John 12:35-36 So Jesus said to them, “The Light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the Light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the Light, believe in the Light, that…
Articles by StPeters
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In the beginning of today’s Gospel Reading, the pieces are all there but they are scattered all over the place. By the end, in the overwhelming joy of Lazarus’ return from death, all the pieces are brought together around Jesus, who now must go on to Jerusalem and fulfill what He has made known in raising Lazarus from the dead, fulfilled in His own death and resurrection.
So we rejoice in how the pieces have come together for our 6 catechumens, at this point in their life as Christians. And we rejoice further to see, in Christ, how the good work which He has begun in them will be carried on to the fulfillment He intends for them.
We look at our world everyday and see the effects of sin. We see people struggling, suffering, and dying. And we think that if only we could get society to recognize how good God’s law is. How it lays down tried and true prescriptions for good living. If only people would do these things, how much better the better the world would be.
That’s what St. John lays out with Luther-like clarity in this story, so that he can make one point with equal simplicity: Christ Jesus has come into the world for such as this Samaritan woman with her messy life; Christ has come into the world for such as us with our own messiness, whether recognized or not. And whoever drinks of His living water, will never thirst again.
In darkness, Nicodemus has come, seeking out Christ, the Light of the World, thinking that he has grasped the light, that he knows from where it came, and wanting to make sure that they’re both going in the same direction. But as he came in out of the darkness, into the presence of the Light, he was left disoriented and confused, struggling to make sense out of what is there in front of him.