The Myrrh of Life (Rob Gieselmann, February 17, 2008)

Good morning. My name is Nicodemus. I met Jesus three times, and I’d like to tell you about it.

The third time was at Jesus’ death. My good friend, Joseph of Arimathea, and I laid Jesus in the tomb. You see, while Jesus was still on the cross, Joseph approached the Romans and asked if he could have the body. When they said, yes, Joseph asked me for help; I am a sympathizer. Joseph knew that.

We took Jesus off the cross, and carried it to a rock-hewn tomb Joseph had purchased for his family. When we got there, we anointed the body with myrrh, and placed it carefully in the tomb.

There were legends floating around, that Jesus had been anointed with myrrh once before, when he was a child. Magi brought myrrh as a gift from the East, as if for burial at birth. I had heard these legends, and I wondered, why would you anoint a baby with myrrh?

That is what I was thinking about, when Joseph and I laid Jesus’ body in the tomb, when we rubbed myrrh across the holes in Jesus’ hands, and onto his chest. That he was too young. He was only half my age.

Which made me wonder all the more, was his death somehow by design? Everything he did and said seemed to have been by design.

Consider the first time I met Jesus. It was 20 years ago, and I was a young Pharisee. Schooled, but not learned, if you catch my drift. I had all the education; I knew the Law, but I didn’t have an understanding of the Law.

I was at Temple that day, with my colleagues, all doctors of the Law. Our one job was to argue the Law, this was our schooling, our education.

It was a typical Jerusalem day, dusty and hot, the sky a deep sapphire blue. Mostly the Temple was empty. Passover had ended a day or two before, and all the people who had made their annual pilgrimage had left. We were haggling over the finer points of Moses’ law just like you might haggle over the price of an orange at market.

I had just asked this question: “If your ox gets loose and falls into a hole that I’ve left open on my land, would you be responsible, or would I?”

We started to argue back and forth about who should pay for the ox, when from the edge of our circle, we heard the voice of a boy, so out of place. The boy had been standing there watching us, listening to us, but none of us had seen him. But now he was speaking as if he knew the Law, and he answered my question.

“The two of you would split the cost of the ox,” he said. And then he explained why. First he argued the literal law of Moses, but then he said that the Law itself is an expression of something deeper; the Law represents values.

“It matters less,” he said, “who pays for the ox than it does that the neighbors reconcile.”

We were dumbfounded. Here was this twelve year-old boy, and he understood the law better than we did.

What is your name? we asked him.

“Jesus, from Nazareth,” he answered.

Jesus from Nazareth stayed with us several days, asking us questions of the law we couldn’t answer -- until his parents returned for him. I never saw Jesus from Nazareth after that, and for 20 years, I wondered what had happened to the boy who understood the law far better than I.

That is, until they told me about this itinerant preacher also named, “Jesus.” And I wondered.

Now I should tell you. I am a prominent Pharisee, but I don’t play the political games some Pharisees play. I shoot straight, and I respect others. Some of the Pharisees are not that way. They are more interested in preserving their status, or in promoting their own agendas.

When Jesus first came on the scene, my colleagues complained jealously about him. People listened to Jesus more than they did to them.

“He’s stirring the crowds,” they said.

“The Romans will blame us,” they said.

They dismissed Jesus as either an uneducated populist or a charlatan. And, they tried to trap him, to embarrass him so they people would stop following him.

I refused to play that game; I refused to dismiss him until I had met him. I wanted to know if he was that boy from twenty years before, that boy whose wisdom still haunted me.

But I couldn’t meet with him openly. My colleagues’ had made that impossible. So, I arranged to meet Jesus at night, by the Pool of Siloam.

There was a full moon, that night, and although it was summer, a dry breeze blew in from the desert, rustling the olive trees, and causing light ripples on the water.

There we stood, Jesus and I, and of-course our disciples. And I knew instantly that this was that boy from so many years before. Only he looked different than I expected. Older, of-course, but different in another way. He had a confidence that I’ve seen only a handful of times in my life, always in men and women with intrinsic moral authority -- whose authority comes from a calm within, men and women who understand.

Jesus was traditionally dark, not just tanned, but truly dark-skinned. Dark with dark hair and beard, but his blue eyes stand out by contrast. I don’t think you could hide much from this man. It was as though he could see into the soul, my soul.

And my soul was terribly troubled, for so many reasons. For myself, and my desire to truly understand. But also for my land and my people. I love Israel, and Israel is under house-arrest, imprisoned on her own land by the Romans. Worse, we seem trapped – as though we are on the wrong path; we think we’re seeking truth, but it is a false truth, a truth of our own making.

“Rabbi,” I started, trying to ease into the conversation. “We know that you are a teacher who comes from God; for no one could perform the signs that you do unless God were with him.”

Jesus put his hand up to stop me, then he cut to the chase. He answered the question I never would have asked directly, the question about why he understood, and I didn’t.

“You must be born from above to see God’s kingdom.”

I truly had no idea what he meant. Being born from above. I just didn’t get it. You can’t be born twice, once from below and once from above.

He was right, in one sense -- I was looking for God’s kingdom. I knew God wasn’t going to abandon Israel to the Romans.

But this Jesus seemed to be saying that God’s nation is invisible, except to a select few. Who were those few? How did they get to be so lucky? By being born from above? I don’t know anyone who is born from above; everyone I know is born once, in the usual way, by a mother.

So what did he mean? I asked him: “What do you mean?”

Now later, when I recounted this conversation to others, they thought Jesus was being unfairly cryptic. I didn’t; I expect a good conversation with a Hebrew Rabbi to be full of nuance and hidden meaning. Still, I just didn’t understand.

“You can’t go back into your mother, and be born twice!” I countered.

He continued patiently, “You must be born of water” -- flesh -- “and of spirit” -- God.

I was still baffled, and I told him so. He continued to explain, but the more he said, the more confused I became about what he meant.

One thing was loud and clear: this rabbi understood something I didn’t. That touched a nerve.

For all my education, for all my study of the Law the Prophets, a crucial piece was missing. I knew it when he said it; but I didn’t know how to get it. So there I was, an honorable and humble rabbi of Israel, staring at my feet, confused. This Jesus was somehow familiar with God in a way I wasn’t. He shared an intimacy that I’d never accessed. My relationship with God, if you can call it that, was intellectual.

My head spun at all of this, but suddenly, I got it. My heart leapt to my throat, My heart actually leapt!

Jesus was offering me a clue, a talisman of hope. This Jesus was trying to tell me that it was for me. Not for all of Israel, not for others, for me.

But it wasn’t until two years later, and I kneeled over the crucified form, I rubbed myrrh onto his skin, I sunk my fingers into the holes in his hands, and I thought about a baby born to die -- that I realized, this man, this Jesus, hadn’t died. Not really. He had been born from above, not just below – of spirit, and not just flesh. Only this body was from below, from here.

He knew it all along, about himself, that death couldn’t kill. And even more, he knew it about me. Only I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see God’s kingdom because it isn’t Israel; it isn’t Rome; it isn’t earthly at all.

It is here, in the heart, the soul, and only the soul with open eyes can see it.

The pain doesn’t matter. The suffering of the Christ, or of me, doesn’t matter. What matters is a life inside, in the soul. And in that instance, as my hand held his lifeless hand, I closed my eyes and waited.

With my eyes closed, I accepted, for the first time in my life. I accepted because I believed -- for the first time, really believed. For the first time, I saw God as more than abstract, as more than mere Law and the Prophets; more than Israel; and even more than my religious observance.

I believed and saw God as love itself, love for me, and love for you. And that is when for the first time, my heart came alive.

Amen.

Copyright 2008