Coffee With God

 

Reflection: John 3:7-15

Today’s Gospel passage is part of the conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus. Nicodemus is presented as the representative of all those who got tangled with their traditions and customs. He was a reputed rabbi, but his reputations and qualifications prevented him from walking out the darkness of the wrong traditions and customs into the light of Jesus. The newness of life offered by Jesus was beyond his understanding. The prophets of Israel had consistently challenged the futility of their scrupulous observance of the Thora while refusing concern, compassion and love for the brethren. Nicodemus would fade from the story at least temporarily; and dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus would now turns into a monologue of Jesus. Though placed on the lips of Jesus, the actual discourse is the composition of the evangelist. He wrote the Gospel around the year 90 – i.e., over five decades after the death and resurrection of Jesus. He speaks as a disciple of Jesus and as member of the Spirit-filled community, and he had experienced the new birth promised by Jesus. He experienced exclusion from the Jewish religious system and had lived with fellow members of the community of believers whose lives had radically changed ever since they had been born from above, as Jesus told to Nicodemus. Today, the Gospel invites us to be born again, to leave the old that is in us: when this happens, the Spirit takes us and the miracle occurs. New birth in the Spirit would be birth to eternal life, a way of living within the material world but transcending it, and enduring beyond death. Eternal life that the Gospel speaks of would mean entering into the values of truth, love and mercy of the ever-living God. The incident about the snake in the desert had been recorded in the Book of Numbers and had occurred while the Israelites were wandering through the desert of Sinai, before they arrived the Promised Land. In the community of John, the symbol of the snake raised on the pole evidently became a cherished symbol, helping them to make sense of the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Gospel brings us the message of hope – a hope that tells us that there is something more beautiful and profitable on the other side of our struggles in life. Our various life experiences are our baptism through which we will be born again. And in this journey, keep our gaze fixed on the Cross – which is the only antidote for the poison of sinfulness.