Reading: John 3:1-21
Have you ever been embarrassed to ask someone something? How
to turn on a computer? What a certain word means? Where a book is in the Bible?
Whether someone has feelings for you too? I remember as a teenager sat in Sex
Education lessons wanting to ask what some of the words meant, but I was too
embarrassed! We all have embarrassing questions but if we don’t ask we will
never know.
Perhaps Nicodemus, the Pharisee in today’s reading, came to
Jesus at night time a little embarrassed, not wanting others to see him talking
to Jesus. The conversation he went on to have with Jesus has become well known
and a key reference point to what it means to be a Christian. Jesus explained
‘that everyone who believes may have eternal life’ (verse 15), and be born
again / made spiritually alive / enter a relationship with God. Jesus teaches
that this real spiritual life, eternal life, is available because of the gift
of God’s son, to anyone who believes in him.
Did you know you can come to Jesus whatever your
embarrassment or question is? You may just find that in coming to Jesus today
you will discover, like Nicodemus, much more than you expected. I regularly
have questions for Jesus, and I regularly say or do things I’m embarrassed
about. As I grow in my Christian faith what becomes clearer and clearer to me is
God’s heart of love for each and every one us and his gift of Jesus.
Whatever lies ahead of you today may I encourage you to come
to God, through Jesus, honestly and with a grateful heart for the wonderful
loving gift of Jesus.
Response
Father God, I bring to
you today my questions and my embarrassments. I want to say thank you for
sending Jesus so that I can have eternal life. I choose to believe you and
trust you today.
Andy
I find this verse interesting, where Jesus responds when Nicodemus keeps asking questions: "10 You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus,“and do you not understand these things?"
ReplyDeleteThis suggests Jesus expected him to already know the answer, suggests disappointment, could even be interpreted as a a taunt; difficult to say without the tone. Perhaps this was deliberate since Nicodemus was a Pharisee - perhaps it was another example of Jesus wishing to hold them and their seemingly frequent scrutiny up to scorn. But if you were already worried about asking questions and looking foolish, this response would put me off. For fear of the same.
Just a thought. Feel free to disregard :)
And a very interesting thought too ...
DeleteTo your point about tone, I would add that we don't Jesus' the body language (was there a mischievous twinkle in his eye when he asked the question?) and we don't know what Jesus understood of Nicodemus' spirit and what he needed at that point.
Sometimes in the gospels we see Jesus speaking apparently harsh words; at other times more sensitive. He would have tailored what he said and how he said it to the listener I believe.
In this instance, at least it didn't put Nicodemus off discipleship as he reappears later in the story, and although he doesn't know it yet Nicodemus gets to be a part of the story of the most well-known verse in the Bible!
One of Jesus' many edgy encounters... when we bring our embarrassing bits to Jesus, how prepared are we to have our deeply rooted religious beliefs radically challenged? Or to find ourselves talking at Cross purposes with Him?
ReplyDelete