BEING BORN AGAIN, DAILY
(Bright Thursday)
This morning I’m reading today’s Gospel passage, about Christ’s conversation with Nikodemus, when the Lord talks about being “born again” or “born from above,” of water and the Spirit. But Nikodemus doesn’t get it, asking, “How can these things be?” (Jn 3:9). It’s similar to the questions asked by Zecharias, when the Archangel tells him that his wife will bear a son in her old age, and to the question of the Most Holy Virgin, when she hears that she will bear a Son: “How can this be…?” (Lk 1:34) Because “heavenly things,” of which God speaks to us sometimes, – especially the Spirit things, are difficult for us to understand or accept. We get immersed in “earthly things,” particularly in our time, when we tend to imbibe every bit of tragic news coming from all parts of the world. But I’m reminded today that for a Christian, news of any death, or any of the many deaths we might die in our own lives, when we experience loss, rejection, failure, etc., is a reminder of the new life that God can and does bring out of it, for those of us who take the outstretched hand of the risen Lord and let Him pull us out of our ruts.
So, let me not wallow today in the darkness, whether it’s my disappointment with myself, my people, my church, my world, and so on. I am reminded of Bob Dylan’s timeless words, that “he who is not busy being born is busy dying.” Let us get busy being born, which means nourishing ourselves with a bit of the word of God today, and reaching out for communion with Him in a bit of prayer, sprinkled throughout our day. He is here in our midst, alive and well, and “dies no more,” as St. Paul puts it (Rom 6:9). He is as alive in our troubled time, in our now, as ever. “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation!” (2 Cor 6:2). Let us seize this bright Day of Salvation, this Bright Thursday, because we can.
