Monday, February 11, 2008

Today's text

John 3:1-4

There was one of the Pharisees called Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews, who came to Jesus by night and said, 'Rabbi, we know that you have come from God as a teacher; for no one could perform the signs that you do unless God were with him.' Jesus answered: In all truth I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above. Nicodemus said, 'How can anyone who is already old be born? Is it possible to go back into the womb again and be born?'

Prayer

No one can see the kingdom … . No, and yet Nicodemus, hiding in the cloak of night, sees and knows you, Jesus. He knows that you stand in the presence of the All-Merciful One. He sees, but doesn’t know that or what he sees.

Yet, his soul is being born from God. The birth pangs have begun; new birth is in process or he would not—he could not—know that you are from God, with God.

He cannot yet know that the blessed future of God’s determined promise already appears right before him. The Spirit has not yet worked such sight that he may see and be born anew to the mystery of your rule that stands looking him in the eye. For you bring the delight of God’s heart to human space and time.

Would that we, too, could see it, and see it always and in all things.

But we cannot: unless, of course, we are born anew, from on high, so that with illumined and confounded eyes we witness the delight of God’s desire coming true in our midst, in the eyes and souls of those we walk quickly by, in the entangled circumstances of our days.

So many things block our vision, most notably our disbelief that you, O Loving One, should bring your kingdom to circumstances of our lives for which we have long stopped hoping for redemption and transformation.

So give us hope to believe that believing we may see, and seeing that may share in your holy kingdom, here and now where we least expect it.

Pr. David L. Miller