***Nicodemus***
“Psst….” At first I thought it was my imagination. It took me hours to fall asleep with the conversations we have been having in council, and I am pretty sure it isn’t the wind waking me. “Nicodemus!” Now my illusion knew my name. I got up, wrapped a shawl around myself and started to the side of the building. I had recognized his voice, and I had a feeling I knew why he was here. If truth be told I almost had headed to his place hours ago. “Nicodemus, I have only been out here in a panic all night. So glad you could finally join me.” “Oh Joseph of Arimathea, your younger sharper tongue will catch you someday.” “With everything going on in this upside world, we might all never make it to “someday.”
I stoked my beard and thought over our meeting tonight. Joseph and I were upstanding members of the Sanhedrin. I left the meeting tonight with ringing in my ears and a headache behind my eyes. Now, I stand in the middle of the night in a dark alley where those who know the evil are awaiting us here. “Nicodemus, you have to agree with me. No man could do what He is doing without God on His side!” “You think I have not considered such possibilities? We both have discussed this over and over until all we end up is dizzy and up all night.” “You know their plans. You know that are planning to kill him!” Joseph raised his voice. “Enough! Would you like them to call another meeting about us before this word gets out.” “But Nicodemus, getting him out is not the problem.” Then in a whisper, Nicodemus answered, “What if He is who He says He is?” Joseph replied in an equally hush tone, “or what if He is wrong? Where does that leave us. Where any of this leave us?” “I don’t know,” I answered. It had been a very long time since I had come to that conclusion. After all I am not just a respected member of the Phrases, I am also in the Sanhedrin. My entire life has been dedicated to the service of God. I know ever scripture, doctrine, promise, history lesson. Here is this vagabond, challenging everything I have worked for.
“I will go to speak with him,” I sighed out loud. “What?, Joseph replied. “That is crazy. You will lose it all. Your seat. Your authority. They will throw you right in with the crazy and hysterical.” “I will meet him after the sun has set. You arrange a place. Let his people know that I will be showing up late- I have work that needs done.” “If this is what you want. I will deal with it immediately.” Joseph started walking down the street but then turned aground. I couldn’t see his face because of the shadows, but the low voice I heard, “Shalom.”
Sleep never came again that night. I heard of the miracles this man was performing. The lives that seemed to be changing. But I had also seen the man throw money changers across the temple. I would be lair if I didn’t I had often thought of the same thing. It is criminal taking advantage of people who simply wanted to bring their offering to their God. He didn’t come with a threat or a sword. Which again, had me wondering about his mental health with the things pharisees were whispering. But He threatened the temple. He said that He could have it destroyed and built again in 3 days. I needed answers and I needed them quickly.
The night before I walked out my door, I tried to pray. Brought up with the scriptures and the laws, and in that moment, the only thing that came to mind was “What if?”I pulled my hood over my face and began to walk the other way in case I was being watched. When I was sure no one was following, I walked quickly to the address given. I walked up the rock stairs that had been here for how many centuries. Would we just throw these solid dependable stairs away just because someone said they had had new stairs. Of course not! We keep the stairs that have served us for generations. But before my incessant rattling could continue, there was Jesus. I had seen him at a distance. I heard his voice from afar, but never could I have imagined this. A power like pulse seemed to come from him. Even though he sat in a shadowed chair on the rooftop, his outline almost glowed. Not really a glow though but I had no Earthly words to describe it. I was suddenly hit with the idea of a melody maybe a more suitable description.
He motioned for me to sit. Then it suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t know what to address him as. He certainly had earned quite the spectrum of nicknames. The one thing I knew about him was that he is a teacher, so the rabbi seemed safe. My mouth was parched, and here the “Teacher of Israel'' sat tongue tied. Enough of this foolishness. “Rabbi, we know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you.” Jesus replied, ”I tell you the Truth, unless you are born again, you can not see the Kingdom of God.”
I arrived looking for solid answers, and he created more riddles and more questions. “What do you mean?” I exclaimed. “How can an old man go back into this mother’s womb and be born again.? Jesus brought his hands on the table, palms up, like he was offering me something I could not see. He replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the kingdom of God Without being born of water and spirit. Humans can only reproduce human life but the Holy Spirit gives birth to a spiritual life. So don’t be surprised when I say YOU must be born again. The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.
I sat silent for so long I couldn’t even guess how much time had elapsed. But He looked at me. Looked deep into me. And I remembered. A scripture from the book of Ezekiel. Chapter 36:25-27 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
“How are these things possible:” I asked. I had spent my entire life serving the Law, handing out verdicts for the law. I have given everything away, and now this Jesus…..“You are Israel’s teacher,” interrupting me of my thoughts Jesus said, “and do you not understand these things? Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?
I felt a heat raising in my body. My hands twitched in my lap. I wanted to run. To run and run until I collapsed at exhaustion. So I would not have to think of these things. Yahweh help me, what he said was the Truth. I can’t explain how I knew. It was like He was speaking too deep inside of me. Jeus continued, “No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”
Oh course I knew of my people’s story. In the book of Numbers 21:4-9 it is written after leaving the slavery of Egypt, the people became impatient on the way to the promised land. The people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food." Then the LORD sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned by speaking against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD to take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said to Moses, "Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live." So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live. What does snakes got to do with it? What does He mean he will be lifted up? Lifted up from Sanhedrin? From the people of the temple? Or What if..
Jesus stood, in a voice I would never hear again, He started to speak. But again, language is such a funny thing, It sounded like love would sound like. I wished for years I could sound that way. All of the nighttime business stilled. No bugs or animals. No people yelling blocks away. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that who or where believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.”
I rose, with tears in my eyes. I couldn’t speak until I traveled all the way to my home where Joseph of Amarmathia. The minute I opened the door the question began to flow. “How did I not get caught? What did he tell you? WHat did you see” I sat down at my table and placed my hands open reaching to the sky. I bowed my head and tears ran through my beard. Concerned and alarmed, Joseph shook my arm. “What has happened?” “Joseph, I saw God tonight. It is Him, the Messiah.” “What if you are wrong, Rabbi?” “What if I am right?” “And we both swore our allegiance to a group that is actively trying to kill him., Joseph whisphered. “Tomorrow we will speak. I have so much to share with you but I want to get it right, and I am too tired to go through it all.” “I understand,” Joseph said. I will be here when you wake up. As I stoof up and turned to bed to bed I heard Joseph speak once more. “What if?” “What if indeed.”
WHen Jesus shows up everything changes.
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