John
2:23–3:15. …many believed because they saw the signs that he was doing. ...
Nicodemus said…”no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence
of God.” Jesus answered,…no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born
of water and Spirit. Nicodemus said…”How can these things be?” Jesus answered:
“Are you a teacher,…yet you do not understand…? If I have told you about
earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe about heavenly
things?”
This encounter is a classic example of abstract
versus concrete, Spirit versus the law, and it is clear that Nicodemus “just
doesn’t get it”. Like many Pharisee scholars, he is asking for visible proof of
the existence of God, instead of recognizing that God has become incarnate in a
human being and is standing before him (remember Peter at a later time
physically testing the wounds of Christ before he would believe). In short,
Nicodemus was “stuck in Torah law”; like many of the Hebrews of his time, he
needed to be right and he needed certainty.
It is incumbent upon us to develop our awareness and
listen for God, to be aware of his presence in everyone and everything; after
all God created everything. This is mystery, not magic, and believing in the
Christ transcends all that we can observe, although it is magnificent to see a
bird and know that He is in that creation, as He is in us.
We should cultivate the virtue of patience in our
journey rather than striving for closure. Relative to this I submit the words
of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin:
“Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are
all, quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We
should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the
way to something unknown, something new, and yet it is the law of all progress
that is made by passing through some stages of instability – and that it may
take a very long time. Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is
leading you and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and
incomplete.”
— Dwight Russell
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