Dancing in the Dark

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews.

He came to see Jesus at night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God."

-John 3: 1-2

Little details can tell you a lot sometimes.  Like the fact that Nicodemus came to see Jesus at night.  Why would you come at night? If you didn't want to be seen in the light of day perhaps.  This sort of fits with a theme in John's Gospel about the light and the darkness.  Jesus' dialogue with an influential Pharisee named Nicodemus contains that important and well known verses of John 3:16 and 17, about God's love for the world and how Jesus did not come to condemn the world.  They are part of his attempt to communicate the reality of his Gospel message with a man already well established as a religious man, and a fine upstanding citizen.

Jesus actually starts by deliberately confusing Nicodemus by talking about having to be born again.  Contrary to what you might assume if you only know modern Christians, this being born again thing is not a particularly huge part of historical Christianity, for good reason, it's a strange metaphor that describes the way that a person who has experienced grace feels.  They are unburdened of all their past sins and failings and feel free to enter the kingdom as a little one.  Nicodemus makes the rather common mistake of the religious sort in trying to take this metaphor too literally, and the conversation proceeds apace, eventually resolving into a rather good summation of the Good News of God's love for us and a truthful diagnosis of our own predilection towards darkness: "And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil."

It would appear that Jesus won Nicodemus over that night, because at the end of the story, when Jesus has been crucified, it is Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus who take care of Jesus' body and have him put in the tomb.  It would appear that while Nicodemus did not exactly become a disciple of Jesus, he still believed that Jesus was worth something and did what he could to help.

This story makes me think about the ways in which we can bridge gaps between people, and also the way that real life is rather more ambivalent and uncertain than we would make it.  The Pharisees and the authorities are not generally treated well by the Gospels, for good reason.  They were so afraid of Jesus that they conspired to bring about his death.  Nicodemus was part of that crowd, but he also "believed" that Jesus was from God, because he saw the evidence.  He comes in secret to learn more about this person Jesus who has done some miracles.  Jesus does not fawn over him by any stretch of the imagination, in fact, he challenges Nicodemus, he criticizes his knowledge of the law, and deliberately throws up roadblocks by challenging his common sense, his theological perspective and even his righteousness, in other words he does not coddle Nicodemus in the least.  He does not worry about offending him, in fact, that barb about people loving the darkness was pretty sharply directed at the people in Nicodemus crowd.

So why doesn't this approach work any more? I mean other than because we're not Jesus? I think it's because we have forgotten how to inquire in depth about things that we think we disagree with.  We too easily seek confirmation of what we already know. Nicodemus might hope that somehow he can bring Jesus in line with orthodox ways by the time he leaves, but he leaves knowing that isn't going to happen.  Nevertheless, he is convinced still that Jesus is not a charlatan, that he really is connected to the presence of God.  That puts him in a difficult place, because he has a lot to lose if he is found to be a supporter of this man who is well on his way to being declared a blasphemer by the Sanhedrin and executed as a rebel against Rome.

Nicodemus does not allow us to see even the much maligned "pharisees and scribes" as universally evil.  We have to acknowledge that even as he participated in the system that killed Jesus, he was not entirely on the "other side" of the teaching. Nicodemus is on one hand a paradigm of the failure of moderates who may believe rightly but do not act decisively.  But he is also a man who has the humility to be corrected and challenged by Jesus, he has the ability to listen and learn and step out of the darkness just a little, even if it is a little late by most standards. This story doesn't end where people, including Nicodemus, expected it to end.