Nicodemus was a leading member of the Sanhedrim, a representative of
that section of the rulers who, like the rest of the nation, were
expecting a deliverer, a king who should prevail against the Cæsar.
They had sent to the Baptist, and had heard of his testimony to the
young Galilean, who had now come to Jerusalem, and was showing signs of
a power which they could not but acknowledge. For, had he not cleansed
the temple, which they had never been able to do, but, notwithstanding
their pretended reverence for it, had allowed to be turned into a
shambles and an exchange? They saw that a part of the people were
ready to gather to him, but that he had refused to commit himself to
them. This, then, the best of them must have felt, was no mere leader
of a low, fierce, popular party or faction. Nicodemus at any rate was
evidently inclined to doubt whether he might not prove to be the king
they were looking for, as the Baptist had declared. The doubt must be
solved, and he would see for himself.
And so he comes to Christ, and hears directly from him, that he has
indeed come to set up a kingdom, but that it is no visible kingdom like
the Cæsars’, but a kingdom over men’s spirits, one in which rulers as
well as peasants must become new men before they can enter—that a light
has come into the world, and “he that doeth truth cometh to that light.”
From beginning to end there is no word to catch this ruler, or those
he represented; no balancing of phrases or playing with plausible
religious shibboleths, with which Nicodemus would be familiar, and
which might please, and perchance reconcile this well-disposed ruler,
and the powerful persons he represented. There is, depend upon it, no
severer test of manliness than our behavior to powerful persons, whose
aid would advance the cause we have at heart. We know from the later
records that the interview of that night, and the strange words he
had heard at it, made a deep impression on this ruler. His manliness,
however, breaks down for the present. He shrinks back and disappears,
leaving the strange young peasant to go on his way.
The same splendid directness and incisiveness characterize his teaching
at Samaria. There, again, He attacks at once the most cherished
local traditions, showing that the place of worship matters nothing,
the object of worship everything. That object is a Father of men’s
spirits, who wills that all men shall know and worship him, but who
can only be worshipped in spirit and in truth. He, the peasant who is
talking to them, is himself the Messiah, who has come from this Father
of them and him, to give them this spirit of truth in their own hearts.
The Jews at Jerusalem had been clamoring round him for signs of
his claim to speak such words, and in the next few days his own
people would be crying out for his blood when they heard them. These
Samaritans make no such demand, but hear and recognize the message and
the messenger. The seed is sown and he passes on, never to return and
garner the harvest; deliberately preferring the hard, priest-ridden
lake-cities of the Jews as the centre of his ministry. He will leave
ripe fields for others to reap. This decision, interpret it as we
will, is that of no soft or timid reformer. Take this test and compare
Christ’s choice of his first field for work with that of any other
great leader of men.