If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe,
how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?
Jesus understood the limitations of humanity, being gifted with rational souls, yet still informed by sensation of the material world just as were other animals. He knew that the best way to help us to understand the spiritual was to explain in physical terms. Such was baptism and so too the other Sacraments. Everything Jesus did worked at multiple levels to bring about the revelation he desired. Yet, if people had trouble with even basic earthly analogies they would not be able to penetrate the truth of heavenly realities.
No one has gone up to heaven
except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.
Why would presumably competent teachers such as Nicodemus struggle even with the earthly things about which Jesus spoke? They might if their mind remained earthbound, stuck at the level of physicality and unable to see the deeper truths toward which the physical aspect was meant to point. Even teachers of Israel would not simply be able to figure out in advance the things about which Jesus spoke. He was the only one who had clearly seen the the things of heaven and was the only one competent to reveal them. We could not work our own way up the ladder of understanding to heaven by our own clever analogies with earthly things. If we tried we would stumble at the absurd or impossible as did Nicodemus.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen,
but you people do not accept our testimony.
We need the revelation of Jesus to understand the invisible and spiritual aspect of reality, which, as we have seen is not a mere negligible curiosity. We cannot figure it out on our own. But there is also a risk when we have the opportunity to be taught by Jesus himself, that we will not accept his testimony. And why not? Because in our pride we too strongly desire to figure things out for ourselves and thus remain in control. And then, even if we must be taught by others, the humble analogies with the things of earth such as are found in the parables of Jesus may grate against our sense of pride. But Jesus really is the only one competent to reveal the things about which he teaches. And his teaching devices are made with a perfect knowledge of the creatures whom he desires to reveal himself.
We need a renewed outpouring of the Holy Spirit who himself opens our eyes by his gift of faith to the teachings of Jesus. This is why baptism is so fundamentally basic. It is then that our eyes are opened to a larger spiritual world. But because we often tend to close them again as against things too bright we always need more. In order to raise up our minds from the things of earth Jesus will have our attention drawn up unto himself.
And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.
From our human perspective we might have suspected he would have lifted our gaze up by showing forth his glory. And he would, eventually, but this was not step one. The first place to which he would have us lift our gaze, in order to free us from our old ways of thinking, was to his cross. This was because it was the cross itself that stood as the most perfect expression of the deepest spiritual reality of the God who is love when expressed in the form of a human life. Without first seeing the cross we could not possibly properly interpret the glory that would follow.
With great power the Apostles bore witness
to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus,
and great favor was accorded them all.
Having first seen the cross the Apostles had great power to proclaim the resurrection. The whole life of the community served as evidence that the risen Lord was in their midst as "no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own" and there was "no needy person among them". If our own Easter proclamations seem flimsy and fragile by contrast it might be because our minds have become dominated once again by 'stinking thinking' that comes from our flesh. But the antidote is available. Let us lift up our eyes to Jesus himself, "so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life".
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