Nick at Nite is an interesting television phenomenon. Nick at Nite is an offshoot of the Nickelodeon children’s network designed to provide popular hit family comedies, live-action and animated sitcoms, directed toward an adult audience, and shown with about a ten-year lag.[1] Nick at Nite is known for showing old television shows like Leave It to Beaver, Father Knows Best, Get Smart, Dukes of Hazard, and the like.
I find it fascinating that all these old shows are aired late at night. It’s as if they have to sneak them onto television, so that those who might enjoy them don’t have to admit it among all the new popular television shows that would make Beaver’s father run from the room in embarrassment or horror.
I wonder if there are cultural police who roam the television and movie network studios, proclaiming that shows are old has-beens because they don’t meet the current demand for sex, violence or vulgar language. It seems like the envelope for what is acceptable is pushed out more and more lately. I’m sure that is what certain groups of people have thought throughout the shifts and tides of popular culture. Sometimes things that seem old and stuffy should be preserved, don’t you think?
I don’t think that Jesus watched Nick at Night while he was here on earth. In fact, television—much less electricity—had not even been invented yet. But he did know about some cultural police.
That is precisely what a group of hard-core Jews called the Pharisees were. By the time Jesus came to earth the Jewish religious leaders had become a type of policing factor. They had their very own courts, their own jails and their own Supreme Court—The Sanhedrin.
Now to be fair, it seems that some policing needed to be done. The problem was that many of them took themselves far too seriously. Of the three prominent parties of Judaism at the time of Christ—Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes—the Pharisees were by far the most influential. The name "Pharisee," which in its Semitic form means "the separated ones, separatists," first appears during the reign of John Hyrcanus (135 B.C.). Generally, the term is in the plural rather than in the singular. They were also known as chasidim, meaning "loved of God" or "loyal to God."[2]
There were three main characteristics of Pharisees that made them stand out as serious cultural police: 1) Legalism—The Pharisees—more of a fraternal order or religious society than a sect—were the organized followers of…experts in interpreting the Scriptures. 2) Nationalism—The Pharisees took the occasion to cultivate a national and religious consciousness that has hardly been equaled. 3) Development and organization of the Jewish religion itself…Formulation and adaptation of Mosaic Law by scribe and rabbi, increased tradition, and a more extreme separatism resulted in an almost new religion, vehemently opposing all secularization of Judaism[3]… and opposing anything like Christianity which threatened their system and beliefs.
You might imagine then that there was great conflict between these people and Jesus. In fact, Jesus himself had a few choice words to say about them. Just listen to this from Matthew 23:1-15.
Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: 2 “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. 3 So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. 4 They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
5 “Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; 6 they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; 7 they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others.
8 “But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. 9 And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. 10 Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah. 11 The greatest among you will be your servant. 12 For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
13 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.
15 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.”
Them there are strong words! Sons of hell! The entire chapter of Matthew 23 contains multiple warnings to this group of religious leaders. If Jesus himself called them sons of hell, is there any chance at all that they could be saved? If so, how would someone so characterized by these things come to Jesus publicly or openly? Someone might have to come under the cover of darkness. His name was Nic and came to Jesus at night.
John 3:1-2
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2He came to Jesus at night and said, "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him."
Jesus had been going around doing good. Miracle after miracle was happening everywhere he went. These weren’t just magic tricks—people were healed, released, restored. It was, by any good-thinking person, evidence that Jesus just might be from God. The miraculous facts stared Nicodemus in the face. No matter what the other Pharisees were saying, he could not put aside these realities. So, he had to find out for himself.
Now after reading Matthew 23, don’t you imagine that Jesus would just lay into this man? “Who do you think you are—you vile hypocrite? Why do you come to me as a coward under the cover of darkness? Stand up like a man and face your judgment?”
But no. Jesus never rejects anyone who honestly and earnestly seeks him. In the next few verses, we see how Jesus gently guides Nic-at-Night into the truth that just might set him free. Verses 3-21 hold within them the crown jewels of the Gospel. Let’s be sure that we understand them as Nicodemus tried to that night.
John 3:3-8
3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
4 “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!
5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
Something new was happening, not just in the miracles of an acknowledged man of God, but also new concepts that perhaps had never been wrestled with by someone like Nicodemus. He was wrestling with what every human knew—that one is born once and in the flesh. But Jesus knew that there was more to this life than the body and mind. There was a new spiritual kingdom waiting to be entered and experienced. While Nicodemus is distracted by the idea of fleshly rebirth, Jesus offers a more important thing to wrestle with—the kingdom of God. Jesus knew that this is what Nicodemus was looking for and what he really needed to know—even if Nic did not recognize it. Being born from above or born again was the only way to enter that kingdom. No longer was being born in the flesh as a Jew and following all of the laws and restrictions sufficient. Jesus came so that his kingdom could be fulfilled! Jirar Tashjian wrote it more concisely: “Nicodemus needed to be born ‘from above’, whereas Nicodemus thought he needed to be born again.”[4]
Wycliffe Bible Commentary states:
“[In verses] “5-8 Jesus now described the new birth in terms of water and Spirit. Of these two, Spirit is the more crucial. Water may well refer to the emphasis of John the Baptist on repentance and cleansing from sin as the necessary background for…the new birth. The positive ingredient is the injection of new creation life by the regenerating power of the Spirit. [You] must be born again. This is not merely a personal but a universal demand. The necessity lies in the inadequacy of the flesh. This includes what is merely natural and what is sinful—man as he is born into this world and lives his life apart from God's grace. Flesh can only reproduce itself as flesh, and this [is not enough] with God. So likewise the Spirit produces spirit, a life born, nurtured, and matured by the Spirit of God.
“If this [seems like a lot of] mystery [and difficult to understand], let it be recognized that there is mystery in nature also. Wind (pneuma, the same word as for “Spirit”) produces observable effects as it blows, but its source and future movements remain hidden. So the redeemed life shows itself as something [real and] effective, through defying analysis by the natural man.”[5]
Which brings us to Nic at Night’s next question in verse 9: “How can this be?”
Let’s pause here and acknowledge that we are limited human beings. We might feel that we have a grasp on things natural and things spiritual, but there is a great and marvelous mystery in the Gospel. We only touch the surface with our narrow vision of what exists and is possible. But God through Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit has more, much more, for us! Jirar Tashjian wrote: “Jesus offered Nicodemus a life of godly freedom made possible by the gift of the Holy Spirit…Had Nicodemus become so established in his ways of understanding God that anything like freedom of the Spirit was beyond his imagination?”[6] Then Jesus confronted this earnest seeker in verse 10: "You are Israel's teacher," said Jesus, "and do you not understand these things?
The fresh and ancient theology continues and is spilled out for any who would believe as we read in verses 11-12. I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?
The Word here holds up the truth before us. No matter how often or how broadly the Gospel is broadcast or discussed, the act of believing is imperative to this spiritual life. It takes more than intellectual ascent or following rules to enter into God’s kingdom.
In verses 13-15, there is a manner of foreshadowing. References to the Son of Man coming and going into heaven describe a Savior who was come to die on a cross—lifted up so that people would believe. No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.
Here is a quick reference to an incident in the Old Testament (Numbers 21:4-9) of which any Pharisee would have been very familiar. The Israelites had, once again, grumbled against God. And the consequence was that they were being bitten by viperous snakes and dying. God instructed Moses to make a model of the snake, put it on a pole and compelled the people to look at it. Only then were they saved. It is a striking and unnerving scene. But the bronze snake was not the salvation, it was God who saved them. When made to look, really look, upon our sin, we recognize the need for a Savior and look higher to plead for our salvation. God offers that salvation even before we look up for help. He is ready and willing to save.
It is in this mysterious and sometimes bewildering context that perhaps the most famous words of the Gospel pour out towards frightened or struggling audiences of John’s day and through the centuries to today. It’s a message of true and lasting love so great that it surpasses legalism, nationalism and religion itself.
John 3:16-21
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. 19This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."
It’s as if a candle is drawn near the faces of unbelievers dwelling in the dark of night and telling them that they don’t need to be afraid anymore. No matter what might come of their choices to believe in Him, the love of God the Father and sacrifice of Jesus the Son would keep him them in eternal light. If Nic’s religious buddies and family reject him, He would be enveloped in the love of God. If Nic’s choice to believe leads him down the path of suffering, he would be walking in the light of the Son. If Nic’s faith in something he can’t prove puts him into jeopardy, then the wind, breath and life of the Spirit would carry him and give him eternal life.
On that dark night a Pharisee named Nicodemus came to Jesus. He heard from Jesus himself what it took to be a truly spiritual person. We don’t have any scriptural evidence that Nicodemus looked up through his sin to find salvation. It wasn’t too long after his encounter with Jesus that Nicodemus began to bring his struggle for true and lasting faith into a more public arena. John 7:37-52 records a heated discussion among the Sanhedrin that prompted them to have Jesus arrested. The guards went to get Jesus, but he eluded them. When they came back empty handed the Pharisees were enraged and immediately wanted to indict him. But not all the Pharisees. There was one in their midst who had encountered Jesus personally. It was Nicodemus who stood and called into question their illegal proceedings.
John 7:50-51
Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, “Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?”
And it was Nicodemus, one of the Pharisees, who put his life and his reputation on the line when Jesus was crucified. He threw all manner of Pharisaic respectability out the door and honored Jesus’ love in his death. He was there when the crucifixion soldiers began to take the bodies down from the cruel crosses.
In John 19:38-42 we read: 38Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jews. With Pilate's permission, he came and took the body away. 39He 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. 40Taking Jesus' body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. 41At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. 42Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.
I imagine that three days later the word got to Nicodemus that Jesus was alive. And in those moments, he remembered that meeting at night. In the darkness Nicodemus encountered the love of God through Jesus Christ. And it had shown on him brightly. Did Nic-at-Night make the choice for faith in Jesus Christ? We won’t really know until we get to heaven.
But here is the greater reality that we can know right now. No matter who comes to Jesus honestly and earnestly—by day or by night—he will not turn them away. And no matter how a person comes to Jesus—be that in the full view of church people at an altar on a Sunday morning, or under the cover of darkness, a simple act of faith is answered in the love of God through Jesus Christ and the new birth by the Spirit.
If you have been born again, I want to invite you to enjoy the love of God, the light of His presence by remembering that He was lifted up for you so that you could have a new birth by the Spirit.
If you have not received the new birth, why don’t you take this time to make confession and start repentance and let the Spirit of God remove any condemnation that keeps you in the darkness, and let Him bring you into the light of His wonderful love.
Amen
© M.R.Hyde 2025
