Patrick Comerford
Our Easter celebrations continue in the Church Calendar, and this week began with the Second Sunday of Easter (Easter II) or, in the calendar of the Greek Orthodox Church, with Easter Day.
The choir in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church in Stony Stratford is still taking a break after the busy demands of Holy Week and Easter, so there are no rehearsals this evening. Meanwhile, I have anothermedical consultation later this morning. But, 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 3: 16-21 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 16 ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
17 ‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20 For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21 But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.’
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 Reflections:
In the readings for three days this week, from Monday to today, we are meeting Nicodemus, a prominent Pharisee, a rabbi, a teacher and a member of the Sanhedrin. He has a Greek name – Νικοδημος (Nikodemos) means ‘victory of the people’ – and this Greek name probably indicates he is an urbane and sophisticated man.
Nicodemus appears three times in Saint John’s Gospel:
1, He visits Christ at night to discuss Christ’s teachings (John 3: 1-21)
2, He reminds his colleagues in the Sanhedrin that the law requires that a person should be heard before being judged (John 7: 50-51)
3, At the Crucifixion, he provides the embalming spices and helps Joseph of Arimathea to prepare the body of Christ for burial (John 19: 39-42)
In this first encounter, Nicodemus comes to Christ by night. Perhaps he did not want to be seen consulting Jesus, who is newly-arrived in Jerusalem and is already causing a stir. But we should remember too that Saint John’s Gospel uses poetic and dramatic contrasts: heaven and earth, water and wine, seeing and believing, faith and doubt, truth and falseness. Here too we have the contrast between darkness and light, the world that is in darkness is being brought into the light of Christ.
Nicodemus is a good and pious Pharisee and member of the Sanhedrin, the highest Jewish religious court. But, despite his positive attitudes to the Mosaic Law, what is the foundation of his faith?
Nicodemus acknowledges Christ is a teacher sent by God. But is this enough – is it simply an understanding of Christ without faith? At this point, Nicodemus sees but does not believe; he has insight but does not have faith.
Christ’s reply puts the emphasis back on faith rather than on law, on believing more than seeing. But does Nicodemus understand this?
Nicodemus seems to misunderstand what he hears. He thinks Christ is speaking about a second physical, natural birth from a mother’s womb.
The dialogue that follows includes two of the most quoted passages in Saint John’s Gospel:
• ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above’ or ‘born again’ (verse 5)
• ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life’ (verse 16)
For many, this saying in verse 6 is a summary of the whole Gospel. Martin Luther called this much-quoted verse ‘the Gospel in miniature’.
This passage is a favourite inscription to place on the outside walls of churches in China. But it is often translated in Chinese as ‘God so loved man (humanity) …’ It is not that God so loved the saved, or even all of humanity, or even the world, but that God so loved the cosmos (κόσμος), the whole created order, that he gave, or rather sent (ἔδωκεν, from δίδωμι) his only-begotten Son.
In Pythagorean thinking – and it is relevant that Saint John was in exile on Patmos, the neighbouring island of Samos, where Pythagoras was born – the cosmos (κόσμος) includes the arrangement of the stars, ‘the heavenly hosts’, as the ornament of the heavens (see I Peter 3: 3); it is not just the whole world, but the whole universe, the whole created order; it is earth and all that encircles the earth like its skin.
And this love is the beginning of Missio Dei, God’s mission – he sent (ἔδωκεν, from δίδωμι) his only-begotten Son.
To perish and to have eternal life are absolute alternatives.
By now, in today’s reading, the dialogue between Nicodemus and Christ turns to a monologue.
In verse 17, the same Greek verb (κρίνω) can mean to separate, to select or to condemn, and to approve and to judge. God’s purpose is not to condemn but to save. In verses 18-19, individuals judge themselves by hiding their evil deeds from the light of Christ’s holiness.
So what happened to Nicodemus who came to meet Christ in the darkness?
This is his first of three appearances in Saint John’s Gospel. He would have left Jesus that night challenged to ask whether he needed to move beyond the Law to an encounter with the living God, an encounter that brings death and rebirth. But we meet him again a second time when he states the law concerning the arrest of Christ during the Feast of Tabernacles (John 7: 45-51).
The third time we encounter Nicodemus follows the Crucifixion, when he helps Joseph of Arimathea in taking the body of Christ down from the cross before dark, and preparing the body for burial (John 19: 39-42).
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.
Nicodemus comes to Christ in the darkness, and is brought into the light. In this reading we come across, once again, the Johannine theme of the seeing and believing.
What would you miss if you could not see? What would you miss if you were blind?
So often, we take for granted not just our health and well-being but our physical senses too – our sight, speech, hearing, sense of smell and touch.
Many grieving and suffering people often wonder how or whether their suffering and the suffering of their children fit into God’s plans for the fullness of creation. Indeed, so often, too many of us turn aside from the needs of other people in their plight, and how many of us still believe that those in poverty and deprivation simply need to ‘pull themselves up’ or ‘to see the light’?
Christ’s compassion, caring and non-judgmental stance are in stark contrast with some who would like to claim the ground for conservative evangelicalism today, but who ignore the example of Christ.
Some years ago, in what looked like an interview with himself – the ultimate verbal equivalent of a ‘selfie’ – Professor Don Carson of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School arrogantly argued: ‘Christians who by their failure to proclaim the Christ of the gospel of the kingdom while they treat AIDS victims in their suffering here and now show themselves not really to believe all that the Bible says about fleeing the wrath to come. In the end, it is a practical atheism and a failure in love.’
Practical Christianity is reduced to practical atheism in this sharp judgment without any reference to the example of Christ in the Gospel.
On the dark side of evangelicalism, voices on the Christian right in the US, increasingly, are preaching that empathy has become a vice that manipulates caring people into accepting views such as abortion access, LGBTQ+ rights, illegal immigration and issues such as social and racial justice and the #MeToo movement.
Allie Beth Stuckey, the evangelical Baptist host of the podcast Relatable and a regular guest on Fox News, is the author of Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion (2024), arguing against many accepted Christian expressions of empathy. Joe Rigney of New Saint Andrews College, a fundamentalist college in Idaho, has published The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and its Counterfeits. He is part of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), whose members include the US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who prayed publicly for ‘overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy’ and for God to ‘break the teeth of the ungodly.’
Stuckey and Rigney appeal to audiences that are firmly among Trump’s supposedly Christian base. As early as 2018, Rigney shared a platform with Hegseth’s far-right pastor, Doug Wilson, discussing ‘the sin of empathy’ and since 2023 Rigney has worked at Wilson’s Idaho church and seminary. After Bishop Mariann Budde’s sermon pleading with Trump to ‘have mercy’ on immigrants and LGBTQ+ people, Rigney accused her of ‘feminism is a cancer that enables the politics of empathetic manipulation’.
Canon Dana Colley Corsello, in a sermon in Washington National Cathedral, warned that ‘the arguments about toxic empathy are finding open ears because far-right-wing, white evangelicals are looking for a moral framework around which they can justify President Trump’s executive orders and policies.’
In today’s Gospel reading, Christ reminds Nicodemus that he has come into the world not to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved. He puts this into practice in the ways he heals the sick, feeds the hungry, brings sight to the blind, comforts those who mourn, putting into action what he proclaims in the synagogue in Nazareth immediately after his temptations in the wilderness, as being the heart of the Gospel:
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’ (Luke 4: 18-19)
He sees their plight, and responds by showing what the Gospel truly means, what the Kingdom of God is truly like, with true empathy and compassion. As Saint Matthew’s Gospel records, ‘Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them’ (Matthew 9: 35-36).
Χριστὸς ἀνέστη!
Christ is Risen!
’God so loved man (humanity)’ … Guizhou Theological Training Centre in Guiyang Province in central China (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 15 April 2026):
‘Stocked with Hope’ provides 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), pp 46-47. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by Mayank Thomas, Programme Manager, the Synodical Board of Social Services, Church of North India.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 15 April 2026) invites us to pray:
Heavenly Father, guide the formation of grassroots women’s agencies in villages across CNI’s reach. May these groups act courageously to address domestic violence, access government schemes, and protect women’s rights.
The Collect:
Almighty Father,
you have given your only Son to die for our sins
and to rise again for our justification:
grant us so to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness
that we may always serve you
in pureness of living and truth;
through the merits of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord,
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 our Father,
through our Saviour Jesus Christ
you have assured your children of eternal life
and in baptism have made us one with him:
deliver us from the death of sin
and raise us to new life in your love, in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,
by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Additional Collect:
Risen Christ,
for whom no door is locked, no entrance barred:
open the doors of our hearts,
that we may seek the good of others
and walk the joyful road of sacrifice and peace,
to the praise of God the Father.
Yesterday’s Reflections
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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