Under cover of darkest night

After John 3:1-15 

Under cover of darkest night,

the cautious ruler seeks the light,

prompted by signs like water to wine,

admitting the message is truly divine.

 

The reality is plain,

he’s told in reply;

the kingdom is yours

if you’re born again.

 

How can that be, he asks

in surprise, how does a man

do an impossible task

and enter the womb again?

 

You, born of flesh, must be

born of spirit as well;

the Spirit will let you see

and open the kingdom to dwell.

 

Photograph by Mak via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

No Chance of Survival: How a Deadly Plane Crash Yielded a Growing Spiritual Harvest – Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra at The Gospel Coalition.

 

What is a Good Life? – Alex Sosler at Front Porch Republic.

 

There’ll be no sighing there – Joshua Budimlie at Iotas in Eternity.

 

Confession and cleansing: healing power in naming what’s broken – Dan King at Bibledude.

Better at night

Better at night

than in day that

I come to ask my question

my question to which

I know the answer

but the asking is what

is important, a parched sponge

in need of water.

And the answer comes,

obliterating the question:

I am taken down a path

I did not expect, a path

I did not know

existed.

I ask my question at night,

better at night, He answers

my question with day,

confounding the night.

Can I be reborn in the flesh,

can I be reborn in the spirit,

can I be whitened

in pale linen, cleaned,

my heart restored not

to what it was but to what

it was meant to be;

can I be reborn?

Yes, he says, the possible

is an imperative.

Photograph: Study for Jesus and Nicodemus by Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937); study painted 1898-1899.