Loyalty and courage

There are two characters in the Gospel who are courageous when almost everyone is a coward: Joseph of Arimathea who was a disciple of Jesus, although hidden, and Nicodemus, a rich man. In the midst of this general terror and the abandonment which Christ Jesus suffered, being accompanied only by women (his Mother and the holy women) and an adolescent (John), these two, who were hidden while the Master was alive, reappear. As the Evangelists tell us, Joseph comes to ask Pilate to let him take the Body, while Nicodemus brings a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. It would have cost a lot of money.

Being born again

However, although they knew Jesus and loved him, recall that passage in the third chapter of St John (verses 1-10), when our Lord says to Nicodemus: Nisi quis renatus fuerit denuo, non potest videre regnum Dei; unless one be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God nor have any part of it. Nicodemus answers: Quomodo potest homo nasci, cum sit senex? How can a man be born when he is old? I will not repeat the whole passage now. Nicodemus was not unlearned; Jesus asks him: Tu es magister in Israël et haec ignoras? Nisi quis renatus fuerit, the Master then says, ex aqua et Spiritu Sancto non potest introire in regnum Dei: Are you a teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. And as it is written elsewhere: sic est omnis qui natus est ex spiritu,⁹ that which is born of the spirit is spirit.