For Sunday
Lent 2A
Collect
O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Reading
Reflection
This moment with Nicodemus is still early in Jesus’s ministry.
The miracle of the wedding at Cana and then other unnamed miracles seem to have spread the word of Jesus rather quickly, though not everywhere yet. It is also apparently developing a kind of infamy among the religious leaders. Nicodemus doesn’t feel comfortable coming to Jesus when he can be seen.
I can’t help but think of the long history of secret-keeping, particularly among the people needing help. Even today, when therapy is so normal, it is still something people hide. Not because of mere embarrassment, but genuine backlash. People lose jobs, friendships, and even their lives because they have the audacity to ask for help.
Even in this most enlightened of eras, the idea of seeking help is abnormal. Our culture expects rugged individualism and celebrates the “self-made man”. Concepts we treat as universal and necessary—which cause a great deal of harm.
Nicodemus seems intent on misunderstanding Jesus here. But we find out later that he becomes a secret disciple. He has had to live his life as a lie because the institution wouldn’t accept him. This is tragic. And exposes, not so much his sin as the institution’s.