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Did you ever get in one of those binds where you really want to do something, but you’re scared to do it for some reason?
Maybe you’re worried about public opinion.
You know, you’re in one of those meetings where everyone is uncomfortable and watching everybody else to see how everybody else is going to react. Those in charge are carefully manipulating the whole scenario to move everyone to the conclusion that they want. Yes, they’re moving their agenda along smoothly – but you’ve got a growing conviction that you don’t feel where it’s going is right.
Some eloquent speaker is in the process of painting a glorious picture of promises about how, if you all just go along with this, everything is going to be wonderful. You want to object – protest, even – but it’s scary. You feel so much pressure - the expectation to acquiesce is like a steam shovel pushing you toward the pit of agreement. You’re teetering on the edge ready for freefall. You look around – it looks like everybody else is toppling in. And the rest are looking back at you in silent disapproval that you haven’t agreed with them already and let them get on with the rest of the agenda!
Or maybe it’s even more intimate a situation than that. Maybe there’s someone you know you want to reach out to – but everybody else shuns them – they are on the outs – Out with the Out-crowd, if there ever was one. Well, the people-everyone-admires have written this loser off. If you reach out and make that social pariah your friend – well, public opinion says, “People are known by the company they keep,” so you’ll immediately have “Loser” written all over your forehead too. You will instantly be dismissed by the people-who-count – or worse than that – you’ll be mocked, or worst of all – persecuted.
Well, here was a guy with both problems.
Nicodemus—a Person of Courage
He had worked long and hard to gain the respect of his fellow Jews. In fact, he had achieved the highest religious honor a lay person could attain – he was a member of the Sanhedrin, meaning literally “the seats together” – or those who together sit in the place of decision-making and rule the people. In short, the Sanhedrin was the supreme council, comprised of seventy one elders and its power was formidable in terms of making laws, rendering judgments, and carrying those out. It traced its origin back to Moses’ day, where it claimed it descended from the advisors who helped him rule (for example, in Num 11:10-24) and then it claimed it was reorganized under Ezra right after the exile, and then again at Jamnia, the farthest city in the northwest of Judah during the First Maccabean revolt against Greek rule. In other words, the Sanhedrin was an exalted entity –- and, next to the emperor, and whoever was the latest ruler of the Jews, Herod or some Roman Procurator – its word was law.
You don’t jeopardize your position on a governmental body as powerful as this one – and you certainly don’t compromise your reputation with your fellow rulers. So here was this man, Nicodemus, and he had a major problem.
He was fascinated by Jesus. He was intrigued by his miracles, astonished at his teaching, drawn to his charismatic person – he wanted to know more…
But Jesus was as out as he could be with everybody in power – all the people-that-count.
That Nicodemus was scared was a no-brainer. He had a lot to lose. You know, we rarely think about the courage of Nicodemus as he reached out to this “Social Pariah” – this rebel from Galilee. We scoff at the fact that he went to Jesus by night. How many of us would have gone at any point – day or night?
Well, Jesus made no secret about where he usually hung out. So, one night Nicodemus went to see him – maybe at the Garden at Gethsemane, maybe at John’s Jerusalem relatives’ home, or at Mark’s mother’s house, but here he comes approaching Jesus with humility and respect.
He calls Jesus, “Teacher” (which is “Rabbi,” also meaning “Master,” it’s an honorary title of address).[2]
Then he makes an astounding confession. He says: “We know that from God you have come [as] a teacher, because no one could do these works of power and signs that you do, if God were not with him” (John 3:2).[3]
That’s pretty revealing. It displays what thinking people were already pondering – so even the Sanhedrin was not so monolithically opposed to Jesus as some might suppose.
On his side, Jesus, who could look through false flattery and see the heart - and also recognize a true inquiry when he heard one - accepts this person’s honest statement and begins to adjust Nicodemus’ perspective.
1) First, Jesus tells him he has to abandon his old point of view – that’s no longer useful here. Nicodemus will need to renovate his entire outlook: to be as if he were born once more as a whole new person with a whole new perspective. Why? Because heavenly things cannot be understood with an earthly perspective (John 3:3-8).
2) Jesus has come from heaven – reminiscent of the bronze replica of the serpent that Moses raised up on a pole in Numbers 21:9, which rescued Israel by healing it from its punishment for its rebellion against God. It was an account that Nicodemus, as a teacher of Israel himself, would have known well (John 3:14-15).
3) And now Jesus delivers his message right to the heart of Nicodemus. You see, Jesus had the power to look at the heart – that is, into the will - of each person who came to him and deliver the message that person most needed to hear – the one to which they would need to respond to enter his reign.
4) To Nicodemus, Jesus delivered one of the most beautiful messages in the entire New Testament. He told him literally: “For, in this way, God loved the world, that the Only Begotten he gave, in order that all the ones believing in him would not perish (or die, or be lost, or be ruined), but may have life eternal” (John 3:16).
The message Jesus gave Nicodemus was about the great action of the compassionate heart of God. What Jesus was saying was this: Nicodemus, God loves you so much that he sent you me, the only child of God born on this earth. You, and all faithful Israel, were right to ignore all those pagan myths about Zeus fathering children, and also to ignore everybody else who came to you claiming God was their parent. I am the only one who has descended from the Father God who created this world.
But God didn’t send me to pass judgment on everyone, like you do regularly on the Sanhedrin. I am here to rescue the world (to save it, deliver it, preserve it, make it well). In fact, I’m not here to condemn anybody. People who shun me have already condemned themselves. If they’d rather hide in their sins, they’ve chosen their own punishment. That’s where they’ll stay forever.
But, you, Nicodemus, although you have come at night, have come to me – out into the light of God’s scrutiny – to show, that what you yourself said about me in true, no one could do these works of power and signs that you do, if God were not with him (John 3:2).
Now that is what Jesus implies to Nicodemus.
To us, and probably to Nicodemus himself, he actually appears to have kind of crept over to see Jesus under complete cover of darkness, skulking in the shadows. But Jesus is so gracious with him. He ignores appearances and looks at Nicodemus’ heart, at its potential. He builds on the fact that Nicodemus has come into the light of God’s redeeming presence, that Nicodemus is a person who has demonstrated a respectful, kind, and compassionate heart toward Jesus, respecting Jesus, acknowledging the good that Jesus does and says, and seeking to understand more.
Nicodemus Is Convicted as He Is Reminded of the God of Compassion
So, Jesus adjusts Nicodemus’ perspective and then holds up for him a model of profound compassion – the example of God, the great Creator of the world, so caring with us wayward children that God gives us God’s unique gift – the greatest gift God could give us – God’s only Child who is fully God and fully human – whom John tells us in his gospel—comes directly from the loving embrace of our heavenly Parent – to rescue us from the consequences of the evil we do (John 1:18).
No wonder Nicodemus has his heart so stirred within him that he becomes bolder and bolder even as the pressure to reject and persecute Jesus builds – he has glimpsed the beneficent facts of heaven.
Jesus is teaching Nicodemus about the compassionate heart of God – so profoundly caring that it gives up its greatest treasure for the benefit of rebellious people. The lesson is well learned, and Nicodemus will need to understand every aspect of it as the whole precarious situation changes, as conflict escalates between Jesus and the Sanhedrin.
What’s happened is that the people, confronted with all the healings and godly teachings of Jesus, begin wavering in their once unquestioning support of their supreme ruling body. They start asking about Jesus in John 7:25-26: “Isn’t this the one they are seeking to kill, and here he is speaking openly and nobody’s speaking to him. Perhaps the rulers actually know that he’s the Christ?”
How do you imagine that’s going down with the people-who-count?
Just as bad as you think it is.
They have had enough of this upstart from nowhere, so they send the troopers out to get him – but even these enforcers hesitate when they hear what Jesus has to say. When they come back empty-handed and apologetic, the temple authorities demand, “Why didn’t you bring him in?” The guards reply, “Never a human spoke in this way!” (John 7:45-46).
Nicodemus Proclaims the God of Compassion
And in the controversy that follows, Nicodemus seizes his opportunity to display his own compassionate heart. He speaks up on behalf of this Social Pariah at the tensest moment one can imagine, knowing full well the kind of disapproval his advocacy is going to draw on himself. But he says anyway: “Does our law condemn a human without first hearing from him and to find out what he is doing?” (John 7:51).
They shout him down: “Are you also from Galilee?” they snap at him. “Check it out! You’ll see from Galilee no prophet comes!” (John 7:52).
But he tried…
Within a short time events climax at the Passover – the guards are sent out once again and this time they arrest Jesus, a hasty trial is assembled, false witnesses are hired, the market place rabble is roused up in support, and Jesus is executed – all with whirlwind timing.
The whole problem of this rebel has been dealt with – with deadly efficiency – or so they think…
Nicodemus, however, has also been undergoing a swift series of changes inside himself.
He now has the beginning of a community of like-minded friends. Nicodemus, with Joseph of Arimathea, another member of the Sanhedrin who had also been afraid of its power, not only defies the Supreme Council, but the two go over its head and boldly procure an audience with the Roman Governor, who himself had had misgivings about executing Jesus. They gain custody of Jesus’ body (John 19:38).
Nicodemus buys 75 pounds of expensive burial spices (myrrh and aloes) and together they embalm Jesus’ body in the Jewish style and bury it publicly, so that everyone knows who did this and where they put the body (John 19:39-42).
Many traditions tell us that this is the start of a glorious ministry for Nicodemus, who continues as “a faithful follower of Jesus in later years.”[4]
The great German New Testament scholar Theodore Zahn speculates that “if the gradual acceptance of the gospel by Nicodemus, which John describes, terminated, as it undoubtedly did, in his reception into the membership of the Church, John could have learned from him what he recalls” about that night with Jesus.[5] This might be why we have it in such careful detail in the Gospel written by John to still bless us as we read the Scriptures today.
The Process of Transformation
So, how do you grow a compassionate heart within yourself and help someone else grow a compassionate heart?
1) Well, first, Nicodemus began by keeping his eyes and his mind open – noticing other people, what they said, what they did.
2) Second, he didn’t let the disapproval of his social set dictate his opinion for him. His clique may have deemed others unworthy of notice, and ignored them, but Nicodemus noticed them.
3) In fact, he gathered information on them.
4) Once he’d begun to make up his mind to extend compassion, he tried to intercede for fair treatment of others. He may not have been successful, but he still tried to help.
5) Following his example, we might say that we should do what we can emotionally to help others, even if it means doing it in secret.
6) If we show respect to others, we can learn the truth about them.
7) Then we need to seek out a community of like-minded people that we ourselves know will think as we do, as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea did.
8) And then together we can let our courage catch up with our conviction until we are able to make a bold public stand for what we think is right.
On Jesus’ side, he didn’t just ignore someone who came to him for help just because that person was a member of a social group that was oppressing him – in this case the privileged power mongers. Instead, Jesus looked at the intentions of this individual and saw the potential. He built on that.
The first thing Jesus did after accepting him was to help him raise his consciousness.
Here Jesus worked by the wise rule of differentiating between acceptance and approval. He accepted Nicodemus, but Jesus did not fall into the mistake of extending to him a blanket approval of everything he did and stood for (kowtowing to him because he was a Somebody), and Jesus did not make the mistake of excusing everything he did (thinking he was a victim of his circumstances and therefore to be deemed not responsible for whatever he did). No. Instead, Jesus accepted Nicodemus as a seeker and then began to change Nicodemus’ own perspective about himself.
Looking at Jesus’ example, we might say, we should build our work of raising our own consciousness and the consciousnesses of others on the characteristics of God, who is the ultimate example all of us should be following: a firm but compassionate God.
Jesus could tell at a glance what people were thinking, but, then, he was God-Among-Us. We can’t, because we’re not! So, as we are working with someone, we should get to know them well enough to reach them where they are – to speak to the concerns of their hearts, as Jesus did with Nicodemus, using God’s great example of compassion to help Nicodemus emulate and imitate God and therefore develop his own sense of compassion.
Finally, Jesus encouraged Nicodemus in his good intentions, yes, but he did so with patience, so that the Holy Spirit could grow the convictions within him.
One thing you’ll notice is that Jesus didn’t go for the quick buck – You know, like: “Hey, you’re Nicodemus, aren’t you? You’re a guy on the Sanhedrin. Since you’re here, you know, you could do me a good turn. How about you keeping your ears open and reporting to my disciples anything you hear that might be jeopardizing to our great ministry? And, when you can, put in a good word or two for me…okay, buddy?”
Jesus doesn’t ask Nicodemus for anything. Jesus concentrates solely on what will help Nicodemus and Nicodemus goes away with no strings put on him except those his own conscience has created. Jesus really displays a perfectly compassionate heart that has only others’ interests in mind - and no angles...
And that’s the example Nicodemus takes away and what he slowly grows into.
You see, it is the perfect example – the example of God – the One who truly displays the perfect heart of compassion.
And it is the one pure example we need to follow, if we are going to develop such a heart within ourselves and be of any use to others who also want to develop a truly compassionate heart. Amen.
Bill
[1] This blog is an adaption of a sermon preached at Pilgrim Church, Beverly, MA, Sept. 2, 2012.
[2] Barclay M. Newman, A Concise Greek-English Dictionary of the New Testament, revised ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellischaft, 2010), 160.
[3] All the New Testament quotations are translated from the Greek by the author.
[4] Ronald Brownrigg, Who’s Who in the New Testament (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1971), 319, col. 2.
[5] Theodor Zahn, Introduction to the New Testament, vol 111 (Minneapolis, MN: Klock and Klock Christian Publishers, 1977) 355, note 18.
