Spirit that separates

Psalm 2 is proclaimed by the disciples of Jesus as Peter and John rejoin them after being interrogated by the Sanhedrin. This episode is told in the Acts of the Apostles from the Roman Catholic Lectionary for today.The psalm petitions God for understanding of the stand of Gentiles. Jews and kings and princes against the anointed holy one of God. The cognitive dissonance we experience when the path of light and love is rejected in favour of choices for death and darkness my put us in a similar state of mind to those in the text. The action of the Holy Spirit is shown by Luke to have transformed the confusion of these people to boldness as their prayers for the power to proclaim the healing Word of Jesus are answered with great power.Nicodemus is attracted to Jesus by the works he witnesses which he concludes could only come from God. The Gospel from John tells us he approaches Jesus at night. He moves from the darkness of ignorance toward the light of Jesus. Friar Jude Winkler tells of the wordplay in this passage where two translations are better than one in two parts of the text. Jesus monologue refers to the need for Nicodemus to be “born from above”. Nicodemus responds with the understanding of the same word as being “born again”. The literalism of Nicodemus seems to be unusual in the man who sees the signs in Jesus works. He presents us with a question, addressed by Nate Romano, S.J. about the challenge of being re-born. The task of changing our prejudices and restrictions and reshaping our talents may be quite impossible for us. We may take the job of making these changes on as some misunderstanding that we need to be in charge and control to earn our rebirth. The disciples are transformed to bold witness of the Word by openness to the Spirit which is explained to Nicodemus with a word which should be translated as Spirit, breath and wind at the same time to aid our attempt to understand which may only be fully transformed to belief and trust as we step out in faith as Nicodemus does at the end of the Gospel of John to be known for his role in the burial of Jesus.