Wednesday, April 19, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
I’m satisfied with just a cottage below
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, so that whosoever believed in him might not perish but have eternal life.
In confirmation class, whoever got this verse was the lucky one because they already knew it. I can’t remember when this verse wasn’t near the top of my consciousness, ready for recall whenever I needed it.
The verse applies to me and to everyone, and always has. You might not perish but have everlasting life. I might not perish but have everlasting life. I don’t often imagine myself into the story that night of the conversation between Jesus and his sympathetic Pharisee. In The Chosen Nicodemus develops as the husband of a socially hungry wife who is caught between her ambition, his official duties, and his desire to follow Jesus.
Like the rich young ruler, Nicodemus had too much to give away. Jesus invited him to join their motley crew, to meet them in a night or two on their way out of town. Nicodemus agonized, and then did not go.
God did NOT send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned.
I too often do not go. “Go ye into all the world” means go into the world immediately surrounding you and do the work of Jesus. Teach, baptize, heal, speak up, stand up, stand up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross. Nicodemus was not condemned, nor am I. But seeing Jesus in the faces of the least of these or challenging evil to its face and absorbing the blows and consequences no matter how outrageous – those moments of glory (death) are not available when I sit on the fence. Neither were they for Nicodemus.
This is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light because their works were evil. Everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed.
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.
Not everyone turns away. There is joy just now, just right here when I look into the eyes of another person and smile, and say hello, and ask their name. If they look away, so be it. Usually, they do not. Evil rarely triumphs over good when the two confront each other in any one of us.
I spent yesterday with many people, talking and listening, seeking paths to trace together in search of grace, forgiveness, honesty and joy. I did think of Jesus and Nicodemus, and their friendship. I felt my way along the path. Pilgrim’s Progress, one of my friends called it.
Whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.
The day, rich and brimming, ended and I slept.
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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