COMING DOWN AND LIFTED UP

PRAYER MOMENT             

Tuesday, 29 April 2014

COMING DOWN AND LIFTED UP

Pause. Be still in the presence of Jesus and Nicodemus

Reading: “No one has gone up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven; and the Son of Man must be lifted up.” (John 3: 7-15)

Reflection. The dialogue with Nicodemus allows John to explain his purpose: Jesus is the Son of God, the one who took flesh and came down from heaven, becoming the Son of Man so as to lift up God’s people to “be with me where I am” (John 17). John’s gospel is a set of escalators; one coming down and one going up. The downward movement of the Son of God is to “dwell among us” and enter into human life with all its spiritual suffering (like the woman at the well) and its physical suffering (like the man born blind) and to lift people out of their pain into the new life of God. But the lifting would first be his own lifting onto the cross and this would be the way, the only way, for people to enter the upward journey to God.

Prayer. Lord, you have come to live among us and share our life. Help us to live in union with you and one another so that we may rise to new life with you. Amen.

David Harold-Barry SJ