exception. Nicodemus was member of the Sanhedrin, the elite 70-man Jewish
ruling body that went back to Moses. He comes to Jesus at night. He doesn’t
want his fellow Sanhedrin members, almost all of whom are either hostile to
Jesus, or indifferent, to know about his visit. The night visit my also have a
symbolic meaning. John’s gospel is rich in symbolism. Nicodemus is coming from
the darkness of disbelief, or at least of weak belief, to the One who is the
light of the world.
There was similar symbolism in the gospel for Tuesday in Holy Week, also
by John. After Judas leaves the Upper Room where Jesus was celebrating his Last
Supper with the twelve apostles, John tells us: “And it was night.” For Jesus,
however, it was not night. “Now is the Son of Man glorified,” he cried out when
Judas had left, “and God is glorified in him.”
Nicodemus has been impressed by
Jesus’ miracles – which ones we are not told. Calling Jesus “Rabbi,” Nicodemus
says: “We know you are a teacher come from God, for no man can perform signs
and wonders such as you perform unless God is with him.” This stops far short
of acknowledgement that Jesus is the Messiah. There were other holy rabbis who
performed signs and wonders.
This explains Jesus’ less than
enthusiastic response. You cannot see God’s kingdom, he tells Nicodemus, unless
you are “begotten from above,” in other words, “born of God as your Father.” A
father “begets” the child whom a mother “bears.” Jesus’ meaning becomes clear
only when he says: “No one can enter God’s kingdom without being begotten of
water and the Spirit.”
That is what happened to each of us
when we were baptized. Through the Holy Spirit, and the pouring of water, God
our Father made us his children, brothers and sisters of his divine Son, Jesus,
and heirs of the kingdom of heaven. That is our eternal destiny. And the only thing
can prevent the fulfillment of this destiny is our own deliberate and final
No.
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