When Nicodemus enters the gospel story he is already elderly (John 3:4) and well-to-do. (John 19:39) That he was an aristoc_esermonsrat his membership in the Sanhedrin attests. For not only was it the governing body of the Jewish people, its constituents were drawn from the priestly families of the land, the scribes, and the teachers of the law.

A recognized scholar, (John 3:10) Nicodemus was the kind of person who would die learning. Accordingly, unlike many of his colleagues, he kept an open mind to life, convinced that God had not spoken his last word or commissioned his last messenger. Indeed, such was his passion for truth that he pursued it wherever it might take him or through whomever it might come. Accordingly, he did not hesitate to mingle with the crowds clamoring to hear Jesus and what he heard convinced him that he should talk with the Master privately. For whatever else he may have been Nicodemus was a troubled man.

I

On being enlisted in the Sanhedrin Nicodemus had been quickly elevated to its leadership. The high council had three officers, a president, a vice president, and a master, who was also known as "the wise man." It was this third-ranking-office to which Nicodemus had been elected, and to assure its proper administration he had steeped himself in the ethical moralism of the prophets.

At the same time, however, Nicodemus' position in the council entangled him in the practices of its conniving president, the crafty Caiaphas. To be sure, Nicodemus had protested the practices, for Caiaphas took pains to promote his crass schemes when Nicodemus was absent on council business elsewhere. Nevertheless, the very fact Nicodemus was an official of the body perpetrating Caiaphas' evil deeds had led him to fear he bore the taint of its president's guilt by association.

It was a sobering fear and, left to his own thoughts, Nicodemus could not shake it. Indeed, he apparently spent hours vainly agonizing over it. As a consequence he had come to the conviction he could not discharge the fear alone. So, impressed with what he had seen of Jesus, he decided to seek the Galilean's counsel. Nor would he have found it difficult to do so. For the Master was pursuing a practice common in Israel that would have provided Nicodemus easy access to him.

II

Itinerant Eastern teachers regularly selected well-trafficked spots as stands from which to propagate their doctrines. It was a custom Jesus had adopted early in his ministry. Thus, he appealed to his hearers where he found them -- by the seashore, (Matthew 13:1-2) on a mountainside, (Matthew 5:1) in a field, (Luke 6:17) on a street corner (Matthew 13:26) -- even in the crowded courts of the temple. (Matthew 26:55)

Consequently, as Nicodemus went about Jerusalem on business for the Sanhedrin he must have encountered Jesus many times. A word in passing was all he would have needed to set up an appointment for the two to talk. The conjecture finds substance in the fact Nicodemus found in the dark the house where Jesus was staying.

Moreover it was probably Nicodemus who proposed midnight as the time for meeting. Certainly, there would have been good reason for the suggestion. For one thing, he would escape the heat of the torrid Palestinian day -- in itself no mean consideration. Again, as one in the public eye, he was sensitive to the influence his action might have on any who chanced to see him enter the house for his rendezvous with Jesus. Accordingly, until he knew more about the Master's situation he would proceed cautiously. In addition he probably feared that a daylight call might unwittingly play into the hands of Caiaphas' secret police by subjecting Jesus to arrest where there would be no one to defend him.

Inasmuch as Jesus had no place of his own the house where Nicodemus met with him was very likely John's. Scripture tells us the beloved disciple owned a home in Jerusalem (John 19:27) and undoubtedly, like Martha's and Mary's house at Bethany, it must have been available to Jesus whenever he desired its use. In addition, the exchange John reports between the two men suggests the Evangelist, while taking no part in the evening's encounter, nevertheless silently witnessed it.

III

The interview itself, as John recounts it, is highly revealing, not only because it serves as a vehicle for one of the profoundest teachings in scripture, but equally because of what it tells us about Nicodemus.

For one thing, the interview clearly indicates that Jesus trusted Nicodemus. The Master was only too well aware of the Sanhedrin's passion to do away with him. Yet here he was sharing a quiet rendezvous with its third-ranking member. He who "knew what was in man" (John 2:25) was confident that Nicodemus would not betray him. So the midnight meeting attested the scholar's character as much as his passion for truth.

For another thing, we see here not the high-powered official whom many must have both hated and envied for the post he held, nor the pundit whose reputation preceded him wherever he went, but the man -- the sincere, down-to-earth, cautious individual who readily recognized his shortcomings and earnestly desired to do something about them. Indeed, Nicodemus' very manner before Jesus manifests a humility which the role traditionally attributed to his rank has tended to conceal.

Reluctant to believe the Almighty had spoken his last word or unfolded his last secret, Nicodemus was willing to sit at the feet of a carpenter "not yet 50" (John 8:57) whom Jerusalem's leaders were labeling an ignorant man. (John 7:15) Nor was it a small concession on his part to do so. For one thing by seeking Jesus' counsel he was acknowledging that a Galilean untrained in the schools was as much a teacher from God as the proud priests of Israel. For another he was consulting that Galilean on basic points of Jewish theology, thereby reversing their allotted roles in life, in itself an intolerable act. Yet on neither count did Nicodemus hesitate to risk appearing naive by asking that carpenter the questions that were troubling him. (John 3:1-10) It was an act which, in the light of Nicodemus' official role, took no small courage.

Nicodemus was a Pharisee; (John 3:1) and, like all Pharisees, he had been steeped in an exclusive and Puritanical outlook on life. But not once in the course of their session together did Jesus call on him to renounce the harsh attitude and equally harsh actions of the body to which he belonged.

The omission is highly suggestive in view of the Lord's scathing denunciations of the sect as a whole for its vicious and often fraudulent ways. (Matthew 23:13-36; Luke 11:12-44) Instead, Jesus asked of his midnight visitor only that he commit himself to stir up the gift of God that was within him. (John 3:3)

It was a request Nicodemus was bent on honoring when he went out into the dawn.

IV

Nicodemus had barely left Jesus' presence when he found himself challenged to make good on his resolution. To the consternation of the Pharisees Jesus' popularity had continued to grow. In fact, there was common talk that he was the King the Jews had been so long anticipating. (Mark 15:12) The very idea was freighted with emotion and might all too easily launch a messianic movement spawning an insurrection. Let Caesar get wind of it and his legions would pounce on Israel like eagles swooping up prey from a plain. (John 11:48)

Here was a situation that must be curbed at all costs, and Caiaphas lost no time in hatching a plot to do it. Not only would his stratagem convince Rome of the council's loyalty, it would also strengthen the council's control over the Jews. All that was needed, he told the Sanhedrin, was to seize and execute Jesus as an enemy of the state. Once the empire saw how quickly the Jewish leaders dealt with any who threatened the interests of their overlords the nation -- and, with it, the council -- would be free of the specter of disaster. (John 11:49-50)

Aware he was outvoted even before he spoke, Nicodemus nevertheless opposed the plot. "Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?" he protested. (John 7:50-51)

It was a bold challenge, and even as he raised it Nicodemus knew it would bring the Sanhedrin's wrath upon his head. So he was not surprised when the high priest's veiled threat came. "Are you from Galilee, too?" Caiaphas snarled. "Search and you will see that no prophet is to rise from Galilee." (John 7:52)

There was no mistaking Caiaphas' meaning. Galilee had long since been a hotbed of rebellion. Had not Herod been repeatedly forced to quell the wild mountaineers there as they tried to drive their rulers into the sea? Let Nicodemus beware lest he, too, suffer Rome's vengeance.

At the same time, however, neither was there any mistaking the high priest's distrust of the protesting scholar standing Jesus' sole defender before him. Nor was he long in acting on that distrust.

Taking advantage of one of Nicodemus' absences -- in all likelihood again on a trip for the council -- and secure in the contempt the Pharisees held for the common people, Caiaphas sent soldiers under cover of darkness to seize Jesus and rush him to trial before dawn. The high priest and his cohorts were not about to have Nicodemus sitting as their conscience when they put Jesus to death.

What followed constitutes one of the most courageous testimonials in history.

V

It was shortly after three o'clock on Friday afternoon, the seventh of April, 30 A.D. Joseph of Arimathea had courageously besought Jesus' broken body from Pilate to ensure its proper burial -- an act in itself constituting open witness of commitment to Jesus -- while Nicodemus had brought myrrh and aloe to the extent of 100 pounds to enhance the last fond rites for the dead (John 19:38-42) in a manner befitting One whose life had so profoundly touched their own.

It was a bold witness, openly defying a pompous ruler who could be a deadly foe and putting at stake all the two were or ever hoped to be.

Nor did Pilate permit the witness to pass unscathed. For tradition tells us that for his part in Jesus' burial Nicodemus was stripped of his post in the Sanhedrin and banned from Jerusalem. Yet despite such consequences, like another loyal follower long centuries later, Nicodemus had succeeded in declaring to Caiaphas and the world that:

I saw him once -- he stood a moment there.
He spoke one word that laid my spirit bare.
He grasped my hand, then passed beyond my ken.
But what I was, I shall not be again.