By Night

Nicodemus came by night I remember when I was a child it snowed on a Friday. I know it was a Friday because we had choir practice. Afterwards we looked out of the car as we went home at the clean, white, untouched covering for the earth longingly. But it would be time for bed.

When we got to the house my father didn't stop, he carried on to the end of the street where there was a huge tract of public land - mot exactly a park - not manicured enough - but there was a stream for tadpoles and minnows and they kept the grass cut in the summer - except for a large patch of hay grass which grew up to our waists and then suddenly, one day, would be gone.

That night all thought of splashing in the stream or rolling in the summer grass were far from our minds. There was an eerie silence as my father walked with us onto the virgin snow. This whole wonderland was ours. Sound was dampened and we felt like this was our world - we played and threw snowballs in our world, forgetting anything else that might possibly be.It didn't even feel dark as the city light reflected a mysterious grey glow around us. Meanwhile I imagined all those other people, shut up in their houses, afraid of the cold and the dark,

I wonder whether Nicodemus thought about the people in the houses he past as he hurried to see Jesus? I wonder whether he found Jesus quiet and available just for him? I wonder whether he was afraid or excited or both?

In Lent we are called to cast off the works of darkness and to resist temptation. Unfotunately that does not mean just staying still under a lightbulb. We are more than that. Like my snowy evening - Lent challenged us to go past the expected place of rest, to look for new and deeper places of encounter. Do we dare, like Nicodemus, to go in the night to see for ourselves?