In or Out

So I was talking to a friend of mine today and we were discussing John 3. He will be preaching on this passage in a couple of weeks and we were talking about the direction that he might want to take with it. After bandying about the idea of using one of the more obscure verses as his sole point of reference, or listing one as the verse to have read and then going totally away from it, we talked about something with some meat.

The question that was posed was about Nicodemus. Nick came to Jesus and questioned him about who he was and what he was teaching. Not that big a deal really, seems that people wanted to know this about Jesus, which would help explain why there were always such large crowds around Jesus. But if you read the first half of the chapter with Nick's story you see will see what it was that had us talking.

Nicodemus was a pharisee you see. So pretty much by this time the pharisees weren't so sure that they liked what Jesus was doing. He was ruffling some feathers and going if directions that they didn't really like. The thing is, Nicodemus didn't seem to be completely convinced that what he was saying was bad. So he went to talk to him about it...at night...when no one would see him talking to Jesus. Seems kinda weird right?

So the question was "Why do you think Nicodemus went to Jesus at night?" The answer seems pretty obvious at first glance, right? He was a pharisee and was afraid of what the other pharisees would think if they knew he was consorting with the "enemy" as it were. I mean, if you don't want people to know what you are doing, you do it under the cover of darkness. So the first thought is that he was scared of what the others would think if they knew.

This is the answered that I posed to the stated question. It makes sense. Damon then posed a different answer to his question. He said "What if the reason that he went at night (other than fear) was to be able to avoid having to share Jesus with any of the crowds? Or some combination of the two."

Now this was an insight that I had never considered before. It was something that had not even crossed my mind as his reason. We always hear about how he didn't want to upset his standing with the pharisees or disturb the status quo. But what if there was another motive to why he went at night? What if it was because he didn't want to have to share his time with Jesus?

It would make sense really when you think about it. The crowds that followed Jesus were huge. Can you imagine what it would be like to try and be able to even get close to him? And as far as getting to ask him a question and get to have some discussion about it? Good luck with that. So going when the crowds are gone makes a great deal of sense.

Aren't we all just like Nicodemus though at times? We are selfish with Jesus. We don't want to share him with others. Or we want to "try out" Jesus but we don't really want anyone to know that we are. We are scared and we want to be hidden...just like Nick. Jesus talks about how things that are done in the dark will come to the light. To this particular situation it's like he is saying that it's fine to start off secretly, but at some point you have got to take a stand one way or another. You're either in or your not.

We have to make a choice at some point...will we continue to go about in the dark, hoping no one knows we are actually into Jesus, or will we step into the light and live our faith for others to see. Nicodemus' story ends (for us at least) with him being the lone voice to oppose the "trial" of Jesus (that we know of) and he is there to help take him from the cross and bury him. Nicodemus was willing to step out of the dark into the light, will we be willing to do the same? Peace and Love y'all.