A curious man
Preacher: Revd Dr Donald MacEwan, University Chaplain
Readings: Genesis 12:1-4a; John 3:1-17
Last December, I sent out a story every day to the Chaplaincy mailing-list. These Nativity Stories were in the first person, in voices I imagined of Mary, Joseph, shepherds, Magi, even the angel Gabriel. I have a few copies on paper available for free – collect from table as you leave. [Show] When I read the Gospel passage for today, I wondered if this story too could be re-told in the voice of one of the participants. So here is the story of a curious man.
You wouldn’t believe it now but I was young once. Soft locks instead of a few wisps of grey hair. And I was never one for tearing around. I’d always loved reading, learning the letters, making out words, reciting scripture. I had a mind and couldn’t stop asking questions. Why, Mum, why? Why is water wet? Why can’t we eat the meat of pigs? Why don’t we work on the Sabbath? Why do we believe in the Lord when there are other gods? “Off to the synagogue, with you,” she’d say. “Tire them out with your questioning.” So that’s how I came by my knowledge, asking the old men questions. “Ach,” they’d say, “you’re a curious lad.” I wasn’t from one of the special families, who went back generations on the Council. But when I was grown up and they asked me to join, I thought, Why not? What better place to keep asking questions?
Maybe that’s why they put me up to it. We’d had reports of a new teacher called Jesus, strange stories coming from the north. They said he hung around with a wild man called John who had all sorts coming from miles around to dip in the Jordan. One night, we heard this new man had his own followers. We kept a watching brief – our leaders didn’t like to learn of new prophets popping up here and there. Who knows what they’d be teaching, what dodgy stuff their followers would get up to? Then someone said there had been a wedding in Galilee where there was more wine served than they’d laid in. And they said Jesus had been behind it – but we had no proof.
Then it came nearer to home. It was Passover-time – Jerusalem was teeming. But Jesus made an appearance all right, at the Temple. We had a crowd at our door later complaining about this maniac who’d been raging about the ordinary business going on – people changing money, buying the buying the innocent birds and sweet-eyed lambs for sacrifices. The traders skedaddled pretty sharpish by all accounts – just in case the people joined him. We thought we should find out what he was after.
Why me? I did more listening than speaking – it always seemed someone else had already said what I wanted to say. There were members who’d have been a disaster, going in with both feet, shouting him down before he’d said a word. Others were too old, or – if truth be told – not bright enough to hold their own. Then someone said, I think Nicodemus you’re just the man for this. Nobody could object to you. Maybe they thought I could get him to incriminate himself.
It was dark when I went to see him. That was their idea – it’s for your own safety. You don’t want the world knowing you’re seeing this rabble-rouser. When the city was quieting down as evening fell, I headed over – we knew where he was staying. I remember the sweet scent of the lemon trees. There was soft laughter behind doors nearby, the voices of women. I found the door and realised I was nervous. What if he whipped me like they said he’d done to the tables at the Temple? But the woman who led me inside seemed gentle. The Master would see me, but I shouldn’t stay long: he was tired.
Jesus was sitting on the floor, with two or three of his followers around him. I’d expected someone strong, muscular, after hearing the Temple story. But he wasn’t like that. He had a northern look, but otherwise he was like his friends, a bit scrawny, nothing fancy about his clothes, dark-skinned from being under the sun all day.
I’d rehearsed my first speech, just a hint of flattery, soften him up: We know God’s with you, or you couldn’t do these amazing signs. But before long he was mystifying me in a quick voice, a strong Galilean accent. You can only see God’s realm if you’re born from above, he said. He can’t mean being born a second time, I thought, that’s impossible. But he kept talking about another birth, with water and spirit. If you’re born of the spirit, you get blown around.
They’ll laugh at me back at the Council if I don’t nail him down, I thought. I had to try again. How can this be? I asked.
He looked right at me then, as if he knew me inside and out. And he smiled, and said, I thought you were the teacher, the fancy-pants member of the Council. I should have been hurt, but his eyes were kind. Let me tell you something, he said. We talk round and round in circles about this life. And we end up judging each other. Tell me if it’s not like that on the Council. I couldn’t – he was right. But there’s another life, he said, beyond us, above us, within us. It’s a life that’s eternal and beautiful and completely loving. That’s God’s life – and he’s given me to share it with everyone. You can have it.
It was as if the rest of Jerusalem melted away. All that mattered was this room, and a couple of evil-smelling flickering lamps, and a bowl of dates on the floor in front of me, and this curious man who didn’t seem to care about all I’d studied, about wrongs and rights, and what is permitted. It felt like he’d come from heaven just to talk to me, right at that moment. And he was brim full of love. Or maybe it was joy. Or maybe it was hope.
I slipped back out into the night, and reported back to the Council. I told them his words, but not how they made me feel. Not how I couldn’t live the old way any more – scared of getting things wrong, judging everyone else. I didn’t tell them I would be living his way.
I walked a tightrope from then on, playing my part in the Council. I loved my wife, brought up our children, but I was always listening for news of Jesus. One time he came back to Jerusalem, it was the Festival of Booths and I heard him speak in the Temple, words of truth. If you’re thirsty, come to me, he said. The police came that night to speak to the Council. Shouldn’t we arrest him? I couldn’t stop myself – I blurted out, Innocent till proven guilty – isn’t that what we believe? Some of them suspected me then. Sounds like you’re on his side.
Maybe I should have said, Yes, yes, he’s shown me who God is, but I was too scared. I bit my tongue, and kept quiet before my frowning fellow-members. But one of them caught me outside later, the old man Joseph from Arimathea, and said when no-one was around, You too? You follow Jesus? I thought it was only me.
We had each other then to talk to, but it only got harder. You surely know what happened when Jesus came back to Jerusalem – arrested, tried, found guilty, sentenced to death. It’s a brutal world: how casually the powerful get rid of their enemies, the truth-tellers. I felt powerless – Caiphas and Herod and Pontius Pilate pretended to consult us but we knew they had it all stitched up. I kept hoping for a miracle, but when I went to Golgotha, it all just happened. No-one intervened. He was put on the cross, and his life slipped away. I could barely look. This was the one whose eyes shone so bright in the lamplight when he spoke of God’s life. All my questions came back – Who was he? Was any of it real? Was this the end? I felt deceived by him. But maybe he’d been deceived himself. His body looked so weak when the Roman soldier went up with his spear.
I’d nothing to lose now. No-one was scared of him any more. So Joseph and I got his body, and wrapped it in sweet spices from an importer I knew, myrrh and aloes. I brought far too much of the stuff. And we put him in a tomb Joseph had bought for himself. A young man in an old man’s grave. It was getting dark, the festival crowds were heading to the taverns, we wanted it all done before nightfall. Only the women came with us and saw where we laid him. Would I ever get an answer to my questions?
That’s the end of the re-telling of Nicodemus in John’s Gospel. He’s not mentioned in the Bible after he buried the body of Jesus. But Nicodemus’ story doesn’t finish there. There are more stories, world-changing stories, in the gospels afterwards. His own story goes on. And so does Jesus’ story, so does God’s. It goes on in the stressful silence of the top floor of the Library, in the dance-floor moves of Glitterball, in the friendships forged between dusk and dawn. It goes on – though it’s so hard to see – in the world today where still the powerful get rid of the truth-tellers, where we kill in the name of peace. It goes on, in your life and mine, in our encounter with the curious man who welcomed the questions one night of a nervous visitor who knocked on his door.
END