TRUST IN GOD’S PLAN TO GIVE YOU THE LIGHT OF EVERLASTING LIFE

 

Nicodemus, a Pharisee, leader and teacher among the Jews, is confused by an itinerant preacher from the province of Gallilee named Jesus.  Instead of confirming the covenant God made with Moses some 1,513 years prior as the only way to have salvation, Jesus talks about a new covenant in which He will suffer, die and rise from the dead to provide the chosen people with everlasting life.

Filled with fear, Nicodemus visits Jesus in the night to make sure he understands what he heard as it relates to the faith he learned and now teaches.  What is truth?

It is my belief that people of faith periodically question what they have learned and wonder why it is true even if it is Scripture based and said by Jesus.  They accept the obvious and ignore anything that may refute it. 

The answer lies in the St. John’s Gospel from this Sunday which says:

 

“God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him may not die but may have eternal life.”                                        John 3:16  

                                                                                                                

The Roman Catholic Church in Vatican Council II in the 1960s talked and wrote about what the Church receives from the modern world and why it is so hard to refute false information which changes so often.  In Chapter IV, Role of the Church in the Modern World, there is a section entitled: What the Church receives from the modern world.  The last two sentences of the last paragraph read:

Whoever contributes to the development of the community or humankind on the level of family, culture, economic and social life, and national and international politics, according to the plan of God, is also contributing in no small way to the community of the Church insofar as it depends on things outside itself; and

The Church itself also recognizes that it has benefited and is still benefiting from the opposition of its enemies and persecutors.

What Nicodemus lost sight of, as do many faithful believers, is that the basis of God’s plan is based on the purpose for why we are created: Love. God, who is Love, calls us to love Him with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength and to love all who He created as God loves us.  The difficulty for us as humans seems to be our inability to define this type of love and practice it. Instead, we hold on to what we believe is correct irrespective of God’s plan.

If we are people of light as St. Paul writes about in his letter to the Ephesians, Chapter 5:8 – 14, we should be able to overcome confusion about what is true versus doubting God’s plan for us. God always has our best interest in mind. We need to trust and act upon it as the above Scripture urges:

 

“Awake, O sleeper, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”                             Eph. 5:14 (Is. 60:1)

 

Just as Jesus challenges Nicodemus to take up open public pursuit of faith in God’s plan, so too does He call us to do the same.  In doing so, we more firmly abide in Christ’s death, resurrection and ascension, into which we were initiated in our baptismal rebirth.  God in turn fulfills the promise of granting us everlasting life because we say yes to His plan in our life in all we do in thought, word and deed.