Nicodemus

By Joy Buchanan

At the trial of Jesus, one man spoke in his defense.

Nicodemus is destined to be a great scholar of Jewish law from a young age. Despite being betrothed to a girl who insists on putting love before the law, he becomes a respected Pharisee. When his wife becomes terminally ill, Nicodemus seeks out Jesus, a radical teacher rumored to heal the sick. They meet in secret because Jesus is viewed as a threat to the Pharisees and to the volatile relationship between the Jews and their brutal Roman rulers. After meeting Jesus in person, Nicodemus believes Jesus could be the long-awaited Messiah who will save the Jews from their oppressors. As factions in Jerusalem conspire to have Jesus killed, will Nicodemus be able to stop them?

Other people from the Bible you will meet in Nicodemus:

Zacchaeus, the in-law no one wants to invite to family functions

Simeon, who was promised he would not die before he saw the Messiah

Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect who did not want Jesuss blood on his hands

Enter the world of the Jerusalem elite and experience the story from a perspective that has never been told before.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jul 14, 2011
• ISBN: 9781449719326

Joy Buchanan

Joy Buchanan studied screenwriting at Chapman University. She is a graduate student of economics in the D.C. area, where she enjoys discovering outdoor adventures in addition to obscure people in the Bible. www.nicodemusstory.com

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Copyright © 2011 Joy Buchanan.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

ISBN: 978-1-4497-1931-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-1932-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011931027

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Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

WestBow Press rev. date: 7/26/2011

Contents

Preface

CHAPTER 1

They Would Not Die

Chapter 2

We Were Strangers in Egypt

Chapter 3

Looking for Signs

Chapter 4

You Cannot Touch Him

Chapter 5

Valid Testimony

Chapter 6

Everyone Who Believes in Him

Chapter 7

Born Again

Chapter 8

Give to Caesar What is Caesar’s

Chapter 9

Blasphemy

Chapter 10

Innocent Blood

Epilogue

To Scott and Grace Buchanan

Preface

The story of Nicodemus captured my imagination and my heart while I was reading the Gospel of John two years ago. Jesus spoke John 3:16, the famous For God so loved the world… verse, to just one man in what seems like a secretive night-time encounter. This same man, Nicodemus, appears again in John 7 when the Pharisees (religious leaders) sent guards to arrest Jesus in the Temple. John writes that Nicodemus tried to use his knowledge of the Jewish law to help Jesus:

Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked [the Pharisees], Does our law condemn anyone without first hearing him to find out what he is doing?

[The Pharisees] replied, Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee. (John 7: 50-52 NIV).

The next and last recorded event in Nicodemus’s life is that he and Joseph of Arimathea buried Jesus’s body.

These verses gave me three tiny windows into the life of a respected Jewish leader who began as a skeptic of Jesus but became one of the few people who did not desert Jesus after his death on the cross. I wondered what Nicodemus’s life was like before and between these events, and I was struck by the devastation he must have felt after the Crucifixion.

I have written his story to solve the puzzle I see in his three recorded interactions with Jesus. Nicodemus struggles to reconcile love with the Law and to sustain hope in the face of death and suffering.

I would like to acknowledge the support of my family through this process, editing assistance from Daniel Bulone, and expert help in scene-crafting from Paul Gulino.

PART I

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CHAPTER 1

 They Would Not Die

An old man held the gaze of several dozen boys, lit by the steady glow of oil lamps on golden stands. Arching his bushy eyebrows, Simeon looked at each boy in turn over his bristly beard.

And after Moses led our people through the Red Sea, a plague of venomous SNAKES came upon them! Simeon nearly shouted, jumping up a little from his stool and wriggling his fingers. The youngest boys shrieked in fear.

Standing behind them, a tall, wiry man of twenty smiled. Nicodemus remembered how Simeon’s stories had scared and exhilarated him as a young boy in the Temple. Now, he knew Simeon’s renditions well enough to run through them in his head, as he sometimes did during mealtimes or while running errands for his father. For Nicodemus, hearing them in Simeon’s deep, melodious voice was like walking a well-traveled road.

Simeon smacked the floor with his walking staff, and Nicodemus took note that his 11-year-old brother Andrew jumped. As a future teacher and scholar of the Law, Nicodemus had decided to make Andrew his first student. Nicodemus brought his brother to hear these stories nearly every day, despite Andrew’s occasional protests at being his older brother’s project in moral education.

One bite from those snakes would kill a man! Simeon pointed his staff at Phineas who sat next to Nicodemus. Phineas was shorter than Nicodemus with a slight paunch and a cross expression. Though he informed Nicodemus that these stories were beneath his 18 years, he sat with the boys hoping to impress one of the priests with his diligent participation in Temple life and involvement with the community’s youth.

Phineas leaned close to Nicodemus and whispered, I’d rather listen to Rabbi Shemah than crazy old Simeon.

Simeon is very wise, Nicodemus replied.

Yeah? I heard he says God told him he would see the Messiah before he dies.

Nicodemus looked up at Simeon. Simeon’s wild white eyebrows nearly merged with his beard and tufts of hair that escaped his blue and white head shawl. His creased hands trembled as he gestured to the boys, making the tassels on his robe shake.

Phineas smirked. The Messiah might not make it in time.

Maybe he will. Shush!

Simeon admonished them with a glance and Nicodemus turned red with shame.

Simeon said, Nicodemus, why were the snakes sent?

Because our people had sinned against the Lord.

Simeon nodded sadly. The people came to Moses and told him to beg the Lord for mercy, and Adonai, he is full of mercy…

Simeon paused and raised his hands above his head. Nicodemus closed his eyes and chanted with