Tuesday of the Second Week of Easter

Lectionary: 268

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?

Christians learned from Jews our deep respect for wisdom, learning, and rationality. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote:

"In Jewish tradition, reason has always been esteemed as one of God's foremost gifts to man. It would be hard to discover in the history of Jewish thought a tendency to conspire against or to defy its conclusions. The first thing the Jew prays for, three times a day, is not daily bread, healing, or even forgiveness of sins but knowledge: "O grant us knowledge, understanding, and insight." (Man is not Alone, a philosophy of religion) 

We wait upon God's spirit and pay attention to God's revealing word and they speak to us of our everyday experience. In that light our wisdom, learning, and rationality lead us ever deeper into discipleship. Saint Paul explained it thus: 

Yet we do speak a wisdom to those who are mature, but not a wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away.
Rather, we speak God’s wisdom, mysterious, hidden, which God predetermined before the ages for our glory,
and which none of the rulers of this age knew; for if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. (1 Corinthians 2:6-8)

This divine wisdom gives us an ease and confidence in this world which many cannot share. We are more apt to believe in the basic decency of our neighbors and fellow citizens; we're more ready to compromise with opponents. And, because we do not need enemies, we discover human compassion for our enemies. We are all children of Eve!  

Guided by God's Spirit in our thinking, Christians forgive one another more readily; and, when we're betrayed, recover our peace of mind more quickly. We don't forget injuries like children, they should not be forgotten. But remembering that life is long, we remember our respect, admiration, and affection for one another. Experience puts the hurt in perspective, and helps us address real problems in the right spirit and at the right time. Our Bible has much to say about disagreements and their resolution, that's why it's so familiar.  

Saint John's Gospel remembers the long, mutually respectful conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. Although we remember the Lord as having the last word, we need not think that he talked a fellow "teacher of Israel" into the floor. If the member of the Sanhedrin did not immediately abandon his position to follow the Messiah, they parted friends; and when Jesus was crucified Nicodemus worked with Joseph of Arimathea, another member of the Sanhedrin, to give him a proper burial. Every Jew deserved that, even if he might be a false messiah. Both are remembered honorably by the Church; and it's entirely possible that, in the light of further revelations, they were baptized and embraced this new way of life. 

God's word teaches us how to live with an apocalyptic sense of God's presence which is both reassuring and severe. We know God's mercy and justice, and dismiss neither as we consider how we should live and act in this world. Our consciousness of the Holy Spirit is a a conscience which tells us the right thing to do, and when we have done wrong. Not every citizen has an enlightened conscience, nor is every Christian's fully mature. And so we continually ask God to guide us, giving us the facilities of knowledge, understanding, and insight.