Season 1 Eps 7 Jesus & Nicodemus

[Dr. Shane]

Nicodemus was unprepared for the message Jesus gave him because he had so many false beliefs about what the Messiah would do and what His mission would be.  Many today also struggle to accept God into their lives for the same reason.  Too often when we pray, we tell God what we want Him to do for us instead of asking Him to lead us in the way He has planned for us.  Many tend to think of God as a sugar-daddy that will come and rescue us from what we think is our problem.  We want physical healing or financial blessing.  We want family members to behave differently or to get a promotion at work.  At minute marker 5:32 Nicodemus tells Jesus that the people are dying from over taxation and oppression.  Jesus tells him He wasn't here to defeat the Romans, but sin.  Sin is our real problem and Jesus is the answer.

The most controversial part of this scene starts at minute marker 9:35.  Nicodemus kneels and Jesus tells him he doesn't have to do that.  Many views wonder why Jesus would discourage him from kneeling.  The creators of The Chosen explained that what they were doing was trying to reflect the culture of that time.  Nicodemus was kneeling before Jesus not because Jesus was the Son of God, but rather as one during that time period would kneel before an earthly king.  Nicodemus, at this point, is being cast as being conflicted between his belief that the Messiah will free them from Rome and the ideas Jesus was presenting to him.  I think that personally, many of can relate to that.  We can struggle between the ideas of what we think God should be doing in our lives and the reality of what God is actually doing in our lives.