Nicodemus.

Saturday's Mass readings included the second of the three appearances that Nicodemus makes in the Gospel of John.    Nicodemus is a Pharisee, and a member of the Sanhedrin, presumably wealthy or at least with access to wealth, who does three rather surprising things:

• Visits Jesus by night, confesses "We know that you are a teacher who has come from God," and discusses Jesus's teachings with him, notably the bit about being "born again"/"born from above," in the course of the discussion eliciting the famous John 3:16 among other things.  (Jn 3:1-21)
• Challenges the chief priests and the other Pharisees, who have ordered Jesus arrested and disdained the mob's ignorance of the law, by appealing to the same:  "Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?" (Jn 7:50-51)
• Joins Joseph of Arimathea, a "secret" disciple, when he comes to take down the body of Jesus.  Nicodemus provides a hundred pounds of burial spices, a king's burial offering, and it is he and Joseph of Arimathea who lay the body in the new tomb (presumably owned by Joseph himself).

I like the figure of Nicodemus, but despite that I have never spent much time thinking very deeply about him, or considering what it might mean to us that we have the story of this one man popping up in multiple places, gaining courage and giving more and more. 

But I should pay more attention to Nicodemus, I think.  Of all the sinners in the Gospels it's the Pharisees in which I see myself most.  I like law, the whole notion of it, and the safeguard of a society's foundation on the rule of law instead of on monarchy or on charismatic, cultish and dangerous leaders.  I like laws, laws in the plural:  I like to understand them, dissect them, test them against various problems, and put them back together again.  I love the words that Robert Bolt puts in the mouth of Sir Thomas More in A Man for all Seasons:   

"Oh?  And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?  This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's!  And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?  Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!"

And of course, besides laws and rules themselves, I love wisdom, by which I often mean I love thinking myself wise, and am frequently tempted to sneer at the less-wise.  I have a reflexive tendency to trust the law too much---if it is only a well-written, well-conceived law---and to think that systems can fix the problem of human nature.  Standard operating procedures---handbooks---constitutions---contracts.  I mean, I really do know better, but I catch myself thinking it anyway, or at least behaving as if I thought it.   

Mind you, the rich young man is also the sort of sinner I can identify with, but that's only because I happen to be relatively rich.  Had I not been, I'd still have written within me the sort of things that make me identify uncomfortably with the Pharisees.  It's more aligned with my essence.

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So I should pay more mind to Nicodemus, who first sneaks around by night, drawn to Jesus and wanting to dialogue with him, and himself drawing out some of His best-remembered words; then, back among the council, challenges them within the bounds of their shared value-system (and for his trouble is accused of being "a Galilean" himself); finally, openly, before the sun sets on the day of the Crucifixion, joins another previously secret disciple, bringing the expensive spices, and performs that great merciful work on the body of the dead Christ.   I myself felt a bit sneaky about coming to Jesus at first.  I still like appealing to shared values, in dialogue with smart people who have a different idea about Him than I do, and trying to maintain my ties among the wise and learned and respectable people (but at the same time, making my own poor efforts to put Him in a better light according to their eyes).  

The question remains for me whether I have gone far enough that I can make the final step of faith that Nicodemus is remembered for:  in the end, he served Jesus openly, treating his body with the honor and respect that he knew Jesus to deserve.  It was an act of mercy; it was in obedience to the Law he held dear (hastily, so as not to trespass the Sabbath); it was in company with the privileged, who had the ear of Pilate.  But it must have also been an expression of devotion, of real love.  Not, over the old norms, a trespass, but a transcending.

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I discovered, in my further reading, Henry Vaughan's poem "The Night." Here it is:

Through that pure virgin shrine,

That sacred veil drawn o’er Thy glorious noon,

That men might look and live, as glowworms shine,

             And face the moon,

    Wise Nicodemus saw such light

    As made him know his God by night.

 

         Most blest believer he!

Who in that land of darkness and blind eyes

Thy long-expected healing wings could see,

             When Thou didst rise!

    And, what can never more be done,

    Did at midnight speak with the Sun!

 

         O who will tell me where

He found Thee at that dead and silent hour?

What hallowed solitary ground did bear

             So rare a flower,

    Within whose sacred leaves did lie

    The fulness of the Deity?

 

         No mercy-seat of gold,

No dead and dusty cherub, nor carved stone,

But His own living works did my Lord hold

             And lodge alone;

    Where trees and herbs did watch and peep

    And wonder, while the Jews did sleep.

 

         Dear night! this world’s defeat;

The stop to busy fools; care’s check and curb;

The day of spirits; my soul’s calm retreat

             Which none disturb!

    Christ’s progress, and His prayer time;

    The hours to which high heaven doth chime;

 

         God’s silent, searching flight;

When my Lord’s head is filled with dew, and all

His locks are wet with the clear drops of night;

             His still, soft call;

    His knocking time; the soul’s dumb watch,

    When spirits their fair kindred catch.

 

         Were all my loud, evil days

Calm and unhaunted as is thy dark tent,

Whose peace but by some angel’s wing or voice

             Is seldom rent,

    Then I in heaven all the long year

    Would keep, and never wander here.

 

         But living where the sun

Doth all things wake, and where all mix and tire

Themselves and others, I consent and run

             To every mire,

    And by this world’s ill-guiding light,

    Err more than I can do by night.

 

         There is in God, some say,

A deep but dazzling darkness, as men here

Say it is late and dusky, because they

             See not all clear.

    O for that night! where I in Him

    Might live invisible and dim!

 

Comments

[Melanie]

Oh that's a gorgeous poem.

I especially love:
"And, what can never more be done,
Did at midnight speak with the Sun!"