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Nicodemus

The Alphabet of Lent – Letter L

1 mars 2024
Nicole Gregoire
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Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: choices, darkness, décisions, Jean 3:19, John 12:35, John 3:2, John 8:12, light, Nicodemus, nighttime, options, values

L for Light
 
Our cities drape themselves in light for all tastes – the modern lighting leaves nothing in shadow.
The talents of artists and cinema producers is required to create the light-dark effect.
Certain aspects of reality benefit from remaining in half darkness.
Nowadays, many people complain that the intense illumination has become pollution and prevents us from seeing… the stars!

We must admit that light is very useful to us – without it, we sometimes stumble on a path little known to us.
Our vocabulary suggests that our minds also need clarity.
Do we not say: “Your words have brought light to what I meant.”
Or again, “With time, this situation will clarify itself…”

To Nicodemus, who came to meet him “at nighttime”, Jesus said (John 3:2):
“Light has come into the world,
but people loved darkness instead of light” (John 3:19).

Unfortunately, the same can sometimes be said of us…

Yet, Jesus has said clearly:
“I am the light of the world. 
Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness,
but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).

“The light of life” – it is really what we are in need of!
The light from day to day, as daily events unfold.
At the time of costly choices…
At the moment of decisions with serious consequences…

Jesus invites us
“Walk while you have the light, 
before darkness overtakes you. 
Whoever walks in the dark does not know where they are going” (John 12:35).

Not to be overcome by darkness…
Knowing where we are going, this is essential, no?!
 

Source: Image: https://praywritegrow.com/tag/john-8/

Easter Sunday, Year B – 2021

3 avril 2021
Nicole Gregoire
Aucun commentaire
Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: Mark 16:1-7, meaning, Nicodemus, resurrection, searching for Jesus, Women

Searching for Jesus – many of us do this at different moments of our lives.
We sometimes lament his absence.
We find it difficult to locate the places where, according to us, he should be found.
It seems to us that we know where he ought to be!

The gospel text of the pascal vigil (Mark 16:1-7) shows us three women who were convinced of the same thing.
They knew where Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus had buried Jesus.
So, they were carrying spices to anoint his body laid in the tomb.

But as they arrive at the place, they receive a message rather astonishing:
“You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified.
He has risen! He is not here.”

A man who is known to have died, is alive!
While his body should be resting in Jerusalem, the women are told he is waiting in Galilee.
But the messenger adds: “Just as he told you.”
 
Is the same experience not happening to us from time to time?
We need to look for Jesus… somewhere else than where we thought we would find him.
We must realize that he is alive, yes, alive and present to what we live day after day.
And we should remember… what he has told us!
 
Learning anew the meaning of his resurrection…

Note: Another reflection on a different theme is available in French at: https://image-i-nations.com/dimanche-de-paques-annee-b-2021/

 

Source: Image: Pinterest

Good Friday, Year B

30 mars 2018
Nicole Gregoire
Aucun commentaire
Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: believe, exaltation, faults, glorification, God's love, Good Friday, Hitler, Is.52:13 – 53:12, Islamic State, Jn.3:16-17, love, Mao Tsé-Tung, martyrs, Nicodemus, salvation, sins, Stalin, suffering, wounds

“The crowds were appalled on seeing him –
so disfigured did he look that he seemed no longer human –
… without beauty, without majesty,
No looks to attract our eyes…
A man to make people screen their faces. »

This is what Isaiah tells us in the 1st reading of today celebration
(Good Friday, Year B: Is.52:13 – 53:12).
This is the picture we are presented with today:
Someone who no longer appears to be a human being
and who certainly does not appear… to be God.
Someone people prefer not to see, someone they choose to ignore, to move away from.

What if, for the word ‘people’, we substitute the words ‘we’, ‘us’?…
Isaiah did and this is what we read:
“We took no account of him…
We thought of him as someone punished, struck by God…”

No striking feature, except that of suffering.
No attractive trait, except that of suffering.
No appealing expression except that of suffering.
A veil covering the recognition of what appears before the onlookers, confronting them.

Yet, it is a misconception to think that Good Friday is the glorification of suffering.
Some well-intentioned preachers may say that Jesus suffered more than anyone else.
We are not asked to believe this.

The martyrs of the early Christian era,
the victims of Stalin of Russia,
of Hitler of Germany,
of Mao Tsé-Tung of China,
of Pol Pot of Cambodia,
of Idi Amin in Uganda,
and closer to us, of the so-called Islamic State torturers, to name but a few –

all of them have undergone unimaginable suffering.

Good Friday is not the glorification of suffering, it is the exaltation of love –
the love of God made man,
though he no longer looked like either…
A love that made him to be “pierced through for our faults, crushed for our sins.”
Indeed, “through his wounds we are healed.”
 
This Friday is indeed good if it enables us to understand what, some time before this day of ultimate suffering, Jesus has revealed to Nicodemus:

“Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost, but may have eternal life.
For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world,
But so that through him the world might be saved.”   (Jn.3:16-17)

Note: Another reflection is available in French on a different theme at: https://image-i-nations.com/vendredi-saint-annee-b/

Source: Image: comforftinthemidstofchaos.com