First Hear Him (Part Two)
I knew their plot because the LORD informed me; at that time, you, O LORD, showed me their doings. Yet I, like a trusting lamb, led to slaughter, had not realized that they were hatching plots against me: "Let us destroy the tree in its vigor; let us cut him off from the land of the living so that his name will be spoken no more." Jeremiah 11:18-19
So, the guards went to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, "Why did you not bring him?" The guards answered, "Never before has anyone spoken like this man." So, the Pharisees answered them, "Have you also been deceived? Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd, which does not know the law, is accursed." Nicodemus, one of their members who had come to him earlier, said to them, "Does our law condemn a man before it first hears him and finds out what he is doing?" They answered and said to him, "You are not from Galilee also, are you? Look and see that no prophet arises from Galilee." John 7:45-53
Piety
Through that pure virgin shrine,
That sacred veil drawn o’er Thy glorious noon,
That men might look and live, as glowworms shine,
And face the moon,
Wise Nicodemus saw such light
As made him know his God by night.
Most blest believer he!
Who in that land of darkness and blind eyes
Thy long-expected healing wings could see,
When Thou didst rise!
And, what can never more be done,
Did at midnight speak with the Sun!
O who will tell me where
He found Thee at that dead and silent hour?
What hallowed solitary ground did bear
So rare a flower,
Within whose sacred leaves did lie
The fulness of the Deity?
Study
Sometimes when reading the Hebrew Prophets like Jeremiah and Wisdom, they are so prescient in foretelling the events of the Passion thousands of years in advance.
The notes in the NABRE tell us Jeremiah was born, perhaps about 650 B.C., of a priestly family from the village of Anathoth, two and a half miles northeast of Jerusalem. The book of Wisdom does not go back quite that far – sources explain it was written about 50 years before Christ was born. Yet who among us could write and predict the fate of a person who would not be born until the year 2070? We do not even know if our Apple Music accounts will still work by then or what will replace driverless helicopters.
Yet the words we encounter in Jeremiah could not have been further from reality. "Let us destroy the tree in its vigor; let us cut him off from the land of the living, so that his name will be spoken no more." Here we are 2020 years later, still trying to get close to Jesus and know him and love him and follow his commandments.
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| The Disposition (The Florentine Pieta) |
If we were a Hollywood producer, we might come up with the plot of the movie” “The Prophesies of Jeremiah.” Turning to the Good News, Nicodemus gives us an even deeper story. Nicodemus was a Pharisee and member of the ruling Sanhedrin class. Among Biblical characters, Nicodemus is in rare company. His story is one of the few which appear only in John’s Gospel like Lazarus who is raised from the dead.
Nicodemus does not stay within his comfort zone. When he hears about Jesus, he seeks out the Lord to find out more about this curious, miracle-making, itinerant preacher. Today in his second appearance in John’s Gospel, he reminds his colleagues in the Sanhedrin that the law requires that they must hear Jesus out before judging him. He will appear in one more part of the story: After the Crucifixion of Jesus to provide the customary embalming spices, he assists Joseph of Arimathea in preparing the body of Jesus for a burial fit for a king.
Nicodemus: The Pharisee Awakens (John 3:1-21)
Nicodemus: The Pharisee Intervention (John 7:50-53)
Nicodemus: The Last Pharisee/A New Hope (John 19:39-42)
Action
Nicodemus teaches us that we must start living the truth in the light of day. No longer can we slink away to Mass on Sunday morning and leave our faith behind in the pews until next week (where no one will see or hear us). Now, we must awaken to publicly testify and defend the faith even though we also can expect a backlash from our colleagues – yes even those in the Church. The progression that Nicodemus goes through in John’s Gospel is what makes his story so compelling and so relevant to follow by only a few days the Prodigal Son from last Sunday.
If Lent is about turning our lives toward Jesus, Nicodemus gives us a story almost as deep as Peter or Paul. He is magnetically attracted to the rabbi from Nazareth. Unfortunately, he can not bring along the rest of his peers.
What awakens you in Lent? What draws you to Jesus? How does God make you know him and love him? How will you offer him homage?
Were all my loud, evil days
Calm and unhaunted as is thy dark tent,
Whose peace but by some angel’s wing or voice
Is seldom rent,
Then I in heaven all the long year
Would keep, and never wander here.
But living where the sun
Doth all things wake, and where all mix and tire
Themselves and others, I consent and run
To every mire,
And by this world’s ill-guiding light,
Err more than I can do by night.
There is in God, some say,
A deep but dazzling darkness, as men here
Say it is late and dusky, because they
See not all clear.
O for that night! where I in Him
Might live invisible and dim![ii]
[i] CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=132271 The Disposition (The Florentine Pieta)
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