Thought for the Month

‘They loved human glory more than the glory that comes from God’ John 12:43

these are among the most revealing and saddest words in the Gospels. They tell us that even among the Jewish leadership there were those who believed in Jesus, but that most of them were ‘secret disciples’. As the final stages of the story unfold, one or two of them emerge from the shadows. One was Nicodemus, who visited Jesus under cover of night to discover what it was that he was teaching (John 3:2). There he is described as a Pharisee, ‘a leader of the Jews’. Later he argued with the chief priests that Jesus should be treated justly and at least not judged without being given a fair hearing (7:51). This modest stand for justice was ridiculed by his colleagues: ‘Surely you are not also from Galilee, are you?’.

Later, Nicodemus joined another dissenting voice among the ruling classes, Joseph of Arimathea, in arranging the burial of Jesus. John says of Joseph that he was ‘a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews’ (19:38) - presumably meaning, as this Gospel usually does, the Jewish rulers. After all, everybody in the story at this point is a ‘Jew’, including Jesus and the Twelve.

These ‘secret disciples’ are something of a surprise. Whatever conclusions individuals among the authorities reached about Jesus, obviously the majority view was that he posed a serious threat to the stability of the nation under Roman government and also a considerable challenge to their own power. As so often in such situations, the minority decided that their own self-preservation (and perhaps the good of the community) would be best served by silence. They were not the first or the last to adopt that strategy. In more recent times there were many people in the Germany of the 1930s who secretly opposed all that Hitler and the Nazis stood for, but for rather similar reasons decided to keep quiet. Those who didn’t, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor, often paid a high price for their courage.

There were apparently ‘many’ in this category during the last days of the life of Jesus. They ‘believed’ in him, but ‘because of the Pharisees did not confess it’. John gives us a reason for that: ‘for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue’ - excommunicated, we might say. He also adds this typical comment of his own. ‘They loved human glory more than the glory that comes from God.’

To belong to the temple elite was to have status, prestige and a certain amount of power. The Romans were quite glad to have Jewish leadership in place – it was useful at times to hide behind the Jewish religious leadership. As a reward, those leaders were given places of privilege as well as monetary and practical benefits. It may seem at a distance a pretty tawdry ‘glory’, but it has to be said that in human history souls have been sold for less.

These ‘secret disciples’ believed in Jesus, but they did not confess it, fundamentally for fear of the disapproval of their peers. Situations change, history rolls on, but still today people who ‘believe’ in Jesus will not ‘confess’ him publicly – and for precisely the same reason. Ridicule might follow. Our friends and neighbours might think we’d ‘gone religious’. But to remain silent in the presence of injustice, cruelty or evil is, to some degree, to condone it. ‘Speaking out’ is not always popular and sometimes costly, but it is often a Christian duty. Others are entitled to know where we stand. If we believe in Jesus, we have a duty to say so!