Be Saved Through Him

April 14, 2010

Wednesday of the Second Week of Easter

But during the night, the angel of the Lord opened the doors of the prison, led them out, and said, “Go and take your place in the temple area, and tell the people everything about this life.” Acts 5:19-20

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. John 3:16-17

Piety

Dear Lord, give me a growing desire to pray. It remains so hard for me to give my time generously to you. I am still greedy for time – time to be useful, effective, successful, time to perform, excel, produce. But you, O Lord, ask nothing else than my simple presence, my humble recognition of my nakedness, my defenseless confession of my sins, so that you can let the rays of your love enter my heart and give me the deep knowledge that I can love because you accepted me first, and that I can do good because you have shown me your goodness first.

What holds me back? What makes me so hesitant and stingy, so careful and calculating? Do I still doubt that I need nothing besides you? Do I still want to build up some kind of reserve in case you might not come through? Please, Lord, help me to give up these immature games, and let me love you freely, boldly, courageously, and generously. Amen.

(“Sunday, April 29,” by Henri J. M. Nouwen in A Cry for Mercy: Prayers from the Genesee, p.77.)

Study

Having perhaps the most famous – or at least most advertised – Bible passage appear in the midst of the Easter season is not surprising. At every celebration of the holy sacrifice of the Mass, at every sacrament, at every visit to the sick in a hospital, at every visit to the prisons, at every corporal work of mercy, we recall the kind of lover that our God is.

This commentary by St. John appears in the middle of the story about the restless heart of Nicodemus who longs to know more about this rabbi, this teacher, this man, Jesus of Nazareth. Nicodemus was drawn to Jesus by his restless heart that was not content to be caged in the temple even if he was a leading member of the Pharisees.

What kind of lover is our God? He gave his ONLY SON so that we would have everything in the eternal life that he offers to us.

What kind of a lover was Nicodemus? What kind of lover was John, who wrote down this story? Are we a lover like God? Are we a lover like Nicodemus? Are we a lover like St. John?

The longing is portrayed both in Nicodemus being drawn to learn more about Jesus as well as God longing to save his beloved children. How much of this longing do we embrace? If our longing is toward the Lord, then we can be saved through him. If our longing is for something or someone else, then we can be saved only through him, not some false idol or ideal that we embrace.

Action

“There is in all of us, at the very center of our lives, a tension, an aching, a burning in the heart that is insatiable, non-quietable, and very deep…If you are alive, you are restless, full of spirit.”

Much of what we long for today, as Ronald Rolheiser points out in his book Spirituality for a Restless Culture, is about what we can obtain and possess. “Our aches and longings are seen as directed toward what we can attain, practically in the here and now: achievement, success, sex, limited love and enjoyment…If we define our deepest longings as directed toward them in themselves, we end up in despair.” Judas got his thirty pieces of silver and he found himself at the end of his rope. The “good thief” satisfied his longing for Christ by sharing the cross-experience. He ended up in paradise.

Rolheiser portrays this longing for God that we see in today’s Gospel as a “congential and holy restlessness put in us by God to push us toward the infinite.” If we put our longing toward things of this world, we end up restless “only in a tired way (which drains us of energy) and not in a divine way (which gives us energy).”

It strikes me how similar are the longing for prayer expressed by Henri Nouwen in 1979 and the comments about the restless and longing heart which were written by Rolheiser in 1991. These similarities point us toward some concept of universality on these themes.

How does this longing play out in your life? What kind of lover are we? How do we satisfy this longing of our restless heart?