Mtr Taylor Devine

Good morning,

In today’s appointed Gospel, John 3:11-17, we step into the scene midstream.  Nicodemus, who is a Pharisee, a religious leader and an expert, arrives in the dark to talk to Jesus.  They parse out fair questions, “How is one born from above?  How can these things be?”  He leaves in the night, and in Chapter 7 reemerges as a hidden follower.  After the crucifixion, “Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds,” which he used to prepare Jesus’ body for the tomb.  Nicodemus’ story feels familiar, moving from fear to faith, over time, through prayer, relationship and experience.  

A portion of a poem by Carol Ann Duffy called "Prayer" speaks to the re-awakenings that we may have in our life's work of following Christ,
 

Some days, although we cannot pray

a prayer utters itself. 

So, a woman will lift

her head from the sieve of her hands and stare

at the minims sung by a tree,

a sudden gift.

Some nights, 

although we are faithless, 

the truth enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;

then a man will stand stock-still, 

hearing his youth

in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Some days, though we do not know how to believe or to how pray, a prayer utters itself.  Some nights, though we do not know how, the truth of God’s saving work become real to us.  In our doubt we may find our way into prayer, to the realization that we dwell always in God’s realm.  The Spirit bids us to encounter and know, as Nicodemus did, that "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son," as Nicodemus came to know 

In Christ,
Taylor