Homily: Tuesday, 2nd Week of Easter, Year 1

Readings: Acts 4:32-37; Ps 93; Jn 7:7b-15

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Did you get the sense that Nicodemus maybe didn’t want to be seen with Jesus? After all he was an important guy, a mucky muck. What did Jesus call him? "The teacher of Israel." 

Maybe Nicodemus was concerned that the wrong folks might see him making this visit, so he goes to Jesus at night. And yet he does go to Jesus, doesn’t he? At heart Nicodemus is a man of God, a seeker of truth.

He’s probably heard reports, maybe even witnessed, Jesus' miracles and has seen the crowds that follow Jesus everywhere. But he was different from his colleagues who see Jesus as a threat to their control of the people. Jesus simply refused to be created in their image. Such men never learn because they're so sure that they already know all the answers.

Dorothy Day once said: "Jesus came to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." And the Jewish leadership of Jesus’ time was comfortable indeed.

Nicodemus, to his credit, recognizes the signs, as John calls them. How did he phrase it?

"We know you are a teacher come from God…"

And he decides to find out for himself.

The Pharisees questioned Jesus in public, intent only on trapping Him, but Nicodemus met with Jesus privately, for he seeks the truth. But the truth that he hears from Jesus is not what he expects. Begotten from above? Born again? What can these things mean? Confused, he struggles to understand.

Nicodemus probably expected a theological discussion, but Jesus instead speaks of conversion.

Nicodemus expected a meeting of the minds with a peer. But Jesus demands a meeting of the hearts.

Nicodemus is looking for rabbinic exegesis, an encounter with Scripture. Instead, he gets a personal encounter with Our Lord.

Nicodemus was theologizing, while Jesus was evangelizing.

The lesson for us? We take up the revealed word of God for one reason only: to encounter Jesus, the incarnate Word of God. The Scriptures must first be accepted into our hearts before they make any sense to our heads.

Jesus simply took Nicodemus to the next level, to another encounter, an encounter with the Spirit.

"No one can enter God's kingdom without being begotten of water and the Spirit."

You and I, by the grace of Baptism and Confirmation, have been born again from above by water and the Holy Spirit. But what happens sacramentally must now be lived existentially.

How is such a thing possible? Nicodemus’ question is our question – all the helplessness of it, the longing, the discouragement? How can I ever hope to share in all that is Jesus? And Jesus replies: You can’t, not alone.

You and I and Nicodemus must make a free decision – not to change, but to be changed, to allow the Spirit to move us and to lead us with His gentle Love. To be born again in God is only a beginning, an infancy, as St. Paul calls it.

That’s the second lesson Jesus taught Nicodemus: you can't do it yourself. It demands an act of faith and surrender. In faith, you must abandon yourself totally to the Spirit of God.

Such an act can come only through prayer. The trouble is, so much of our prayer life is occupied by telling God what He already knows. God knows your needs. But do you know God's Will for you? Pray daily to be continually renewed by the Holy Spirit, to have the strength to be weak in the presence of God's Will.

And finally, Our Lord introduces Nicodemus to the depth and breadth of His Love. And it's a Love centered on the cross. Just as Moses lifted the bronze serpent in the desert, Jesus would be lifted up on the cross. And those who look on Him and "believe will have eternal life in Him."

This act of faith on our part is also an act of love, for the two are intimately connected. To embrace the cross, the sign of God's infinite Love, and be grounded in truth. For it is love that lifts us up on our own crosses, and helps us realize that a painless, crossless Christianity is a Christianity without love. And it is the truth that enables us to experience the revelation of God's glory in a broken world.

Lord, send us your Spirit that we may be recreated. Give us a new mind that we may grasp your truth, and a new heart that we may grasp your love.

Let that be our prayer today.