“What do you read?”

The reverie was broken. Nicodemus blinked. The piercing brightness of the desert valley became the cool brightness of the morning through the colonnade. The written word–which had translated seamlessly from the scroll in his hand to the image in his mind–became the spoken word. The voice of the Lord became the voice of the boy standing before him.

Nicodemus returned to the world where the people of the Lord were yet dead. They lay in tombs of exhausted hope, the earth in which they were buried cracked for lack of living water.

The Temple was filled with the motion of the people, but for many days, it had seemed still and airless to him. He couldn’t even bring himself to come every day anymore. Tears gathered in his eyes. He pressed his lips together and breathed in the lifeless air.

The boy smiled. He asked again…