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…