Tuesday in the Second Week of Easter, April 26, 2022

John 3, 7-15

Jesus said to Nicodemus: “You must be born from above.  The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus answered and said to him, “How can this happen?” Jesus answered and said to him, “You are the teacher of Israel and you do not understand this? Amen, amen, I say to you, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony. If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”

The Lord’s conversation with Nicodemus, a Pharisee and member of the Sanhedrin, begins with the Pharisee approaching him “at night”, evidently wishing to speak to him privately and perhaps secretly, lest the other Pharisees suspect him of harboring sympathy for Jesus.  The account John presents us comes across as a bit choppy: John includes the most essential words that he recalls.  We see in his recollection his fascination with the way Jesus uses ordinary words to mean extraordinary things.  “Wind” or “Spirit” (the same word in Greek), and “birth” are prominent in the Gospel reading for today’s Mass.

Jesus is answering the question Nicodemus posed concerning how a person can be “born again”.  The Lord explained to him that “unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3, 5).   Today’s Gospel reading picks up after that.  The Lord insists: “You must be born from above.”  The Greek word translated here as “from above” can also mean “again”.  The question that Nicodemus raises concerns how a man must be born again, so translating this verse as “You must be born from above” does not make good sense here.  It is true that we must be “born from above”, but that is not the topic under discussion.  “The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”  We can trace the effect back to the cause, but the cause is always greater than its effect.  This is particularly true with regards to spiritual realities.  We can see from history how the Church began with eleven badly frightened, grieving, hiding, men into a structure spread throughout the world and containing a billion souls at the present time.  This is the effect: the cause is the Holy Spirit, whose power in the Church we trace back to the first Pentecost. “So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”  Those who are “born of the Spirit” are given graces which, though invisible, greatly influence a person’s life and make him capable of attaining great holiness through faith and good — even heroic — works.

“How can this happen?”  Would that the other Pharisees had come to the Lord seeking to learn from him!  Instead they rejected him almost out of hand, perhaps prejudiced against teachers from Galilee.  We can imitate Nicodemus when we do not understand a Church teaching and instead of expecting the teaching to change to suit us, we seek to understand it so that we might follow it.  “You are the teacher of Israel and you do not understand this?”  The Lord’s words sound harsh, but his purpose is to remind Nicodemus that the Pharisees had appointed themselves as Israel’s teachers.  They consider themselves the legitimate interpreters of the Law and the Prophets, but they had no basis for doing so.  The Lord continues in this vein, saying, “Amen, amen, I say to you, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony.”  Jesus testifies of what he has seen and heard from the Father.  His claim is validated by his great works, as Nicodemus said at the beginning of their conversation: “We know that thou art come a teacher from God; for no man can do these signs which thou dost, unless God be with him” (John 3, 2).  The Lord says, “You people”, that is, the Pharisees.  “If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?”  “You” here is in the plural: the Lord is not now speaking to Nicodemus but to his fellow Pharisees who do not believe in him.  Indeed, the Lord often uses “earthly” things to explain “heavenly” things, as he does here, and as he does, for instance, when he speaks of his Body as a temple (cf. John 2, 19-21).

“No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.”  The Lord here refers to his union with the Father.  While his Body and human nature is firmly fixed on earth during his lifetime and his divinity is united to it, it also remains in union with the Father in heaven.  The Lord’s next teaching seems separate from that regarding his unity with the Father, but it is connected to it through the idea of “lifting” or “going up”: “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”  The Son of Man, equal in glory and majesty with the Father,  wills that he be raised up ignominiously on a Cross for the salvation of those who believe in him.

Nicodemus, whose devotion to the Lord is seen in his care of his Body after his Death, is accorded a feast day by the Church on August 31.