St John 3: 1- 21<\/p>\n
Nicodemus, was a pharisee and also a member of the Sanhedrin. There was the\u00a0Great Sanhedrin\u00a0and the\u00a0Lesser Sanhedrin. The lesser Sanhedrin totalled 23 judges appointed to each city and one Great Sanhedrin comprising of 71 judges, which acted as the Supreme Court in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n
Nicodemus comes to Jesus under the cover of darkness, most probably because he was afraid of what the co-members of the Sanhedrin who were opposed to Jesus may think. St John also uses the image of darkness to symbolise that at this point in Nicodemus\u2019s life he is walking in spiritual darkness and lacks the awareness of true faith.<\/p>\n
In their late night conversation Jesus speaks about the necessity to be born again, not physically as Nicodemus misunderstands but as a spiritual rebirth through water and the Holy Spirit, which conveys the very life and Spirit of God himself.<\/p>\n
Jesus then reminds Nicodemus of what happened with Moses and the people of Israel in Number 21: 4-9. Jesus sees this as an image of his own crucifixion, that just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so would Jesus be lifted up on the cross and this would also bring a healing, a healing from sin and death, just as the image of the serpent brought healing to those who looked upon it. The paradox of the cross, a punishment for Jesus but as St Peter tells us, through which our wounds are healed.<\/p>\n
Finally, Jesus speaks to Nicodemus that his time on earth was the desire and plan of his Father, who in loving the world so much was prepared to allow the sacrifice of Jesus. This displays without doubt the unfathomable depths of God\u2019s love and mercy and the supreme sign of Jesus\u2019s obedient love of the Father and also his love for us.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not simple for most of us to love in this way \u2013 without calculation, without complaint, without conditions.\u00a0\u00a0We prefer to have reciprocity in our relationships, so that we give a little, and they give a little.\u00a0\u00a0But if we love purely, truly, then we will give our all without expectation of any response, gratitude, or comparable gesture of goodness.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s not that we permit people to take advantage of us, but rather that we\u00a0respond to the Holy Spirit<\/a>\u2019s movements when He asks us to give a bit more, sometimes enough to hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n St John Paul II<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" St John 3: 1- 21 Nicodemus, was a pharisee and also a member of the Sanhedrin. There was the\u00a0Great Sanhedrin\u00a0and the\u00a0Lesser Sanhedrin. The lesser Sanhedrin totalled 23 judges appointed to each city and one Great Sanhedrin comprising of 71 judges, which acted as the Supreme Court in Jerusalem. Nicodemus comes to Jesus under the cover … [Read more…]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["entry","post","publish","author-ryan-black","post-2604","format-standard","category-5-catholic-teaching"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p85OtW-G0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2604"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2606,"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2604\/revisions\/2606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}