Everything I'm about to say is shrouded in the fog of my oldest memories and is probably gonna be wrong and stupid, but I'm still gonna try. Is it possible that in the 1980s there was a technology that kind of looked like a record player, but it would play movies? Does that sound like a thing to you? Do any of you remember this? I could just be imagining things, but I think I remember my parents when I was a little kid, every now and then they would go up to you know sort of a video rental store in our little town. And I remember them coming home with this kind of gray plastic box, and it looked like a record player, and they would rent a couple of things that to me, dimensionally in my kid memory brain, they looked like records, like a laser disc, but before laser discs. And then they would connect it with cables and a screwdriver to the back of the television, and we would have a family movie night. And this was much more affordable than going to movies. I did not grow up with money at all, and so we just did stuff on the cheap, and I absolutely love it and wouldn't trade it for anything. My parents did such a good job of making childhood fun and interesting and full of learning and enchantment, and they made us feel safe and protected, but also gave us danger, and they just did such a great job. This is a happy memory, even if the details are wrong. I seem to remember one night they go, they went and they rented the movie record player thing. Sounds so stupid, but I really think it was a thing. And they rented the semi-animated Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit or something like that. And we watched it and I hated it. And I think they maybe even turned it off because we were all so bored and it was just so very, very terrible. But then I think the other movie they rented was The Secret of Nim. Do you remember this? It's not a Disney movie. It was I can't remember the guy's name, but there was like an animator who would do some of these animated classic style films, and I think sometimes they were a little bit darker. Certainly The Secret of Nim was darker. I had to go look up the main character's name because I didn't remember it for this, but it's Mrs. Bixby, and she's like a little mom mouse, and she goes on some kind of quest, something bad happens, and she has to go solve something, and she has to go into the layer of the rats. And I I vividly remember this layer of the rats. You know, really, it was rattling to me. Rats rattling that I didn't mean to do that. And when she went in there, she meets a wise, old, sage, like almost prophet-like rat with glowing eyes, as I recall. I haven't seen this movie since. So, I mean, we are really into the fog of history here in my lifetime. But the rat's name, I remember it was Nicodemus. And I perked up when we heard his name because I was starting to learn how to read the Bible, and you know, my dad very much instilled that in me. And I was like, it's Nicodemus, it's like from the Bible. He went, he went and met with Jesus. And maybe my dad paused the video, maybe we talked about it after. But somewhere in there, he did a little thought exercise. He's like, Well, why does he remind you of Nicodemus? You know, he's teaching me little likewises as a kid, and we had some sort of conversation, and I think the thing that I fixated on was that he was kind of from one team, but he was able to see the truth about Mrs. Bixby faster than maybe the other rats could. And it was kind of like how Nicodemus could see the truth about Jesus before lots of the other people could from his ruling council. And maybe that's a stretch, and maybe I'm making it sound more sophisticated than it actually was. But dad was really good at that. He still is really good at that, you know, seeing patterns and things and kind of connecting all the dots, always back to seeing the patterns in the Bible. So, at any rate, here we are. We're full circle. I'm all the way back to Nicodemus. You and me, right here. Maybe I just butchered the secret of Nim completely, but the Nicodemus thing, I think we can get right because I got it in front of me right here. I bought a Bible and everything. I have it open. It's page 1623. Everything looks real, seems to be in order. And it's got this guy named Nicodemus on it. And I've read ahead here in anticipation of our conversation, and sure enough, he's one of the first guys to take the risk of feeling things out with Jesus and being like, Well, who are you for real? I'm not gonna ask you in public and put you on the spot. Like, I'm gonna come to you in private so we can have an actual conversation uncompromised by all the noise. Who are you? And I sure get the impression from the the story of their exchange, which is really pretty in-depth, that Nicodemus, like Nicodemus the Rat, saw something early. He's an early adopter. He saw stuff before others did. And the way the story works out in the secret of Nym, as I recall, is Nicodemus the Rat is even operates in defense of Mrs. Bixby. He helps her. And Nicodemus, you know, if you read the Bible a lot, you're like, oh yeah, he comes up there in John chapter 3. He's the guy who came in secret at night to find out what the deal was with Jesus. But also the conversation apparently makes enough of an impression that Nicodemus sort of becomes Jesus' inside man in the religious leadership council. He's always going to bat for Jesus. Always. There are two more times in John where Nicodemus comes up. And both times, even though it's a little bit unfashionable, Nicodemus seems to kind of operate in support of Jesus. I guess I could just go to those now. I mean, why not? We're doing the big overview of the story. All right, John 7. Well, it's in John 7. I'm telling you, it is. It's not there. It's not there. Maybe it's in it is in John 7. Here we're right at the very end. That's why. Okay. The very end. Okay, on hearing these words, some of the people said, Surely this man is the prophet. See, there's still four chapters later asking the same questions. Others said, He's the Christ. Still others ask, how can the Christ come from the Gentiles? Does not the scripture say the Christ will come from David's family and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived? Thus the people were divided because of Jesus. Some wanted to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him. Finally, the temple guards went back to the chief priests and Pharisees, that's team Nicodemus, who asked them, Why didn't you bring him in? No one ever spoke the way this man does, the guards declared. You mean he's deceived you also, the Pharisees retorted. Has any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? No, but this mob that knows nothing of the law, there's a curse on them. But Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier, and who was one of their own number, asked, Does our law condemn anyone without first hearing him to find out what he's doing? They replied, Are you from Galilee too? Look into it, and you'll find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee. Okay, that is a spicy exchange right there, and it would have taken, I mean, put yourself in this guy's shoes. You can tell what the tone the group thinks was among the Pharisees by John chapter 7. It cost Nicodemus something to ask this simple question, and they get all sassy and sarcastic and nasty with him after that. But Nicodemus is apparently undaunted because in chapter 19, he really puts himself on the line. Jesus has been convicted. Everybody seems to want him dead. The Sanhedrin, the Pharisees have made big, grand pronouncements. They, I mean, they have written it in blood where they stand on the Jesus thing. We reject him. Let his blood be on us and on our children's heads. We are alert and aware of what we are saying. We want Jesus dead. I mean, paraphrases mine, but not by much. They firmly reject Jesus all the way to the point of having him killed. Jesus is killed. He's crucified. And then it says, verse 38 of John 19, later, 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. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. As a side note, I just think it's fun how both times Nicodemus comes up after John 3, John reminds us, that's the guy who visited Jesus at night. Do you remember? Yeah, dude, your gospel's really good. We totally remember. We're really paying attention. Yes, we we remember Nicodemus. Thank you, John. There's a reason he keeps bringing him up. John wants us to know that this message made sense to somebody like Nicodemus. Because remember, the point of the whole book here is Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. I mean, what we're going to see as we keep moving forward here is Jesus talking with all kinds of different people. I mean, in John chapter 3, he's talking with Nicodemus. This is somebody whose whole job and livelihood hinges on being a teacher of the law and siding with his team. And Jesus talks with him and it makes sense to him. It gets through to him enough that he shows up at Jesus' burial and takes this huge risk. He brought myrrh and aloes, 75 pounds, and then he and Joseph Arimathea, they prepared Jesus' body. Did you remember Nicodemus did all that? I mean, I guess I kind of did, but everybody thinks of Joseph of Arimathea, you know, and the myth of the holy grail and all of that kind of stuff. Joseph of Arimathea, he's the big star of that thing. But Nicodemus was there, taking this big risk, participating in all of that. So that theme in John of, you know, look, this is written that you would believe. You, who is you? Apparently, that would include the people at the highest level of religious leadership who would have to wager and risk much to follow Jesus. Apparently, that would also include the main character in the next chapter, which is a Samaritan woman who's all the way on the opposite end of the social spectrum in every imaginable way from Nicodemus. Boom, boom, back to back. It's for you. So if you are like the Samaritan woman, it's for you. Believe and have life. If you are like Nicodemus, it's for you. Believe and have life. If you are snarky and class clowny like Nathaniel, it's for you. Believe and have life. If you're big and brash and loud and sometimes you overdo it a little bit like Peter, it's for you. Believe and have life. We're going to keep seeing this pattern repeating again and again and again. But Nicodemus is awesome because as one of the characters in that repeating pattern, he comes with so many presuppositions and so many forces working against any kind of belief. And yet, what we're going to see as we unpack this conversation over the next few days is that this brief nighttime conversation with Jesus prompts such belief that he's willing to defend Jesus, stick up for him, even identify with him at great personal risk. Cool. All right, I don't know if I got anything right about that whole Secret of Nim thing. And I try not to recommend movies around here too much because I'm just going to get myself in trouble. Maybe Secret of Nim is like all culty and bad. I don't know. I don't it just seemed like it was a nice movie that was a little scary for me as a kid. So maybe if any of you know anything about it, you can tell me if I should watch it again or not. But either way, I'm telling you, that's Rat's name was Nicodemus, but he was actually kind of a good guy. Or at least that's how I remember it. Whatever the Bible stuff I said in this episode was true, I promise. Okay, that's good for now. I'm Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do this again soon.