We may note progress in the friendship of this secret disciple. During the two years since he first came to Jesus by night the seed dropped into his heart that night had been growing silently. Nicodemus was not yet ready to come out boldly as a disciple of Jesus; but he proved himself the friend of Jesus, even by the few words he spoke in the council when it required firm courage to speak at all. "He who at the first could come to Jesus only by night, now stands by him in open day, and in the face of the most formidable opposition, before which the courage of the strongest might have quailed."
It is beautiful to see young Christians, as the days pass, growing more and more confident and heroic in their confession of Christ. At first they are shy, retiring, timid, and disposed to shrink from public revealing of themselves. But if, as they receive more of the Spirit of God in their heart, they grow more courageous in speaking for Christ and in showing their colors, they prove that they are true disciples, learners, growing in grace.
The only other mention of Nicodemus is some months after the heroic word spoken in the council. What has been going on in his experience, meanwhile, we do not know. There is no evidence that he has yet declared himself a follower of Jesus. He is still a secret disciple. But the hidden life in his heart has still been growing.
One day a terrible thing happened. Jesus was crucified. In their fright and panic all his friends at first forsook him, some of them, however, gathering back, with broken hearts, and standing about his cross. But never was there a more hopeless company of men in this world than the disciples of Jesus that Good Friday, when their Master hung upon the cross. They did not understand the meaning of the cross as we do to-day,--they thought it meant defeat for all the hopes they had cherished. They stood round the cross in the despair of hopeless grief.
They were also powerless to do anything to show their love, or to honor the body of their Friend. They were poor and unknown men, without influence. None of them had a grave in which the body could be laid. Nor had they power to get leave to take the body away; it required a name of influence to get this permission. Their love was equal to anything, but they were helpless. In the dishonor of that day all the friends of Jesus shared.
What could be done? Soon the three bodies on the crosses would be taken down by rude hands of heartless men, and cast into the Potter's Field in an indistinguishable heap.
No; there is a friend at Pilate's door. He is a man of rank among the Jews--a rich man too. He makes a strange request,--he asks leave to take the body of Jesus away for burial. Doubtless Pilate was surprised that a member of the court which had condemned Jesus should now desire to honor his body, but he granted the request; perhaps he was glad thus to end a case which had cost him so much trouble. Joseph took charge of the burial of the body of Jesus.
Then came another rich man and joined Joseph. "There came also Nicodemus, he who at the first came to him by night, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pound weight. So they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury." It certainly is remarkable that the two men who thus met in honoring the body of Jesus had both been his secret disciples, hidden friends, who until now had not had courage to avow their friendship and discipleship.