Encountering Jesus

Part 1 | Glimpses of characterization in the gospel of John

Jesus, Nicodemus and a bucketful of ambiguity
by Bruce Power

T

his short series will briefly examine a major feature of John’s story concerning the life and teaching of Jesus - the manner in which individuals come into contact with Jesus and make decisions about the direction a future relationship will take.

John’s gospel presents the story of Jesus in a manner quite different from what we read in the synoptic tradition (Matthew, Mark and Luke). An important aspect of this presentation involves protracted accounts of Jesus’ meetings with individual figures. These become paradigms for the overall concern of the account which is, what will the reader decide about Jesus?

The familiarity of these stories to many of us can make them difficult to see with fresh eyes. We have to look beyond what we think the stories say, and what we’ve heard they are about to what the text actually states.

In John 3, Nicodemus, a leader among his people, comes to meet with Jesus. “Teacher,” he states, “we know that you are sent from God” (John 3:2). But before we read this statement, John has told us some interesting things about this encounter. The man has arrived at night to meet with Jesus. Why has he chosen this time of day? Are the affairs of state too pressing to allow a daytime meeting? Does he come representing the ruling council, are they the “we” spoken of in his statement? Or has he come through the city’s shadows to meet with Jesus in secret? John chooses not to tell us. But in his introduction to the story of Jesus he has already used light and darkness as symbols of response to the coming of God into our midst. There are those who see and acknowledge “the light [which] shines in darkness” (1:5ff.) and those who do not.

Nicodemus’ arrival at night suggests many things. But it clearly implies that Nicodemus comes seeking truth. His own statement declares “we know you are a teacher sent from God.” So far, so good.

Jesus invites Nicodemus into a spiritual encounter and speaks to him of birth by the life giving power of God, but Nicodemus is stuck in his ideas about how and when and why God will be at work in his world. He cannot seem to break through to embrace the possibilities of God’s rule in his life, even as a path is stretched out before him. Jesus speaks of being reborn, Nicodemus imagines him to declare a physical rather than a spiritual reality. Jesus is stunned by Nicodemus’ inabilities. Nicodemus is a religious and a political leader, trained and seasoned in the traditions of his people, but his background, rather than preparing him to embrace the new work of God in the present, seems to have crippled him from imagining new potentials and possibilities.

“God so loved the world …” Jesus tells him, but Nicodemus has left the building. Perhaps not physically at this point, but John indicates his complete disappearance from comprehension by having Nicodemus, the character who initiates the scene, simply gone by the end. What happened to him? At what point does he ‘check out’ and go home? Does he leave as Jesus speaks of God’s love for the world, hearing only echoes of his voice as he returns to the shadows to find his way home in the night?

“You need to experience a new birth, a birth of the Spirit,” Jesus tells him. But Nicodemus seems incapable of embracing this startling and challenging truth. He cannot set aside the security of past and present to embrace the new things God is doing.
Nicodemus’ story is not finished however. Nicodemus appears two further times in the account. John 7 describes Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem for an important religious festival where his teaching and actions create a great controversy regarding his role and identity. Just who is this man? Is he a prophet or a troublemaker? The expected and anticipated leader sent from God or a wacko? The leaders of the people have had enough and send the temple guard to arrest Jesus, but they return empty handed. Questioned as to their dereliction of duty, they simply respond “No one ever spoke the way this man does” (7:46).

As the tirade about the situation continues, Nicodemus, a member of the leadership group, speaks up to pose a question. “Does our law condemn anyone without first hearing him to find out what he is doing?”

Hardly a ringing endorsement of Jesus and his role as one sent from God. But simply posing the question in this context is enough for Nicodemus to be on the receiving end of a snide comment. “Are you from Galilee, too?” (7:52). In other words, are you an uneducated, unsophisticated moron from some village in the middle of nowhere? Obviously, the leaders feel themselves to have a handle on the truth.

Once again we have no idea about Nicodemus. Has he embraced the things Jesus had spoken of? Or is he simply to be understood as a good, and fair, and essentially just man? And is that enough? How many good, and fair, and essentially just people does it take to make a difference in the face of injustice, evil and hatred? And is that enough? Jesus has told Nicodemus it is not. But has Nicodemus moved beyond this state?

Our final encounter with Nicodemus takes place near the end of the story. Once again it is important to note carefully what John actually says: “Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple, but secretly because he feared the Jews. [This is John's short form for the leadership and those associated with them who seek Jesus' death]. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who had earlier visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs” (19:38-40). John then goes on to tell us how Jesus was entombed.

Clearly Nicodemus has brought a burial gift fit for a king. He has emerged from the shadows to ‘do the right thing’ and assist Joseph with Jesus’ burial. But has he embraced the life from God about which Jesus had spoken so clearly? John could have called the duo ‘secret disciples,’ but only Joseph is so named. What has Nicodemus done with the claims of Jesus? Has he embraced them? Or merely considered and been challenged by them? And what will you do with those same claims?

Watch for the second installment of this four-part series next Thursday on theRubicon.

Writer: When Bruce Power is not reading books on scripture and/or the ancient world, and listening to blues or jazz or baroque music, he may be teaching a course somewhere. Or who knows what he might be up to…

1 Comment to Encountering Jesus

1. Thanks, Bruce.

   As usual, your ideas are fresh and well-expressed. I look for more.

   Your idea that Nicodemus had “left the building” by the time Jesus says “God so loved the world…” especially caught my attention.

   I wonder whether Nicodemus’ incomprehension is bound up with the fact that –as a “ruler”–he is used to thinking of himself as the initiator, the one who sets the agenda, the teacher who determines the curriculum. From the outset of his encounter with Jesus this expectation is frustrated. Removed from his usual position of power, how can he possibly “get it”?

   Maybe a lesson here for some of us who have grown used to being leaders.
Jim Read on October 3rd, 2008

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