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The Collect
O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The Lessons
Genesis 12:1-4a; Romans 4:1-5, 13-17; Psalm 121; John 3:1-17
The Meditation
We make our way in the world by trying to make sense of it. We harness our intellects to poke and prod our surroundings to understand how things work. With our "mind's eye" we take in images and impressions, and categorize them, label them, and file them away.
But, what are we to do when we encounter something completely new from our previous experience? How are we to categorize a reality we've never faced before?
Welcome to the plight of Nicodemus. Curious he slips away in the dark of night to inquire of Jesus, "who are you, really?" We hear the darkness in his question. From what Nicodemus knows thus far, he confesses Jesus as a teacher from God. But, as Jesus attempts to illumine the way for Nicodemus, the limitations of his literal mind close off any capacity to imagine the mystery of the Spirit's movement.
By the end of the conversation Nicodemus doesn't get the answers he wants, he can't pigeonhole or neatly categorize Jesus; and so he falls silent. The presence of the living God in Jesus overwhelms him. These new realities of the Spirit don't fit into what he already knows.
Jesus is the very presence of the illusive, free, sovereign and living God who makes sense out of us, rather than our making sense out of God. To encounter God in Jesus is like being born from above: we receive new eyes, a new mind, and a new spirit. Jesus is offering us an invitation to a new way of encountering and living in our world.
This interchange between Nicodemus and Jesus reminds us that our spiritual journey isn't about our making sense of God; it is God making sense out of us. Our journey isn't about us "getting" God; it is God "getting a hold" of us.
This Second Sunday of Lent let us endeavor to take the impulse and desire of Nicodemus' inquiry and allow it to spur us onward to realities of the Spirit beyond our definitions and abilities to categorize. May a renewed openness of devotion invite us to lay aside our limited views of how the Spirit might move among us, and "again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth" of God's Word, Jesus Christ. Amen.
 
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Folded paper art. Grace Episcopal Cathedral, San Francisco California.
From "Spaces for the Spirit: Adorning the Church." Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 1998.
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"For this, our foolish confidence, our pride of knowledge and our sin, we come to you in penitence; in us the work of grace begin." "Teach us to know and love you, Lord, and humbly follow in your way, Speak to our souls the quickening word, and turn our darkness into to day." Verses 4 and 5, The Hymnal 1982, Hymn 148, Words: Donald W. Hughes (1911-1967) Solemn Prayer (may replace the Trinitarian Blessing in Lent) Lord God Almighty, grant your people grace to withstand temptations, of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and with pure hearts and minds to follow you, the only God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Prayer for Lent 2, Alternative Service Book 1980, Church of England. | 
