There are personalities in scripture that have forever held my attention and one of them is Nicodemus. It is his coming curious at night that reaches out to me. Perhaps night is the time of dreams and thoughts that often come from beyond our control and sit with us whether we like it or not. I wonder if we would find them more abundant if we did not have so many night entertainments, our computers, TV, music and books. In other words if we were like Nicodemus, would we wonder about deep things more.
He wonders if Jesus is from God early in John's gospel. He knows the outward signs of God in a person's life. He is a teacher, a ruler of the Jews. They look to Nicodemus for guidance and hope. He sees the signs of God in Jesus, in the words spoken, in the actions of temple cleansing, perhaps in the miracle of excess wine at a wedding. But where does it come from, all this depth, all these signs that seem native to Jesus?
Jesus speaks to him of the Spirit moving over and in life, of what he calls being born anew. But Nicodemus who has trusted his learning and position and role must come to terms with the reality that there is a birth not in the mind's control and thus our control, but which moves by God's control over the open heart/mind...the Spirit. Here is the reality beyond us, one never suited to "reality TV." Here is a possible night visit, day visit which comes from the essence of life, from God who has fashioned us before our knowing and will fashion us still and eternally. Nicodemus will go away in time only to come again. It takes awhile to grasp deeper, out of my control things.
There are two notions I have picked up from Richard Rohr that linger with me in light of Nicodemus and night and prayer and changing, ever changing. One is that "we are God's prayer, God's thought, that God is hopelessly lost in thinking us. All we can do is stay naked, self-forgetful, ready for love-making." The tension is we strive to cover our lives with roles and tasks that we perceive are what gives us meaning. We are all but fully addicted to this self meaning making. Yet prayer is different. It is yielding to God's desire, intention just to love us beyond judgement. Prayer is where we just allow Love to run over us and heal us little by little. Prayer is the best wine found late at the wedding feast where the most important guest has marked us.
The second notion is "God comes to forgive our sin, but we are much more concerned with our guilt, which is a bit different. Sin is not just something we do. First, sin is a state of being. It is an incompleteness that we are born into and eventually choose." He suggest we grow accustom to our incompleteness, our insecurities. We make friends with them, rely on them, define our life by them. We do not know how we would be without them. He illustrates one possibility as our anger. Our anger at some injustice, some abuse, some relationship gone wrong. Too often we live and feed on this. Perhaps it shows up in the patterns by which we relate to others, to politics or our work. Perhaps it shows up in our waking dreams (that would be me too often). Yet it is part of my incompleteness and I hold to it.
What then is its antidote? That would be prayer. Not 'give me prayer', but falling into God prayer. Not getting naked before God but just being naked before God. Like Nicodemus, we just show up in the 'night' of our life and say "How can I be born anew just now?" Then waiting for the wind of God's creative, forgiving love just to blow over us/me. Know I will come here again. Let God love me/you and be willing to try this self-forgetting love out again with self and others. Allowing the outward signs of God's love grow in me and in those who compose my world. Perhaps this is being born from above repeatedly, little by little.
I am grateful to Nicodemus who comes by night so I may linger into the Day.
