Theocracy and the Kingdom of God

He, the man silently making his way through the darkness, was a leader of the people of God, a ruler over the nation where God lived. He visited at night because it wasn't appropriate, for him an expert on religious law, to be speaking to an upstart preacher without a temple education.

Nicodemus was part of the temple organization which imposed religious law on the Jews. The Jews lived under two laws. the laws of the Roman occupiers and the laws of the temple. They considered their nation to be God's nation, because it was God who delivered them from slavery and made them a nation.

That was the first thing Jesus addressed. According to Jesus the true Kingdom of God is so spiritual that it cannot be understood by the political process. It can only be understood by someone who had been born from above. Jesus pointed out to Nicodemus that he had no way of knowing about heaven except to learn from Jesus who had come down from there to be a light to people who were living in darkness. He was God's only begotten son, God had given him to be a gift to the world, because God loved the world enough to give his only begotten son. And the reason he had done this was that the inhabitants of earth should not perish but have everlasting life.

And yet Jesus did not despise that Holy Law which Nicodemus had been trying to enforce on the citizens of the Holy City. He had come to enable all people to keep the same law.

For a man like Nicodemus the contrast was bewildering. Under the system of Holy Law people pleased God by keeping the religious law. What Jesus was saying was that people would please God by believing what Jesus said. The contrast was enormous, and again it didn't make sense politically. It didn't seem demanding enough.

It could not have been easy for this man, a person who had reached high status by diligence, duty and dedication to be told that all these things counted for nothing. What was required was that he be born from above. The speed of his reply that a person can't go through the birth process twice makes me wonder, if he had sometimes wished he could begin life all over again.

But a person can, said Jesus, a person can be born naturally and will remain natural. Also a person can be given birth by the spirit and become a spiritual being. God gave his son, said Jesus so that everyone who believes in him will not die but will have eternal life. All it requires is to believe that Jesus is the Messiah (The man who will put everything right) the son of God come down to give light and life to the people of earth.

If you don't believe, said Jesus, you are perishing already. God sent me because he didn't want you to perish. If you are reading this, don't think of this 'perishing' as some divine punishment worked by God upon people; it is the opposite it is the natural state of humans. Like cut flowers attached to a stalk that is cut off from the root, humans die because they are detached from the source of life. They mistake the stalk for the root, and without real genuine contact with God, are already perishing although they do not know it. God sent Jesus to stop the decay; to be the living connection between people and the source of life, If it were were possible to reconnect the cut stalk to the root in the ground, in the same way Jesus does the impossible and connects people to the source of all being.

I like to make up reasons why people can't believe in Jesus; because it is my life's work to bring people to Jesus and many people refuse my help. I invent reasons like: too great for them to understand, to strange for them to accept. Jesus had only one reason, they don't want to come to the light because they will see that their deeds are not good.

Nicodemus evidently was not afraid of the light. It took him some time to believe, but how would we know this story otherwise? From all we know of the nature of Jesus he would not betray a confidence. Jesus did not tell his secret. So who did? Jesus must have repeated his basic teaching many times, but who told us that Nicodemus heard it in the dark of night, face to face with Jesus, unless it was Nicodemus himself?

At first he remained in the temple as a leader, he tried on one occasion to get a fair trial for Jesus, but failed. On the day Jesus was crucified, all the disciples of Jesus went into hiding for fear of the rulers of the nation. A man called Joseph of Arimathea, who had up to that day been a secret disciple for fear of the rulers of the nation, asked if he could have the the dead body of Jesus. He and another man wrapped the body with strips of linen cloth laced with spices. Then, before evening, they carried the body to the burial cave. The other man was Nicodemus.

The gospel of John, chapter 3: verses 1-21
The gospel of John, chapter 7: verses 45-52
The gospel of John, chapter 19: verses 38-42

Keeping God Alive

Man-made gods die once a year. On the darkest day of the year, when the sun shines for the shortest time, it becomes necessary to save the earth from death, and the sun-god's people must find some way to encourage the sun to shine again and to call back their departed god.

Other man-made gods die as their maker's ability to sustain them dwindles. Their territory invaded by people who worship other god's, their temples destroyed and their oracles spurned they fade into history. Only their memory and the stories devised by their makers remain.

The Jewish God never dies. Not needing the support of man's imagination, he is free to be hidden, or inaccessible. He never goes away.

Would Jesus die? The Jewish God did not die, the other gods died often, what would happen if God-made-visible-in-Jesus died?

If he were to die, thought Peter, then all his power to reveal God and heal humanity would also die. Peter would have left his fishing industry and devoted years of his life to nothing. That must never be; Peter must prevent it. He, Peter, had been pronounced blessed by Jesus. Peter's strong statement of faith when he declared that Jesus was the son of living God, had placed him at the head of the band of disciples, therefore he could begin to act as chief counsellor to Jesus. He would be advised by and advise Jesus as they both began their God-empowered drive to impose God's law on Peter's nation and all other nations.

Under the rule of Jesus and Peter, (and perhaps some of the others) all people would live moral lives and God would be pleased and peace would prevail, and prosperity would follow.

Peter spoke urgently to Jesus, explaining that God himself would not be served if Jesus gave up the fight at this point. "This must not happen!" he cried. Jesus replied, and Peter stood gasping, amazed and frightened by what he began to say. .

Matthew 16:21-28[21] From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. [22] And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, "God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you." [23] But he turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."