Third Sunday after the Epiphany (Year 4, NL)

The binary world of John’s Gospel is well drawn in Jesus’ talk here. How could a God of love condemn people? What does it mean to be in darkness?

These Trinity Sunday texts show God moving graciously—and persistently—toward people while they struggle to stay on their feet.

There must have been some Lutherans sitting in that conference room when the Revised Common Lectionary was birthed. That is the only explanation that I can come up with for Ephesians 2:1-10 having a role on the Fourth Sunday in Lent, Year B.

Jesus and Nicodemus might as well be speaking different languages. Jesus speaks of birth from above; Nicodemus is befuddled. Jesus speaks of the spirit as wind blowing where it will; Nicodemus wonders how this can be. They are like a creationist and a paleontologist comparing notes on fossils--they simply can't fathom each other. Their organizing assumptions are too different.

Here's when we sense that Nicodemus begins to understand what Jesus is saying: when Jesus reinterprets the story of Israel in the wilderness, drawing from the language that has oriented Nicodemus's life and thought. It doesn't seem likely, after all, that the series of puzzling metaphors Jesus begins with would push Nicodemus to understanding. But something clearly does.

The three readings for this Sunday have few obvious connections. But they do each point to forms of holiness: Genesis points to vocation, Romans points to faith, and John points to rebirth.

Faith, birth, vocation: our readings offer us profound, intimidating terms for thinking about what it means to be in relationship with God.

Here in Tidewater, Virginia, we make our way from city to city via a series of tunnels. As we approach each tunnel a series of signs warn us: “No HAZMATS” and “HAZMATS must exit here.” Trucks carrying hazardous materials of one sort or another provide a danger anywhere, but in tunnels the risk is magnified.

John Calvin grounded our need to know God in our createdness: "What is the chief end of human life?" he asked, and answered, "To know God by whom we were created." This yearning is not the same as our need to "know" other human beings.

This week the lectionary offers foundational verses of our faith. But the faith cannot live on a couple verses alone.

Look, people are sinking under the waters. Here in this wilderness, people are perishing.

After an attempted coup in Indonesia in 1965, headlines reported that 500,000 people were killed. What did not make the headlines was the quiet revolution that began as the wind of the Spirit began to move into a collapsed intellectual and moral vacuum. There was no ballyhoo or promotion, but simply the response of untold numbers who found in the churches a haven.

If you’re Eli, you’re not sleeping that well when the boy comes trotting in to disturb you with his nonsense.

Portrayed as a cowardly dolt, Nicodemus is usually spotted skulking about under cover of darkness.

Embracing Jesus as the Christ means becoming a new person, not a better one.