Patrick Comerford
We are about to enter the last two weeks of Lent, and tomorrow is the Fifth Sunday in Lent (Lent V), sometimes still known as Passion Sunday. I am hoping to attend the pop-up café and Easter Market at the Greek Orthodox Church community hall in Stony Stratford later this morning, before going to Milton Keynes University Hospital to return the heart monitor that was fitted to me on Thursday afternoon.
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, reading today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
John 7: 40-52 (NRSVA):
40 When they heard these words, some in the crowd said, ‘This is really the prophet.’ 41 Others said, ‘This is the Messiah.’ But some asked, ‘Surely the Messiah does not come from Galilee, does he? 42 Has not the scripture said that the Messiah is descended from David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?’ 43 So there was a division in the crowd because of him. 44 Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.
45 Then the temple police went back to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, ‘Why did you not arrest him?’ 46 The police answered, ‘Never has anyone spoken like this!’ 47 Then the Pharisees replied, ‘Surely you have not been deceived too, have you? 48 Has any one of the authorities or of the Pharisees believed in him? 49 But this crowd, which does not know the law – they are accursed.’ 50 Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus before, and who was one of them, asked, 51 ‘Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?’ 52 They replied, ‘Surely you are not also from Galilee, are you? Search and you will see that no prophet is to arise from Galilee.’
Today’s Reflection:
Holy Week begins in just over a week, when we remember the events leading to the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. The Gospel reading have started to have a more ominous tone, and in the Gospel at the Eucharist today (John 7: 40-52), we continue to hear how he was opposed and rejected by people who wanted to arrest him.
In today’s reading, we hear how Nicodemus challenged the ways in which the religious leaders of the day were plotting pursuing Jesus and seeking to arrest him. Nicodemus only appears in Saint John’s Gospel, and this is the second of his three appearances.
Earlier in this Gospel, Nicodemus had lengthy conversations with Jesus in the dark (see John 3: 14-21). He is a leading Jew of the day, a Pharisee and a rabbi, a doctor of the law, a member of the ruling Sandhedrin. He comes to visit Jesus at night, and he comes with a bundle of questions.
But, despite his erudite learning, he finds it difficult to understand the answers Christ gives to his questions. Yet, it is all so simple: ‘God so loved the world …’ (John 3: 16).
In fact, what Jesus says is deeply profound. The Greek mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras was born on the island of Samos, the neighbouring island of Patmos, the island where Saint John spent his time in exile.
Pythagoras is best known for his calculations about right-angle triangles. But he also provides an insight into one of the key concepts in Saint John’s writings. His understanding of the cosmos (κόσμος) includes the earth, the planets, the stars, the whole created order – ideas derived from Pythageros of Samos.
It is as though everything is wrapped into and lives within God’s skin. To put it more simply, we live in God’s womb, and it is there that God loves us. It is not that God so loved the saved, or men, or humanity, or even the world. What Christ says is that God so loved the cosmos, the whole created order, that he gave, or rather sent, his only-begotten Son.
Nicodemus is a little nonplussed, but he comes back again and again, a second time (John 7: 45-51) and a third time (John 19: 39-42), and his third encounter is on Good Friday. From someone who was questioning first of all, and was so afraid that he comes to talk to Christ in the dark, Nicodemus moves on in Chapter 7 to become someone brave enough to speak up against the plot to arrest Jesus.
Then later, in Chapter 19, Nicodemus comes to anoint the body of Christ after he has been taken down from the Cross. When Christ dies on the Cross, and the women come to bury him, Joseph of Arimathea provides the grave (Matthew 27: 57; Mark 15: 43; Luke 23: 50-56; John 19: 39-40). Nicodemus steps forward to provide the customary embalming spices, and he assists the women in preparing the body of Christ for burial (John 19: 39-42).
Nicodemus brings a mixture of myrrh and aloes, estimated at about 33 kg, to embalm Christ’s body. In his book Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week, the former Pope Benedict XVI observes that ‘the quantity of the balm is extraordinary and exceeds all normal proportions. This is a royal burial.’
So, in the story of Nicodemus, we find birth is linked with death, new birth is linked with new life, and before darkness falls Nicodemus really comes to possess the Body of Christ, to hold the Body of Christ in his hands, and in anointing him to recognise him as priest, prophet and king.
The faith and discipleship of Nicodemus develop slowly over the passage of time in Saint John’s Gospel – from fear and questioning, to bravery and speaking up, to acting and wanting to hold for himself the Body of Christ.
If being a priest is about presenting God through Christ to the world in word and sacrament, and presenting the world through the Christ to God in word and sacrament, then Nicodemus both receives and presents the Body of Christ, in a very Eucharistic way, and is a model for priesthood.
Sometimes, when I have taken hold of the Holy Communion, both presiding and as a recipient, I find myself kissing my hands afterwards. To hold the Body of Christ, as Nicodemus does, is, paradoxically, both an awesome and a liberating experience, not just tinged but filled with love.
Has Christ taken hold of you?
Have you taken hold of Christ?
The statue of Pythagoras by Nikolaos Ikaris (1989) on the harbour front in Pythagóreio on the Greek island of Samos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)Today’s Prayers (Saturday 5 April 2025):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been ‘Inspiration of the Holy Spirit.’ This theme was introduced last Sunday with Reflections by the Revd Rock Higgins, Rector of Saint James the Less Episcopal Church, Ashland, Virginia, and the Triangle of Hope Youth Pilgrimage Lead for the Diocese of Virginia.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 5 April 2025) invites us to pray reflecting on these words:
‘So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation’ (II Corinthians 5: 17-18).
The Collect:
Merciful Lord,
absolve your people from their offences,
that through your bountiful goodness
we may all be delivered from the chains of those sins
which by our frailty we have committed;
grant this, heavenly Father,
for Jesus Christ’s sake, our blessed Lord and Saviour,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post Communion Prayer:
Lord God,
whose blessed Son our Saviour
gave his back to the smiters
and did not hide his face from shame:
give us grace to endure the sufferings of this present time
with sure confidence in the glory that shall be revealed;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Merciful Lord,
you know our struggle to serve you:
when sin spoils our lives
and overshadows our hearts,
come to our aid
and turn us back to you again;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Collect on the Eve of Lent V:
Most merciful God,
who by the death and resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ
delivered and saved the world:
grant that by faith in him who suffered on the cross
we may triumph in the power of his victory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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