Ascension Lutheran Church

The Pharisees were religious teachers who were highly respected by their fellow Jews. As a
group, the Pharisees hated Jesus. But there was at least one Pharisee who was a happy exception
to that rule: “There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews” (a
member of the Sanhedrin – the Jewish ‘high court’). Nicodemus “came to Jesus by night.”
Nicodemus may have come at night to keep his visit with Jesus a secret. If word got out about it
Nicodemus could end up being removed from his position as a Pharisee and as a member of the
Sanhedrin, banned from the synagogue, and shunned by the Jewish community.