Morning Devotion for the Season after Pentecost
August 8, 2022
Invitatory
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.
Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness: Come let us adore him.
Reading - John 3:1-8
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus* by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.’ Jesus answered him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.’* Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?’ Jesus answered, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, “You must be born from above.”* The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’
‘Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?
Meditation - Winnie Smith
John’s Gospel is full of conflicting ideas: light versus dark, above versus below, truth versus falsehood. Biblical scholar Judith Lieu presents the idea that the fourth Gospel is told as a “two-level drama,” one level speaking to earthly existence and the other to a cosmological realm. For readers, this creates a fascinating work of literature; for those in the text, the people meeting and talking to Jesus, it often creates confusion and frustration. Such is the case in today’s encounter between Jesus and a Pharisee named Nicodemus.
Jesus tells Nicodemus, “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Confused, Nicodemus questions this idea - one cannot be reborn from a mother’s womb, so what does Jesus mean? This is an example of two-level drama. Nicodemus hears this message from Jesus literally; he is trying to understand how one can be physically born from above. Jesus is speaking on a spiritual level: he is referring to himself having descended from God the Father, tasked with raising others up to God. When Nicodemus tries to clarify, Jesus goes further: “no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
We can believe in a spiritual rebirth - in a changed way of existing and of living one’s life - because of the incarnate God. Jesus both stood before Nicodemus as a man, talking to him as one person of flesh to another, and as the divine agent who performed miracles. As readers of the Gospel, we understand both levels of the two-level drama, and our faith is enhanced by it. We move through the world as mortal, fleshy people, but we feel the invisible wind of the Spirit. In baptism, we are “born of water and Spirit,” and become members of Christ’s Body and Church through the power of that invisible Spirit even as our mortal bodies remain unchanged.
Nicodemus was a man of the physical world, and he struggled to understand the spiritual reality of which Jesus spoke. Many people struggle in this same way today. Developments in technology and science make it difficult to focus on and understand the spiritual reality Jesus taught about. But what Jesus said to Nicodemus is the Truth. This mortal life is full of delights and difficulties, but the good we receive on earth, good of the flesh, is but a taste of the gifts of the Spirit. Thanks be to God that we can be reborn of water and Spirit, and that there is so much more to life than this mortal existence.
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
