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The Sunday lectionary gospel reading for Lent 2 in Year A is Nicodemus’ meeting with Jesus in John 3.1–17. The epistle is Romans 4.1-5 and 13-17. The video discussion of the epistle is here, and of the gospel reading from John 3 here. Both are also linked at the end.

Although we are supposed to be reading from Matthew’s gospel, and the RCL used ecumenically has continued to do so, the lectionary in Common Worship offers us a sequence of four encounters between Jesus and individuals from the Fourth Gospel:

Lent 2: Jesus and Nicodemus (John 3.1–17)
Lent 3: The woman of Samaria (John 4.5–42)
Lent 4: The man born blind (John 9.1-41)
Lent 5: The raising of Lazarus (John 11.1-45)
I understand that this sequence of passages offered the pattern of study in the early catechumenate, providing a framework for discipleship for those preparing to be baptised at Easter. Those composing the CW lectionary decided that we should follow this pattern and depart from the ecumenical lectionary—though I think without any explanation.

These four encounters do not particularly stand out as a sequence in the Fourth Gospel (for instance, in connection with the seven signs or the ‘I am’ sayings) but they are highly characteristic of the gospel’s narrative style. Whilst the gospel contains more detail of the names of both places and people than the Synoptics, it also features these close-up one-on-one encounters between Jesus and individuals, in which all the details of place and other people fade into the background, as if we are in a cinematic close-up. Some of these one-on-one encounters are also connected with each other; thus Mark Stibbe (in his 1993 Sheffield ‘Readings’ commentary, p 62) notes the prominent contrast between Jesus’ encounters with Nicodemus and the woman, in chapters 3 and 4: