Jesus explained to Nicodemus that the person who places their confident trust in Jesus life death, and resurrection will not be separated from God as a result of their selfishness and rebellion, but will experience forgiveness of sin and the relationship with God that we were created for. And that is the good news of the gospel: God loved, God gave, so that those who believe and place their confident trust in Jesus would receive life in relationship with Him.
Now you might be thinking “I am still having a hard time buying that God is like this. I still see God as being like a cosmic cop around the corner waiting to bust me. The idea that Easter is about God’s love for me and desire for relationship with me is hard to accept”. If that is where you are, just look at what Jesus says next:
"For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. "He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. "This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. "For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. "But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God."If Jesus was communicating this in the language that we use in our culture today, these verses would sound like this: "Nicodemus, God did not send Me as the Messiah to the earth in order to judge all of humanity, but that all of humanity would have the opportunity to be rescued from their selfishness and rebellion. The person who places their confident trust in Me is not condemned. However, the person who refuses to place their confident trust in Me is already condemned because of their selfishness and rebellion. Everyone is condemned and the reason that they are condemned is because I have revealed Myself throughout all of human history and all of humanity has responded by rejecting and rebelling against Me. They want nothing to do with Me because I expose the selfishness and rebellion that is in the center and core of their being. Everyone is already condemned because of their rebellion and I have come to rescue those who trust in Me from condemnation. And everyone who places their confident trust in Me and live in relationship with Me reveal the reality of My transformational intervention and activity that has brought them into relationship with Me.”
Jesus wanted Nicodemus to clearly understand that all of humanity stands condemned to an eternity apart from God as a result of our selfishness and rebellion. Jesus wanted Nicodemus to clearly understand that rescue from selfishness and rebellion was not based on what we did for God, but in trusting in what God was doing through Jesus, who entered into humanity as the culmination of God’s Divine plan to provide an opportunity for forgiveness and restoration.
And with that, Jesus conversation with Nicodemus was over. A little less than two and a half years later, Jesus fulfilled the prediction and promise that He made. Nicodemus cautiously objected and was ridiculed by his fellow religious leaders as they planned to kill Jesus. Nicodemus watched as Jesus was arrested, tried, convicted, and handed over to the Romans, who lifted Jesus up on a pole, a cross in order to be crucified.
Now crucifixion was the most humiliating form of punishment ever devised. Death on the cross was usually reserved for condemned slaves, who were considered the lowest form of humanity. This was a death that was reserved for the worst criminals and for enemies of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire used crucifixion to send a simple yet powerful message- don’t mess with the Roman Empire.
And the message was delivered not simply by the humiliation and suffering of the crucifixion. The message was communicated after death by crucifixion as well. Family members and friends were not allowed to have the bodies of those who were crucified for treason or revolt. Instead, the Roman government allowed the dead and decaying bodies to remain on the crosses, where they would be ravaged by wild animals and the forces of nature. As a matter of fact the phrase “food for the crows’ derives its origin from what would occur after a crucifixion. This was the ultimate humiliation.
After being ravaged by animals; after decaying for days or weeks, the bodies would then be cast into a common grave, or worse yet, in a garbage dump, never to be claimed or have a proper burial. So what should have happened to Jesus was that, like so many other false Messiahs and political insurrectionists, his body should have been left to rot and then be thrown away into a garbage dump or common grave, where He would have vanished into obscurity. But that is not what happened to the body of Jesus. We discover what happened to the body of Jesus after His crucifixion in John 19:38:
After these things Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but a secret one for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus; and Pilate granted permission. So he came and took away His body. Nicodemus, who had first come to Him by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds weight. So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen wrappings with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. Therefore because of the Jewish day of preparation, since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.John introduces us to a man named Joseph of Arimathea. In another account of Jesus life that is recorded for us in the Bible, we learn that Joseph of Arimathea was a wealthy member of the Sanhedrin who had not consented to the decision to hand Jesus over to be crucified. John tells us that Joseph, like Nicodemus, had demonstrated a timidity and caution when it came to following Jesus.
However, after Jesus death Joseph of Arimathea did what would have been considered almost unthinkable. Joseph approached the most powerful man in the Roman government in Israel, the man who had personally condemned Jesus to death as an enemy of the Roman Empire, and asked for his body, a request that was almost never granted. Can you imagine the courage it must have taken to enter into the presence of Pilate and then ask for the body of a person whom he had just sentenced to death as an enemy of the state?
Pilate, who had previously questioned the motives behind the religious leaders desire to kill Jesus, but was too much of a people pleaser to do what was right, responded to the courage of Joseph of Arimathea by granting his request. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus then went and retrieved Jesus body from the cross and prepared the body for burial. Joseph, being very wealthy, had already acquired a tomb in preparation for his own death that was located in a prime and popular area. Joseph of Arimathea decided to take the tomb that he had purchased for himself and instead use it to bury Jesus, which is exactly what he and Nicodemus did.
And because Joseph of Arimathea had the courage to ask the most powerful person in the Roman government in Israel for the body of Jesus; because Nicodemus and Joseph had the courage to take the body from the Roman government instead of allowing it to be discarded in the trash or a common grave to vanish into obscurity and give Jesus a proper burial in a tomb located in a prominent place, we have the evidence of an event that happened in history that radically and forever changed how human beings would relate to God.
Because of Joseph and Nicodemus, other women helped prepare and bury the body of Jesus. Because of Joseph and Nicodemus, there had to be a guard sent to guard the tomb where Jesus was laid. Because of Joseph and Nicodemus, there was a tomb to be empty on that first Easter Sunday witnessed by many. Because of Joseph and Nicodemus, we know for certain that Jesus died on the cross, was buried dead as a doornail in a tomb, and was raised from the dead.
And because of Joseph and Nicodemus, we can have certainty today that God is a promise maker and a promise keeper, and that all humanity has the opportunity to experience forgiveness and the relationship with God that they were created for as a result of Jesus life, death, and resurrection.
No comments:
Post a Comment