Dr. Nicodemus, or perhaps more appropriately the Reverend
Doctor Nicodemus, is mentioned three times in St. John’s
gospel. Nicodemus was a wealthy and powerful man, one of the
religious elite. As a Pharisee and an eminent theologian he
was a member of the 72 strong Sanhedrin, the supreme council
of the Jewish religious establishment which was based in
Jerusalem. But in the story from St. John we heard this
morning, Nicodemus emerges from the shadows: he meets Jesus
under the cover of darkness. And it’s not difficult to work
out why. Almost from day one, Jesus had fallen foul of the
religious authorities – they regarded him as a
dangerous imposter and miracle worker who had somehow gained
popular support from the masses, some of whom were even
claiming that he was the Messiah. So they condemned him as a
blasphemer and trouble maker. Small wonder then, that
Nicodemus wanted to keep his clandestine visit to Jesus
under wraps.
What was there about Jesus that had prompted him to make
this visit, despite the risk? Nicodemus clearly recognised
Jesus as a Rabbi – a teacher – and moreover a teacher who
spoke with God’s authority; and he would also have been well
aware that Jesus’ teaching was centred on God’s reign, on
the Kingdom of Heaven. So Jesus responds to Nicodemus by
answering his unspoken question – how can I ‘see’, how can I
experience the Kingdom of Heaven?
You could say that Jesus’ answer is a one-line parable: to
see the Kingdom of God you must be born anew, or ‘born from
above’ – apparently the Greek text could mean either.
Nicodemus was clearly shocked by the comparison Jesus made
with physical birth and maybe he did misinterpret his
mini-parable…. but I wonder. Our way out into the Kingdom
really is like leaving the darkness, the comfort, the
security and the confined space of the womb, and emerging
into a completely new world. God’s kingdom is a place of
love, of freedom, of risk and failure, of learning and
growth and development. Being born anew is more a process
than an event, so that as willing followers of Jesus we are
drawn by him into the Kingdom. We are indeed ‘born from
above’.
Reading this passage again, I came across something that I’d
never noticed before. Nicodemus finds the radical
transformation required by Jesus difficult to accept, and he
asks him ‘How can these things be?’ ‘How can this be?’
– the same question put by Mary to the Angel of the
Annunciation. Jesus’ birth, his Incarnation, was to be the
work of the Holy Spirit. Our new birth, our re-creation in
Christ, is brought about by the power of the same Spirit. We
are indeed ‘born from above’.
After this encounter with Jesus, Nicodemus fades back into
the shadows for a while, and St. John does not tell us what
effect, if any, his visit had on him. From later events it
seems unlikely that Nicodemus followed Jesus openly –
perhaps ‘for fear of the Jews’. Or maybe his interest in
Jesus was too academic: maybe he was more interested in the
theory of the Kingdom rather than putting its values into
practice. If so I can recognise myself in him, and I may not
be alone in this. Or perhaps the obstacles to his commitment
to Christ were more personal: it just needed too much time
and energy to become one of his followers. I’ve told this
story before, but when Fr. Richard Capper took my dear
mother’s funeral he described her as practising ‘religion
without enthusiasm’. Again, I can recognise myself in what
he said. And again, I may not be alone – after all
we’re Anglicans aren’t we, and we do everything in
moderation.
Nicodemus next emerges in chapter 7 of St. John. Here, the
Sanhedrin and the religious establishment are becoming
increasingly concerned about the challenge Jesus poses to
their authority. They try to get the Temple police to arrest
him, but they have little stomach for the task, as Jesus
seems to have the support of the crowd. So Jesus slips away,
and the authorities then have a go at putting him on trial
in his absence. During the debate Nicodemus raises a point
of order: the law does not allow someone to be condemned
without giving them a hearing. But he suffers a sneering
put-down: ‘Dr. Nicodemus, you’re behaving as if you were a
country lad from Galilee, just like this imposter. Surely
you can’t be so ignorant – the scriptures are quite clear
- the Messiah won’t come from such a backwater as
Galilee.’ And that’s it – Nicodemus’ somewhat half-hearted
attempt to intervene gets nowhere.
But later on, it seems that everything changed. After the
crucifixion Joseph of Arimathea, who was a secret disciple
of Jesus ‘because of his fear of the Jews’, begged the body
of Jesus from Pilate and prepared it for burial. And
Nicodemus helped him, at great cost to himself. The myrrh
and aloes he provided were worth a small fortune – but there
was far more to it than that. To publicly prepare Christ’s
body for burial as if he were royalty was to risk the wrath
and punishment of Rome and Jerusalem alike. There is
something wonderfully touching in the way that these two
men, previously at best closet disciples, gave their all to
their Lord and King at the end of his life. It is
almost impossible not to believe that it was the manner of
Jesus’ death that had somehow touched their hearts and given
them courage, and that they had themselves been there on the
hill of Calvary to witness it. ‘Surely this man was the son
of God.’
This Lent we could do worse than to see mirrored in the
struggles of Nicodemus our own efforts to move from the
comforts of religion to the risky freedoms of faith. First,
we have to get our theology right. Eternal life is not a
mummification, it is a new creation, a ‘birth from above’,
an emergence into the universe of God’s love. Rather than a
one-off event it is a journey, in which we willingly follow
Christ along the Way of the Cross, the way of self-giving.
Along the Way, just like Nicodemus, we have to overcome our
fear of ridicule and disapproval, our inclination to remain
on the side-lines of faith, our failure to keep the fire of
love ablaze in our hearts. But above all we can learn from
Nicodemus that to be there for Christ and with Christ even
at the foot of the Cross is – at last – to share with him
God’s new and eternal life; a life that on Easter morning
will be revealed in all its Resurrection glory.
Yes, we owe so much to St. John for introducing us to the
Reverend Dr. Nicodemus; or - for that foot-of-the
cross change of heart - might he even be Saint
Nicodemus?