Nick At Night

“Nicodemus, who had first come to Him by night…”
(John 19:39a)

It’s pretty cool that the verse above is stated the way it is, seeing how I honestly believe that Nicodemus truly came to Jesus that night. This man, who was a member of the Pharisees & a leader of the Jews, came to Jesus at night to speak to him about maybe joining with them to overthrow the Roman government. He came to Jesus in the name of the Pharisees, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God…” we? Where did he get we, wasn’t he alone? He was speaking to Jesus as if he was there as an ambassador for the Pharisees. See the Pharisees were waiting on a messiah that would as I said above, lead them in over-throwing the government that had long suppressed them & the Jewish people. They saw Jesus as a leader that the people were drawn to & thought that he didn’t know how to handle the politicians like they did, but if He would only join up with them…then what they had been long waiting for could be soon to come. But you know…I don’t think that Nick was prepared for what Jesus was about to say.

Jesus sort of said, lets cut to the chase, lets stop messing around or as some of our older Alabama paw paws would say, stop Hee Hawin’ around & let’s get to what you really need…Nick…“you must be born again”. Nick was shocked, he had no idea what Jesus meant by this statement, he thought that he meant physical birth…but he soon was to find out that Jesus meant spiritual. Jesus went own to tell Nick that He had come to save the world, not to condemn it. He also shared with Nick what has become the most known Bible verse in the world…John 3:16…“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” I would imagine that at this time the light went on in Nick’s head & heart. He had just had the gospel shared with him by the one the gospel was all about. He heard the good news of Jesus Christ…straight from the lips of Jesus himself.

It isn’t until later in John that we see why I believe that Nick’s life was changed forever. In John 7:50-51, Nick takes a stand for Jesus, a stand that would bring him persecution & reticule from his Pharisee peers. Jesus is speaking in Galilee during the Feast of the Jews, crowds were split, some believed Him & debated whether or not He was from God, while others wanted to arrest Him. The Pharisees were highly outraged & sent officers to arrest Jesus, but even the officers were overtaken with the words Jesus spoke & they returned to the Pharisees without making an arrest. The Pharisees then started talking about all the people & the officers being lead astray & they said “No one of the rulers or Pharisees has believed in Him, has he? ‘But this crowd which does not know the Law is accursed.” Then Nick spoke up, “Our Law does not judge a man unless it first hears from him and knows what he is doing, does it?” Then the Pharisees turned on him, mocked him & I would think that he wasn’t welcome with them any longer. Nick took a stand for Jesus against the very men who would soon put Jesus to death. But this isn’t the only place that Nick is mentioned.

In John 19 we see Nick again. Jesus is pronounced dead on the cross, a man named Joseph of Arimathea a rich man who had a tomb & was a secret follower of Jesus came & asked for the body of Jesus so that he could properly bury Him. Along with Joseph came Nick who brought a mixture of Myrrh & aloes about a hundred pounds it says to help prepare the body. A real cool thing here is that when the Jews prepared a body for burial they used half the body weight in spices to do it. They used one hundred pounds, meaning that Jesus probably weighed at or around two hundred pounds…that’s just a note for those trivia folks. The important thing here is that Nick evidently had a change the night he met with Jesus, he stood up for him when no one else would & he came out very publicly at his death, when all of Jesus disciples were hiding in fear.
When I read all of this I thought that we just don’t give Nick enough credit for his transformation, a man in a very difficult situation & still willing to stand for Jesus…I pray I can be as bold.

Ask yourself this question: Are you a secret follower… at work, school, around your friends? Heck we at this time don’t have to worry about being stoned to death or being nailed to a cross…but we often stay silent. Why? Have you really met Jesus, as Nick did?

Vern