Nic At Night

A couple of weeks ago now our small group looked at John 3, the story of Jesus meeting a Jewish teacher named Nicodemus. Nicodemus comes at night. It's dangerous for a respected Jewish teacher to be seen with this Jesus guy when he's causing so many problems.

Throughout John the imagery of darkness is synonymous with un-belief. Nicodemus, I would think, deserves some props for coming at all. But Jesus is not so enabling. He dazzles and confuses Nicodemus with a series of images and claims that leave Nicodemus more confused than when he came. John the writer sums up the conversation saying that those who do evil hate the light but those who live by the truth come into the light. Nicodemus is weighed and is apparently found wanting.

But this is not the last we see and hear of Nicodemus.

Later in John 19, Jesus is dead and the disciples are scattered. Someone has to bury Jesus. And here Nicodemus ("the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night") approaches the authorities in full view and asks to help bury him. He brings expensive gifts symbolic for the death of a king. He has made the move from darkness into light. Nic at night becomes Nic who loves the light so that his deeds might be seen for what they truly are.

Today my prayer is that I would love the light. That I would love the light and hate the darkness. That integrity and truth would be who I am and what I am becoming. No playing in shadows. No cutting corners. No part of me clinging to the darkness. All of me in the light so that what is death and evil in me might be exposed. All of me in the light so that I might know the Father who has sent me to follow after Jesus.

This is a journey. In my natural state I don't love the light because it exposes me for who I truly am: the good, the bad, and the ugly. But the Spirit is giving me new appetites, and a fresh and abiding trust in the exposure process. Apart from full exposure, there is no true healing.

Just ask Nic.