Once again using Nicodemus, we press on in this new section of Marcia Mount Shoop's Book "Let the Bones Dance" titled: 'In-forming Mystery.'
Nicodemus tries to make sense of something he is not up close enough to truly understand. Jesus uses Nicodemus's mistaken acknowledgement as a teaching moment, a language lesson. He says no one can see the kingdom of God without being born anothen. The Greek cannot be adequately translated into English as in the Greek this word holds within it simultaneous meanings: "from above" and "again." It is hard for us to hear both meanings simultaneously, but the writer of this Gospel has Jesus challenging Nicodemus in this exchange to hear the deeper meaning of his teaching. There is a temporal and spatial aspect to the kingdom of God.This new birth clears a space for expanded access to God in an immediate sense. Nicodemus's imagination cannot go there.
Faithful imagination presses us all to look again and dare to move into the expansiveness of God's Reign. We too often have our boundaries drawn and established. We do not go beyond where we are and we really do not want to hear about what is beyond our own world of acceptance. If Nicodemus is to walk into the Reign of God as Jesus is walking, he (and all of us) must be willing to see that life is not merely what we want and what we anticipate and what we have been able to master. For just beyond all of that is the unfolding Reign of God's graciousness inviting us to let go and have ourselves be filled with more and more vision and life than we ever anticipated or could see.
Connection: It is not easy to listen to such language as Jesus' words to Nicodemus. It is never easy to be pulled out of ourselves and hear another word that may turn life into something it has yet to be for us. And yet, the pulling never stops - no matter where we are - how old we are - what we have made of ourselves - and who we try to be. New life is always available.
Though you seem to be so far off, O God, you are still the beginning and the end - the hope of life that permeates all things. Be for us, again, the encouragement to step forth into your embrace. Amen.
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