AND NICODEMUS, Daily Devotion, Saturday, March 30, 2013

SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

John 19:39  “And there came also Nicodemus…”

SCRIPTURE READING: JOHN 19:31-42

³¹The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.

 ³²Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him.

 ³³But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs:

 ³⁴But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.

 ³⁵And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe.

 ³⁶For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken.

 ³⁷And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they pierced.

 ³⁸And after this Joseph of Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus.

 ³⁹And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight.

 ⁴⁰Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury.

 ⁴¹Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.

 ⁴²There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews' preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.

REFLECTION: 

A few years earlier he came to Jesus “by night.”  “Master we know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles except God be with Him,” Nicodemus confessed. Jesus didn’t reprove his secret inquirer, He taught him, “Verily verily I say unto thee, ye must be born again!”

On the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, that great day of the Feast when Jesus proclaimed, “If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink,” opinions in Jerusalem were sharply divided.  Some believed Jesus was the long anticipated Messiah.  The Jewish Sanhedrin was sure He was an imposter. 

Nicodemus emerged from the shadows, not yet ready to openly proclaim Christ as His Lord, but anxious to hear more, “Does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he does?”  His authority and influence were sufficient to pause the Sanhedrin’s rush to judgment.

John tells us that Joseph of Arimethaea begged Pilate for the body of Jesus. But there was another who helped him take our Lord from the cross to the tomb. See Nicodemus. Together they did what they could to prepare Christ’s body for burial.  They wrapped Him in linen clothes.  Then they gently laid him in Joseph’s new made tomb. Though Nicodemus knew that his faith in Christ would earn him the scorn of the Jerusalem elite, his admiration for Christ could not longer be secret, his confidence in Christ would not longer be ambiguous. 

He remembered and now believed what Christ had said to him on that first night they talked. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16).

As the cold, lifeless body of Jesus lay in state on that final Sabbath before the resurrection, there were no crowds of mourners, nor were there mounds of floral offerings. The disciples were in hiding.  Shrouded in linen, entombed in stone, guarded by Rome’s best soldiers, our Lord’s next move would not come until the break of dawn the next day, the first day of the week. On that day, The Lord of the Sabbath would rise to inaugurate the first LORD'S DAY. 

PRAYER: Our Father in Heaven, We bow before you, grateful that you so loved the world, that you so loved us.  We marvel at your patience with Nicodemus, and then we are even more amazed at your patience with us. As we look at the cross we are struck not only by your love, but by the horror of the sin that separates us from you, and distance you travelled to save us.  Hallelujah.  Thine be the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory forever!  In Jesus’ strong name, Amen. “Our Father, &c.”