June Trinity
John 3: 1-17
There was a
man in the circle of the Pharisees, whose name was Nicodemus; he held high rank
among the Jews. He came to Jesus in the night and said, “Master, we know that
you are a high teacher of mankind, come to us from God, for no one can do such
signs of the Spirit as you do unless God himself is working together with him
in his deeds.”
Jesus answered and said to him, “The truth out of the spirit I say to
you: whoever is not born anew from above cannot behold the kingdom of God.”
Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born again when he is old? Can
he return to his mother’s womb to be born again a second time?
Jesus answered, “the truth out of the spirit I say to you: whoever
remains as he is, and does not come to a new birth out of the formative power
of the water and out of the breath of the spirit [or, …and is not born anew out of the spiritual power of eternal
becoming and out of being touched by the might of the spirit world] cannot enter into the kingdom of God. What is born out of earthly
elements is of earthly nature. But what is born out of the breath of the
spirit, is itself spirit. Do not wonder that I said to you that you must be
born anew from above. The spirit wind blows where it will; you hear the sound
of it, but you do not know where it comes from, or where it is going. So it is
with everyone who is born anew out of the breath of the spirit.
Nicodemus replied and said to him, “How can one attain this?”
Jesus
answered, “You are a teacher of Israel and do not know? Amen, the truth I say
to you: we speak of what we know, and we bear witness to what we have seen in
the spirit, but none of you accepts our testimony. When I speak to you of
earthly things and you do not believe them, how shall you believe when I want to
speak to you of heavenly things? No one has ascended to the spiritual world who
has not previously descended out of the spiritual world, that is, the Son of
Man.
Just as Moses once lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the
Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who finds his power in their hearts
can win a share in the higher life beyond time. God has so loved the world that
he has given his only begotten Son. From now on, no one who fills himself with his
power shall perish, for he will share in timeless, higher life. God did not
send the Son into the world to condemn it, but in order that the world be saved
[healed] through him, and not fall prey to ruin.”
6th June Trinity
John 3: 1-17
Rocks don’t grow. The only
way they can change is to be destroyed, ground into dust. Water and wind,
however, move and shape. Water forms rocks; moving water and wind wear them
down.
The problem with Nicodemus in
the beginning of this reading is that his thinking is like a rock. When Christ
talks about being born again, Nicodemus’s pictures something literal and
limited to the earthly. Christ, however, is talking about the primacy of the
spirit. The living waters of the Spirit form and shape; spirit breath breathes
soul into all that is formed. Each child’s body is shaped in the waters of the
womb.
We have all descended from
the spirit. Our task is to consciously ascend
into the heavenly realms while we are still on earth. On earth we human spirits
are to rebirth ourselves back into an awareness of the realm from which we have
come, the realm that has shaped and formed us.
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| Blake |
Christ uses a picture from
the Old Testament to explain this to Nicodemus: near the end of their forty
years wandering in the desert, the Israelites were complaining bitterly about
the food and water, complaining about their fate. The Lord sent fiery serpents.
Many people died, but in those who survived, the stinging of conscience
awakened their awareness of the sinfulness of raging against God’s karmic plan
for them. They asked Moses to intercede. The Lord instructed Moses to fashion a
brass snake and fasten it to a standard; all who had been bitten by the
poisonous attitude would gaze upon the shining, uprighted snake on a pole. This
symbol is a caduceus, the symbol of healing. In this picture of the snake being
uprighted, they would recognize the wisdom of accepting their destiny in inner
uprightness, without complaint. (Numbers 21:8)
The spirit is primary. It is
not our fate, our destiny that is decisive, but how our spirits meet it. When
we meet the bite of our fate with courage and inner uprightness, we have the
potential to be changed and re-formed, to be born again as new human beings out
of the waters of life and wind of the spirit from which we come.
Christ is for us the
archetype of this process. He, the great Spirit, descended to earth, took on a
body, and suffered a terrible fate. We can gaze upon him, the Shining One,
upright on the pole of a cross. He is the ever-living caduceus, the symbol of
healing. He is wisdom uprighted, sacrificed to love. He is our human fate,
carried in uprightness, into and through death.
“Do not be afraid, he says. I
am the first, and the last and the living one. I was dead, and see, I am alive
forevermore, and I have the keys of death. I am the first born from the dead.” (Rev
1:5 -7).
Christ is the first in a new
form of humanity. And we are to follow him into a new birth that even death
cannot swallow.
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