Searching for Light at Night

Each time I make an effort to read through the New Testament, I tend to notice new things that bring new meaning in front of me. I was reading through John 17-20 today, and I couldn’t help but notice the cautious and methodical Nicodemus coming to Jesus’s disciples and giving them 75 pounds of Myrrh and Aloe for Him to be buried with. In modern currency, this could have cost upwards of about $150,000. Nicodemus thought more of Jesus than most believe he did. Who would give $150,000 to a blaspheming Nazarene who died the shameful death of crucifixion?

This passage, found in John 19:39, brings us back to the first we learn about Nicodemus and his interest in Jesus in John 3. He approaches Jesus at night and seeks to have a private conversation with Him to understand Jesus and His teachings, because Jesus had already done marvelous things early in His ministry. Nicodemus needed to know how these things were to happen, and if Jesus was truly the Messiah.

Something changed in Nicodemus over the course of Jesus’s ministry from the first warm night he talked to Jesus to the death of the Christ on the cross, and I feel it is safe to assume that Nicodemus was saved. Of course, we won’t know for sure until we go to heaven and find Nicodemus in one of the “many rooms prepared” for us by Jesus in John 14:2.

This passage caught my eye because I see Nicodemus everywhere I go. I see him in the eyes of a hopeful child waiting for their parents to pick them up after daycare. I see him in the eyes of a middle-aged woman staring blankly at her phone, silently wondering if this is all there is. I see him when I walk down the streets of people walking alone with their hood up and hands firmly in their pockets. He’s everywhere, but so is Jesus waiting for the moment to talk to them again in a still, quiet voice, beckoning His sheep back into His fold where they can be safe.

This pandemic has many people looking for answers. Perhaps they even open up the Bible late at night or search about Jesus on the internet, quickly remembering to clear their search history so no one finds out. We must be patient and compassionate with such people. They want more and they sense there is more for them, but they know not where.

Let your face, Christian, be covered in crumbs from eating at the table of Jesus, so that they may see the satisfaction on your face, living in the light of the Grace of Jesus.