Joe and Nic Make Easter April 13, 2014 Question: If you wanted to be remembered in world
history, how would you go about it?
• Obviously, very few people make a historic impact
in the world and the one’s we’re aware of are
usually extraordinary artists like DaVinci;
remarkable political leaders like Winston Churchill;
astonishing military leaders like Alexander the
Great; or notable religious leaders like Jesus.
• Yet some of these weren’t necessarily notable in
their time and only in the span of time have they
gained their fame and place in world history.
• When they lived, there were others who were more
important than Moses, or Nehemiah, or Apostle
Paul, yet in the course of time, they’ve dropped to
the point of a footnote while Moses, Nehemiah and
Apostle Paul have risen in fame and have a place
in world history.
• It’s hard to predict who’ll who will make into the
memory of world history, because most people are
footnotes to history or lost to history completely,
even if they were prominent and famous in their
time.
• Two of these “footnotes” are guys we’re going to
focus on today and in the Sunday before Easter.
• I want us to imagine what the back-stories (the
story behind the story) of these two were.
Question: What’s the one main thing that’s the
foundation of Christian faith?
• Is it the truth that Jesus is the Messiah? Or Jesus is
the God-Man? Or loving God with all your heart,
Joe and Nic Make Easter •
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April 13, 2014 soul, mind and strength and your neighbor as
yourself? Or Jesus dying for the sins of the world?
Yet it isn’t a theological truth, but an historic event
… the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
The resurrection of Jesus is the fulcrum on which
everything pivots when it comes to the church, your
salvation, the promise of Heaven, and everything
else that we hope for as disciples.
The historical fact of Jesus’ resurrection validates
everything that Jesus did and taught while he was
publicly identifying Himself as Messiah and God.
Without the resurrection, Jesus’ life would be
another of those interesting footnotes in world
history, a Greek tragedy or a story around which
mythical events would be made up and attached to
Him.
But because of the resurrection, we’re forced to
come face to face with Jesus’ claims about Himself.
Because of the resurrection, you’ve got to wrestle
with what he said about God and how to please
him.
Because of the resurrection, you’ve got to grapple
with what God, in Jesus, designed your life to be.
But the story of the resurrection wouldn’t be what it
is without what Joe and Nic did … in a way, Joe
and Nic MADE Easter.
While today we know a little about them (they’re
footnotes), in their day, Joe and Nic were important.
They were good looking, wealthy and had power (I
don’t know about the good looking part).
Joe and Nic Make Easter April 13, 2014 • If Joe or Nic showed up at a mall of a Canucks
game, their pictures would be displayed on the big
screen and people would want their autograph …
they had celebrity.
• Joe and Nic belonged to an organization called the
Pharisees and the job of Pharisees was to be good.
• Pharisees followed the Law (Torah) as close to the
letter as they could and even added a few letters
just to be sure they were following the actual letters.
• There wasn’t room to think outside of the
boundaries Pharisees set up and that caused
problems for Joe and Nic because they and a small
group of others were intrigued by Jesus.
• The problem was that Jesus didn’t fit into any
categories the Pharisees created about what
pleased God and how to live your life … but He did
… Amazing things.
• Joe and Nic wanted to find out more about him, but
on the sly, because of their celebrity.
• So Nic made an appointment with Jesus to ask
some questions and this is where we pick up the
story.
• John 3:1-2, “Now there was a Pharisee, a man
named Nicodemus [Nic] who was a member of the
Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night
and said, ‘Rabbi, WE know that you are a teacher
who has come from God. For no one could perform
the signs you are doing if God were not with him.’”
• Notice the WE … Nic was representing a small,
private group of Pharisees who had questions, but
more importantly, who were starting to believe.
Joe and Nic Make Easter April 13, 2014 • They hadn’t arrived at a full-hearted belief yet, but
this man who did amazing things intrigued them.
• Before Nicodemus could ask his list of questions,
“Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can see
the kingdom of God without being born again,’”
(John 3:3).
• In that one sentence, Jesus answered the question
that the Pharisees had structured their whole life to
answer, a question that most everyone in history
has asked at some point or another, a question that
each of us here has asked or will ask in our lives,
“How can I have a right standing with God?”
• Jesus answer was, “… no one can see the kingdom
of God without being born again.”
• Nicodemus was now off his script and may have
had a smile on his face when he said, “How can
anyone be born when they’re old? Surely they
cannot enter a second time into their mother’s
womb to be born,” (John 3:4).
• To this Jesus said, “Very truly I tell you, no one can
enter the kingdom of God without being born of
water AND the Spirit,” (John 3:5).
• Born of water is our first birth and being born of the
Spirit is something different than that … but along
the same lines.
• Jesus continued, “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the
Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be
surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again,’”
(John 3:6-7).
• God is Spirit and what Jesus is saying is that if
there’s going to be a birth into the Kingdom of God,
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April 13, 2014 the Holy Spirit has to be a part of that and there has
to be a new birth experience … a “spiritual” birth.
This was new to Nicodemus because the
Pharisee’s view was that God was kind of like
Santa Claus with a list and checking it twice and
you had make sure you were on the good side of
God’s list.
They thought that you get on God’s list because of
what you do and how you behave and because of
what you do and how you behave, you’ll get to be
part of His kingdom … or not.
So like a lot of us, Pharisees endeavored to live
lives of holiness and duty and make sure God
noticed.
Jesus told a story about a Pharisee who prayed, “I
thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone
else. For I don’t cheat, I don’t sin, and I don’t
commit adultery. I’m certainly not like that tax
collector! I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth
of my income.”
One of the Gospels says, “The Pharisee prayed
about himself” … I wonder how many of us do that?
Jesus’ point to Nicodemus was that just in the same
way that you have no “say” in your conception or
when you were born, so it is when you’re born of
the Holy Spirit.
Salvation is a gift of God that comes through the
activation of faith, which is also a gift from God.
Jesus calls that event being “born again” and likens
it to the experience of physical birth.
Joe and Nic Make Easter April 13, 2014 • Nicodemus wasn’t getting this and so he said, “How
can this be?” (John 3:9).
• This wasn’t what Nicodemus ever pictured as he
endeavored to live according to the Pharisee way.
• “Jesus, are you telling me that I’ve misunderstood
this stuff all these years?”
• They had more conversation and then Jesus said
something that floored Nicodemus, “No one has
ever gone into heaven except the one who came
from heaven — the Son of Man,” (John 3:13).
• Awkward! Nicodemus was probably really
uncomfortable, because Jesus was now claiming
something that was very close to blasphemy.
• Jesus’ reference was from the OT prophet Daniel
7:13-14, “In my vision at night I looked, and there
before me was one like a son of man, coming with
the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient
of Days and was led into his presence. He was
given authority, glory and sovereign power; all
nations and peoples of every language worshiped
him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that
will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will
never be destroyed.”
• Jesus was claiming to be that Son of Man, but
before Nicodemus could say anything, Jesus
continued and said, “Just as Moses lifted up the
snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be
lifted up, that everyone who BELIEVES may have
ETERNAL LIFE in him,” (John 3:15).
• Here was the answer to Nicodemus’ and his
cohort’s question … it’s not about behave, it’s about
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April 13, 2014 believe and everyone who believes may have
eternal life in him (the Son of Man).
Nicodemus had a lot to process and went back to
Joe and the others and tried, to the best of his
ability, to explain what Jesus had told him about
pleasing God and eternal life … and it only whetted
their appetite for more.
They kept watching and listening to Jesus
whenever they got the chance and saw him do
remarkable things like heal people and feed them
with just a few fish and a bit of bread.
They watched him deal with people in unexpected
ways like the lady who was caught in the act of
adultery, Jesus told her, “I don’t condemn you.
You’re a sinner. Quit sinning.”
It was like Jesus thought he had the authority to
forgive sin and he did that for people he healed.
The tipping point in the story was when a good
friend of Jesus, Lazarus, died and when Jesus got
around to coming to comfort his family, there was
all kinds of drama about how, if he really loved him,
he’d have come sooner and then he wouldn’t have
died.
Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea and a couple
of others from their small group watched Jesus
walk up to Lazarus’ tomb, command that the stone
be removed and then call in a loud voice, “Lazarus,
come out!” and Lazarus came back from the dead
and people just went crazy, fell on their knees and
called him the Messiah.
Joe and Nic Make Easter April 13, 2014 • But after this, the rest of the leaders (Sanhedrin)
got together and began to plot Jesus’ death … and
Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were part of
Sanhedrin discussing the way forward.
• They knew of the plot to kill Jesus, but they didn’t
say anything or do anything about it because, as
we find out later, they were afraid of what the
people might think of them.
• They were there the night that the Temple Guard
illegally arrested Jesus in the Garden of
Gethsemene and dragged Him into a mock trial
before the Sanhedrin.
• They tried to stop it, not because the believed yet,
but because they though he was a good man.
• But Jesus was tried and convicted at night with paid
off witnesses and condemned to death.
• They took him to Pilate and even though Pilate
wanted to free him, the high priest and Pharisee
leaders pressured Pilate into condemning him,
scourging him and ultimately crucifying him before
Passover.
• Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea witnessed
Jesus dragging his cross through the streets of the
city, eventually going out and up to Golgotha where
he was stripped, laid on the cross and nailed to it.
• Can you imagine their confusion? “Rabbi, WE know
that you are a teacher who has come from God. For
no one could perform the signs you are doing if
God were not with him.”
Joe and Nic Make Easter April 13, 2014 • Can you imagine as they watched the Roman
soldiers began to raise the cross with man they’d
just nailed into the upright position?
• Can you imagine at that very point they remember
Jesus had told Nicodemus, “Just as Moses lifted up
the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man
must be lifted up, that everyone who BELIEVES may
have ETERNAL LIFE in him” … and at that moment,
like a bolt of lightening … they understood!
• They thought, “This is what he meant! This is what
he predicted. This is what he expected.”
• Suddenly it dawned on them that Jesus is the Son
of Man and that you enter the Kingdom of God by
believing in him and not by behaving a certain way.
• It was right there and then that Nicodemus and
Joseph of Arimathea made a decision about their
lives, “We can’t hide anymore. We’re no longer
going to be secret followers of Jesus.”
• So they did something that for men in their position
was unthinkable and took a lot of courage.
• “Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the
body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of
Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish
leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took
the body away. He was accompanied by
Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus
at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and
aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus’
body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in
strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish
burial customs. At the place where Jesus was
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April 13, 2014 crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a
new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid.
Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and
since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there,”
(John 19:38-42).
Matthew tells us this was actually the tomb owned
by Joseph and for his family.
They wrapped and embalmed Jesus body with the
spices and then the tomb was sealed … and they
left … no longer secret disciples, but out in the
open.
It was their faith and devotion and courage that
paved the way for disciples of Jesus from the first
century until now to believe and understand that
Jesus actually died.
The bodies of condemned people were thrown into
the garbage dump and except for Nicodemus and
Joseph of Arimathea doing what they did, Jesus
would have walked out of the garbage dump and as
remarkable as that would have been, it would have
been explainable … he could do that because he
never actually died.
But because of their care for Jesus’ body and the
way they treated it proved beyond doubt that Jesus
was dead and no one stood outside of that tomb
expecting Jesus to come back from the dead.
That’s how Joe and Nic made Easter.
For the rest of the story, you’ll have to come back
next week.
But if you want to apply this to your life today, think
about this: because Nicodemus went to Jesus that
Joe and Nic Make Easter April 13, 2014 night and what Jesus said is recorded, a new,
radical idea entered the understanding of humanity
that the way we connect with God isn’t through our
behavior, but through belief in what Jesus did on
the cross.
• None of us has to earn God’s approval by what we
do or how we behave, but as Jesus said, “Just as
Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the
Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who
BELIEVES may have ETERNAL LIFE in him.”