NICODEMUS -- COWARD OR TIMID NEW CHRISTIAN?

By Sonia A. Randall

Nicodemus has puzzled scholars over the years. Was he a cowardly half-hearted follower of Jesus or a secret disciple? He was an important Jewish leader who came to Jesus secretly to ask about the new life. (John 3:1-9) When Jesus mentioned a spiritual birth, Nicodemus clearly did not understand. "How can a man be born when he is old? Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born?" John 3:4

To new Christians, unfamiliar with religious terminology, this question seems reasonable. "How can this be?" is indeed the mystery. The Bible doesn’t say what Nicodemus thought about the new birth. He isn't mentioned again until the Sanhedrin proposed to arrest Jesus. Then he spoke up, "Does our law condemn anyone without first hearing him to find out what he is doing?" John 7:51 Some scholars think this signified Nicodemus had become a believer. Others that it was simply a request for fairness that his integrity would have required for anyone.

What was Nicodemus doing during this interval? We don’t know. If he had become a believer, his secrecy is at least understandable. He was a member of the Sanhedrin, a Council of 70 outstanding Jews, who were the very ones wanting to silence Jesus. If he confessed to believing Jesus was the Son of God, retaining his important position was unlikely.

The Pharisees didn't listen to Nicodemus and he isn’t mentioned again until after the crucifixion. At a time when even Jesus' disciples are hiding, when all appears to be lost, Nicodemus publicly comes with Joseph of Arimathea, another leading Jew and member of the Sanhedrin, to retrieve the body of Jesus for burial. (See John 19:38-40)

How did he find the courage now when he had everything to lose and apparently nothing to gain? Those who call Nicodemus cowardly may be forgetting what it is like to be a new Christian, to feel tremendous love and gratitude but not know how to express it, to want to do the right thing but be unsure what that is.

Even Jesus' disciples, who lived with Him every day, didn't always know what to think. We can only wonder how long it took for Nicodemus, guided by the Holy Spirit, to come to the knowledge of what he must do as a follower of Jesus. Perhaps not until it seemed there was nothing he could do but help to see that Jesus had a proper burial.

So many questions are not answered for us in the Bible but we can prayerfully think about them and consider how we might behave in similar circumstances. Perhaps the most important lesson we can learn from the story of Nicodemus may be the thoughtfulness of not judging someone else's relationship to God -- or the maturity of his faith -- even when it seems puzzling to us. God will guide each of His new believers in His own way. Paul makes this clear when he writes to the Romans, "Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for God is able to make him stand." Romans 14:4

Sonia A. Randall writes from Corvallis, Oregon. Sonia@Randallclan.net