You Are a Teacher from God!
Jn. 3:2

Welde Tensae

Welcome to the NICODIMUS week of the Lent, which has taken its name from the man who used to learn from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, as it is detailed in Jn. 3:1-21

This man, Nicodimus, was a ruler of the Jews. Having realized that Jesus Christ is from God, he visited Him in the Night to learn about the kingdom of God from the very maker of it. Why in the Night? It was because Nicodimus wanted to avoid unnecessary confrontation with the Jews who had no sense of personal freedom. They wanted every one to live under their rule, and any one who deviated from that was condemned to their merciless persecution. Nicodimus was, thus, avoiding them wisely for he knew the intolerance of the Jews for any ordinary deviant, leave alone one such as him who had a very high stature in their norms and laws.

As Nicodimus asks the Lord about the heavenly mystery of rebirth, our Lord unravels to him the mystery which is the necessary prerequisite for someone to be embraced as a Christian and, as a result, a hopeful of the heavenly kingdom.

In this week of Nicodimus, we Christians are taught more about meekness. All beings created in the image of God shall crave for and march to the kingdom of God. High profile titles, such as the one Nicodimus used to hold, shall not be a barrier to our winning of the heavenly kingdom. The maker and ruler of the creation, the heaven and earth alike, has come to us to preach this kingdom which we all need to win at any cost. If He, the omnipotent maker and ruler of the world demeans Himself to the extent of being born in a barn so as to preach the kingdom, our earthly status should never deter us from winning the house of God.

Many of us have set ourselves on a hypothetically high status, and we take it to be more important than the place we may have in the house of God. We might be VIP’S- presidents, premiers, ministers, etc. We may be celebrated physicians, professors, judges, etc. All this is nothing if it becomes a pretext to keep us aloof from the house of God.

We have to go to the house of God and hear His voice of salvation before it is too late. The status we have in never an exemption card for learning and serving the house of God. The house of God is not an exclusive reserve of the rank-and-file; it is a house where all have to be present irrespective of status. It is open for the fisher, for the tax-collector, for the military officer, for the ruler, etc. alike all are invited equally to be there and to ransom themselves from the eternal wrath to come.

In view of this, Nicodimus is and example of meekness, courage and wisdom, to mention a few of his virtues. He was meek because he looked for a teacher though he himself was a teacher to the Jews. Nicodimus has realized that his status as a teacher is worthless compared to that of Jesus. While his status is only earthly and does little to the heaven, Nicodimus understood that the words of Jesus do give him a life eternal and reliable, peaceful and free of the day-to-day worries of this world.

Nicodimus was a man of courage. How many of us win the earthly spirit ruling us and go for the better, if not the best? This man had an excuse for not going to Jesus. “I want to learn from Jesus; yet, I’m a ruler of the Jews. How could I be with Him knowing they are His staunch opposers? I could not be with Him; I have no alternative other than staying with them,”

Nicodimus could have said. He, how-ever, did not want to miss eternal life because of such lame excuses. Noting- be it happiness, sorrow, gain, loss or whatsoever cause-should not keep us out of the house of God. So, however harsh the opposition of his fellow Jews could be, he baldly visited Jesus Christ. If they killed him, they could kill only his flesh; it is Jesus only who could have killed both his flesh and soul. Nicodimus opted for redeeming his soul at the expense of any possible harassment againt his flesh.  

In taking such a choice, however, Nicodimus never made a head-on collision with the Jews. He was systematic enough and, waiting for the right time to come for him to openly learn from and confess Jesus Christ, Nicodimus visited the Lord only in the Night. Our Lord never disapproved such a coming because He wants us, His followers, to pass testing times in wisdom. He has, thus, ordered His apostles to stay in Jerusalem until their time of spiritual empowerment is effected through the Holy spirit. As least some of these apostles had escaped some harassments under cover though they never feared to be persecuted if it is the will of the Holy spirit for them to glorify God amidst the infidel. That was all because everything has its own time.

Through Nicodimus, we see that we have to be born again to win the visible through the invisible. Our church is always ready to embrace new souls by baptizing them in the Name of the Father, of the Son, of the Holy Spirit; one God. It is such a Mystery of Baptism which makes us hopefuls of the heaven as part and parcel of the Body of Christ. Let us, therefore, learn through any possible means about the basics of the church and be baptized in the name of the Trinity, one God. Though our church has the order of baptizing infants at the 4oth and 80th day of Birth for males and females respectively, this does not exclude converts who have decided to join the church in their later ages. The problem is we are mortals who do not know when our days may end. So, let us not procrastinate the time to get acquainted with the church’s fundamental teachings and be baptized sooner than later. Why passing even a split second in darkness when we could start a new life as children of God following the example of Nicodimus? Let us avoid excuses and Join the house of God through mother church who always eagerly awaits for souls to be in her comfortable bossom.

If we are already baptized and are, thus, members of the Christian stock, let us not nurture excuses to alienate ourselves from the badly needed services our church could offer us and we in turn could offer to her. We should not fall short of the time to learn the holy word, pray in churches and take the Holy communion. However tight our life is, we have to create the space for the holy life to prosper in us. We may not be happy in the lives of some ministers, if not many. This should not force us to leave our house to those people.

Wisely, we need to play our well-defined role of cleansing our house without resorting to chaotic, uncivilized and unchristian mechanisms.

For those worldly authorities who may tend to take spirituality as a sign of backwardness, Nicodimus has taught that the heaven is much more than the earth. His message deserves to be heeded; such authorities need to stop their transgression against the church. What is best for them is to come to the church. We have seen worldly ideologies come and go. Yet, the church is immortal. Let’s have a role in immortalizing this house of God in both getting her service and in serving it in turn through our knowledge, fortune or other gift of God.

Let us “become dead to the [old] law through the body of Christ,” that [we] may be married to another-to Him who has raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God.” Romans 7:4 Nicodimus has exactly done this when he unchained himself from the old rule to start a new life in and with Christ. We should also reach the same decision and implement it. For there is no fear in love, Nicodimus cast out his fear through his perfect love of Christ. He has found himself with Christ despite existing deterrents that could have kept him chained with lifeless Jews. So as to have baldness in the Day of Judgment, He has disentangled himself from the Jews and their order for which he himself was also a celebrated authority. 1Jn. 4:17-20. Nicodimus has realized that the Jewish rule is men’s and, thus, it will come to nothing; the Lord’s rule is of God and no one could overthrow it. Acts. 5:38.

If we have the meekness, courage and wisdom of Nicodimus, we will have the baldness to say in the Day of Judgement what st. David has said [ps. 17:3]: You have tested my heart; You have visited me in the night; You have tried me and have found noting;
I purposed that my mouth shall not transgress.

Let God help up have the heart and virtues of Nicodimus to win the heaven irrespective of worldly deterrents. Amen!!           

May God Bless us, Amen.