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| Do you treat God like a Magic 8 Ball in the sky? |
Have you ever put your faith on the line? I mean have you ever said something like, “God, I know you are there, but I will really believe in you if you can just ________________.” You might have filled in the blank with cure a friend or family member from a disease or maybe it was something as simple as to help you remember where you last had your keys. Maybe you do not have a prayer life like this, but sometimes I hear people say that the most common time that they pray is when their favorite team is losing, when the paycheck needs to stretch just a little bit further, or when something has not gone according to their plans.
On the one hand, there is nothing wrong with this type of praying. I think, at least this person turns to God to say a prayer. Yet on the other hand, I wonder what kind of Faith does this develop? Is God simply a magic 8 ball in the sky? Are we just looking for some sort of sign that God loves us and believes that we are special?
“Many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing,” John’s Gospel account confirms that this type of behavior even happened when Jesus himself was walking the earth. If we though, are spending our time praying for miracles to happen are we learning how to rely upon God, or are we becoming “back seat prayers,” or rather “back seat prayer answerers” who believe that we know better than the Almighty what is best for us?
Jesus does not entrust himself to those who believed in the signs, not because they were bad people, but because they were more interested in the results of his miracle working than to where the signs were pointing. The Bible, our religious tradition, and our spirituality might be things that help to improve our lives in some qualitative way, but that is not what the Gospel is about. John’s account of the Gospel especially signifies that Jesus was the Word through whom all things were made, all things are redeemed, and all things will come to fulfillment!
Take for example the story of Nicodemus who sneaks to Jesus at night time in today’s gospel story. A Pharisee coming to see this upstart Jewish Rabbi under the cover of night meant that this religious leader had come to the end of his rope, and he was all out of answers. Yet, he did not want the rest of the Sanhedrin to spot him going somewhere else for help. So when he shows up on Jesus doorstep in the middle of the night he is looking for an easy answer, just like when we ask God to simply give us the response to our prayers on a silver platter. Nicodemus cannot understand what rebirth means in the same way that we often do not comprehend the fullness of God’s spirit dwelling with and in us.
It will not be until the middle of this John’s account of the Gospel that Nicodemus stands up to defend Jesus in the Sanhedrin, and it will not be until the John’s version of the good news that Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea take the broken body of Christ to be buried. We are always encouraged, but especially in the Season of Lent, to join in a pilgrimage walking ever closer to Christ. As we get nearer and nearer to the Almighty we understand that God knows our hopes, yearnings, and desires before we can even formulate them as a thought or express them with our lips. Eternal life comes from the one who was lifted up and we must focus not upon what we get from the Messiah, but rather the faith that flows from spending a lifetime in the nearness of Christ Jesus. Amen.
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