Nicodemus

• Nicodemus

188:3.3Mary the mother of Je­sus, with Ruth and Jude, re­turned to Beth­any to join their fam­ily this Sat­ur­day evening just be­fore sun­set. David Zeb­e­dee re­mained at the home of Nicode­mus, where he had ar­ranged for his mes­sen­gers to as­sem­ble early Sun­day morn­ing. The women of Gal­i­lee, who pre­pared spices for the fur­ther em­balm­ing of Je­sus’ body, tar­ried at the home of Joseph of Ari­mathea.

• boldly asked Pilate for Jesus’ body

142:6.9But Nicode­mus did sum­mon faith enough to lay hold of the king­dom. He faintly protested when his col­leagues of the San­hedrin sought to con­demn Je­sus with­out a hear­ing; and with Joseph of Ari­mathea, he later boldly ac­knowl­edged his faith and claimed the body of Je­sus, even when most of the dis­ci­ples had fled in fear from the scenes of their Mas­ter’s fi­nal suf­fer­ing and death.

• boldly asked Pilate for Jesus’ body

187:6.2Af­ter the death of the Mas­ter, John sent the women, in charge of Jude, to the home of Eli­jah Mark, where they tar­ried over the Sab­bath day. John him­self, be­ing well known by this time to the Ro­man cen­tu­rion, re­mained at Gol­go­tha un­til Joseph and Nicode­mus ar­rived on the scene with an or­der from Pi­late au­tho­riz­ing them to take pos­ses­sion of the body of Je­sus.

• boldly asked Pilate for Jesus’ body

188:0.3In the mean­time, Joseph of Ari­mathea, ac­com­pa­nied by Nicode­mus, had gone to Pi­late and asked that the body of Je­sus be turned over to them for proper burial. It was not un­com­mon for friends of cru­ci­fied per­sons to of­fer bribes to the Ro­man au­thor­i­ties for the priv­i­lege of gain­ing pos­ses­sion of such bod­ies. Joseph went be­fore Pi­late with a large sum of money, in case it be­came nec­es­sary to pay for per­mis­sion to re­move Je­sus’ body to a pri­vate burial tomb. But Pi­late would not take money for this. When he heard the re­quest, he quickly signed the or­der which au­tho­rized Joseph to pro­ceed to Gol­go­tha and take im­me­di­ate and full pos­ses­sion of the Mas­ter’s body. In the mean­time, the sand­storm hav­ing con­sid­er­ably abated, a group of Jews rep­re­sent­ing the San­hedrin had gone out to Gol­go­tha for the pur­pose of mak­ing sure that Je­sus’ body ac­com­pa­nied those of the brig­ands to the open pub­lic burial pits.

• most outspoken disciple of Jesus in Jerusalem

188:1.2A cru­ci­fied per­son could not be buried in a Jew­ish ceme­tery; there was a strict law against such a pro­ce­dure. Joseph and Nicode­mus knew this law, and on the way out to Gol­go­tha they had de­cided to bury Je­sus in Joseph’s new fam­ily tomb, hewn out of solid rock, lo­cated a short dis­tance north of Gol­go­tha and across the road lead­ing to Samaria. No one had ever lain in this tomb, and they thought it ap­pro­pri­ate that the Mas­ter should rest there. Joseph re­ally be­lieved that Je­sus would rise from the dead, but Nicode­mus was very doubt­ful. These for­mer mem­bers of the San­hedrin had kept their faith in Je­sus more or less of a se­cret, al­though their fel­low San­hedrists had long sus­pected them, even be­fore they with­drew from the coun­cil. From now on they were the most out­spo­ken dis­ci­ples of Je­sus in all Je­ru­sa­lem.

• helped bear body of Jesus to tomb

188:1.3At about half past four o’clock the burial pro­ces­sion of Je­sus of Naz­a­reth started from Gol­go­tha for Joseph’s tomb across the way. The body was wrapped in a linen sheet as the four men car­ried it, fol­lowed by the faith­ful women watch­ers from Gal­i­lee. The mor­tals who bore the ma­te­rial body of Je­sus to the tomb were: Joseph, Nicode­mus, John, and the Ro­man cen­tu­rion.

• embalmed Jesus’ body with myrrh and aloes

188:1.4They car­ried the body into the tomb, a cham­ber about ten feet square, where they hur­riedly pre­pared it for burial. The Jews did not re­ally bury their dead; they ac­tu­ally em­balmed them. Joseph and Nicode­mus had brought with them large quan­ti­ties of myrrh and aloes, and they now wrapped the body with ban­dages sat­u­rated with these so­lu­tions. When the em­balm­ing was com­pleted, they tied a nap­kin about the face, wrapped the body in a linen sheet, and rev­er­ently placed it on a shelf in the tomb.

• thought Jews had removed Jesus’ body

190:1.2When the apos­tles re­fused to be­lieve the re­port of the five women who rep­re­sented that they had seen Je­sus and talked with him, Mary Mag­da­lene re­turned to the tomb, and the oth­ers went back to Joseph’s house, where they re­lated their ex­pe­ri­ences to his daugh­ter and the other women. And the women be­lieved their re­port. Shortly af­ter six o’clock the daugh­ter of Joseph of Ari­mathea and the four women who had seen Je­sus went over to the home of Nicode­mus, where they re­lated all these hap­pen­ings to Joseph, Nicode­mus, David Zeb­e­dee, and the other men there as­sem­bled. Nicode­mus and the oth­ers doubted their story, doubted that Je­sus had risen from the dead; they con­jec­tured that the Jews had re­moved the body. Joseph and David were dis­posed to be­lieve the re­port, so much so that they hur­ried out to in­spect the tomb, and they found ev­ery­thing just as the women had de­scribed. And they were the last to so view the sepul­chre, for the high priest sent the cap­tain of the tem­ple guards to the tomb at half past seven o’clock to re­move the grave cloths. The cap­tain wrapped them all up in the linen sheet and threw them over a near-by cliff.

• Jesus’ 16th appearance in courtyard of

193:0.1The six­teenth mor­ontia man­i­fes­ta­tion of Je­sus oc­curred on Fri­day, May 5, in the court­yard of Nicode­mus, about nine o’clock at night. On this evening the Je­ru­sa­lem be­liev­ers had made their first at­tempt to get to­gether since the res­ur­rec­tion. As­sem­bled here at this time were the eleven apos­tles, the women’s corps and their as­so­ciates, and about fifty other lead­ing dis­ci­ples of the Mas­ter, in­clud­ing a num­ber of the Greeks. This com­pany of be­liev­ers had been vis­it­ing in­for­mally for more than half an hour when, sud­denly, the mor­ontia Mas­ter ap­peared in full view and im­me­di­ately be­gan to in­struct them. Said Je­sus:

142:8.4Al­though Je­sus and the apos­tles spent the en­tire month of June in or near Je­ru­sa­lem, they did no pub­lic teach­ing dur­ing this pe­riod. They lived for the most part in tents, which they pitched in a shaded park, or gar­den, known in that day as Geth­sem­ane. This park was sit­u­ated on the west­ern slope of the Mount of Olives not far from the brook Kidron. The Sab­bath week­ends they usu­ally spent with Laz­a­rus and his sis­ters at Beth­any. Je­sus en­tered within the walls of Je­ru­sa­lem only a few times, but a large num­ber of in­ter­ested in­quir­ers came out to Geth­sem­ane to visit with him. One Fri­day evening Nicode­mus and one Joseph of Ari­mathea ven­tured out to see Je­sus but turned back through fear even af­ter they were stand­ing be­fore the en­trance to the Mas­ter’s tent. And, of course, they did not per­ceive that Je­sus knew all about their do­ings.

141:3.5Je­sus of Naz­a­reth was in­deed a strong and force­ful per­son­al­ity; he was an in­tel­lec­tual power and a spir­i­tual stronghold. His per­son­al­ity not only ap­pealed to the spir­i­tu­ally minded women among his fol­low­ers, but also to the ed­u­cated and in­tel­lec­tual Nicode­mus and to the hardy Ro­man sol­dier, the cap­tain sta­tioned on guard at the cross, who, when he had fin­ished watch­ing the Mas­ter die, said, “Truly, this was a Son of God.” And red-blooded, rugged Galilean fish­er­men called him Mas­ter.

142:6.1One evening at the home of Flav­ius there came to see Je­sus one Nicode­mus, a wealthy and el­derly mem­ber of the Jew­ish San­hedrin. He had heard much about the teach­ings of this Galilean, and so he went one af­ter­noon to hear him as he taught in the tem­ple courts. He would have gone of­ten to hear Je­sus teach, but he feared to be seen by the peo­ple in at­ten­dance upon his teach­ing, for al­ready were the rulers of the Jews so at vari­ance with Je­sus that no mem­ber of the San­hedrin would want to be iden­ti­fied in any open man­ner with him. Ac­cord­ingly, Nicode­mus had ar­ranged with An­drew to see Je­sus pri­vately and af­ter night­fall on this par­tic­u­lar evening. Pe­ter, James, and John were in Flav­ius’s gar­den when the in­ter­view be­gan, but later they all went into the house where the dis­course con­tin­ued.

164:2.1Je­sus had at­tended the feast of taber­na­cles that he might pro­claim the gospel to the pil­grims from all parts of the em­pire; he now went up to the feast of the ded­i­ca­tion for just one pur­pose: to give the San­hedrin and the Jew­ish lead­ers an­other chance to see the light. The prin­ci­pal event of these few days in Je­ru­sa­lem oc­curred on Fri­day night at the home of Nicode­mus. Here were gath­ered to­gether some twenty-five Jew­ish lead­ers who be­lieved Je­sus’ teach­ing. Among this group were four­teen men who were then, or had re­cently been, mem­bers of the San­hedrin. This meet­ing was at­tended by Eber, Mata­dor­mus, and Joseph of Ari­mathea.

174:5.5These Greeks had been in faith­ful at­ten­dance upon Je­sus’ teach­ing in the tem­ple. On Mon­day evening they had held a con­fer­ence at the home of Nicode­mus, which lasted un­til the dawn of day, and thirty of them had elected to en­ter the king­dom.

175:4.3At the home of Nicode­mus more than thirty promi­nent Jews who were se­cret be­liev­ers in the king­dom met and de­bated what course they would pur­sue in case an open break with the San­hedrin should come. All pres­ent agreed that they would make open ac­knowl­edg­ment of their al­le­giance to the Mas­ter in the very hour they should hear of his ar­rest. And that is just what they did.

183:4.4Shortly af­ter day­break, Si­mon Pe­ter wan­dered back to the Geth­sem­ane camp, a de­jected pic­ture of deep de­spair. David sent him in charge of a mes­sen­ger to join his brother, An­drew, who was at the home of Nicode­mus in Je­ru­sa­lem.

186:3.3Through­out this tragic day, un­til the mes­sage fi­nally went forth that the Mas­ter had been laid in the tomb, David sent mes­sen­gers about ev­ery half hour with re­ports to the apos­tles, the Greeks, and Je­sus’ earthly fam­ily, as­sem­bled at the home of Laz­a­rus in Beth­any. When the mes­sen­gers de­parted with the word that Je­sus had been buried, David dis­missed his corps of lo­cal run­ners for the Pass­over cel­e­bra­tion and for the com­ing Sab­bath of rest, in­struct­ing them to re­port to him qui­etly on Sun­day morn­ing at the home of Nicode­mus, where he pro­posed to go in hid­ing for a few days with An­drew and Si­mon Pe­ter.

189:4.2At the home of Nicode­mus there were gath­ered to­gether, with David Zeb­e­dee and Joseph of Ari­mathea, some twelve or fif­teen of the more promi­nent of the Je­ru­sa­lem dis­ci­ples of Je­sus. At the home of Joseph of Ari­mathea there were some fif­teen or twenty of the lead­ing women be­liev­ers. Only these women abode in Joseph’s house, and they had kept close within dur­ing the hours of the Sab­bath day and the evening af­ter the Sab­bath, so that they were ig­no­rant of the mil­i­tary guard on watch at the tomb; nei­ther did they know that a sec­ond stone had been rolled in front of the tomb, and that both of these stones had been placed un­der the seal of Pi­late.

142:6.2In re­ceiv­ing Nicode­mus, Je­sus showed no par­tic­u­lar def­er­ence; in talk­ing with him, there was no com­pro­mise or un­due per­sua­sive­ness. The Mas­ter made no at­tempt to re­pulse his se­cre­tive caller, nor did he em­ploy sar­casm. In all his deal­ings with the dis­tin­guished vis­i­tor, Je­sus was calm, earnest, and dig­ni­fied. Nicode­mus was not an of­fi­cial del­e­gate of the San­hedrin; he came to see Je­sus wholly be­cause of his per­sonal and sin­cere in­ter­est in the Mas­ter’s teach­ings.

142:6.3Upon be­ing pre­sented by Flav­ius, Nicode­mus said: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher sent by God, for no mere man could so teach un­less God were with him. And I am de­sirous of know­ing more about your teach­ings re­gard­ing the com­ing king­dom.”

142:6.4Je­sus an­swered Nicode­mus: “Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, Nicode­mus, ex­cept a man be born from above, he can­not see the king­dom of God.” Then replied Nicode­mus: “But how can a man be born again when he is old? He can­not en­ter a sec­ond time into his mother’s womb to be born.”

142:6.5Je­sus said: “Nev­er­the­less, I de­clare to you, ex­cept a man be born of the spirit, he can­not en­ter into the king­dom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. But you should not mar­vel that I said you must be born from above. When the wind blows, you hear the rus­tle of the leaves, but you do not see the wind—whence it comes or whither it goes—and so it is with ev­ery­one born of the spirit. With the eyes of the flesh you can be­hold the man­i­fes­ta­tions of the spirit, but you can­not ac­tu­ally dis­cern the spirit.”

142:6.6Nicode­mus replied: “But I do not under­stand—how can that be?” Said Je­sus: “Can it be that you are a teacher in Is­rael and yet ig­no­rant of all this? It be­comes, then, the duty of those who know about the re­al­i­ties of the spirit to re­veal these things to those who dis­cern only the man­i­fes­ta­tions of the ma­te­rial world. But will you be­lieve us if we tell you of the heav­enly truths? Do you have the cour­age, Nicode­mus, to be­lieve in one who has de­scended from heaven, even the Son of Man?”

142:6.7And Nicode­mus said: “But how can I be­gin to lay hold upon this spirit which is to re­make me in prepa­ra­tion for en­ter­ing into the king­dom?” Je­sus an­swered: “Al­ready does the spirit of the Fa­ther in heaven in­dwell you. If you would be led by this spirit from above, very soon would you be­gin to see with the eyes of the spirit, and then by the whole­hearted choice of spirit guid­ance would you be born of the spirit since your only pur­pose in liv­ing would be to do the will of your Fa­ther who is in heaven. And so find­ing your­self born of the spirit and hap­pily in the king­dom of God, you would be­gin to bear in your daily life the abun­dant fruits of the spirit.”

142:6.8Nicode­mus was thor­oughly sin­cere. He was deeply im­pressed but went away be­wil­dered. Nicode­mus was ac­com­plished in self-de­vel­op­ment, in self-re­straint, and even in high moral qual­i­ties. He was re­fined, ego­is­tic, and al­tru­is­tic; but he did not know how to sub­mit his will to the will of the di­vine Fa­ther as a lit­tle child is will­ing to sub­mit to the guid­ance and lead­ing of a wise and lov­ing earthly fa­ther, thereby be­com­ing in re­al­ity a son of God, a pro­gres­sive heir of the eter­nal king­dom.