The Gospel of John notes:

“Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. ³⁹ He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen.”

John 19: 38-40

Joseph and Nicodemus. Two guys who John notes, because of their leadership positions, had to keep their admiration for Jesus on the down low. However, when push came to shove, they very publicly made their vote known on an extremely polarising issue. When given a choice between Barabbas, who advocated violent resistance to Rome (AKA Make Israel Great Again) or Jesus, who advocated for the non-violent path ushering in the Kingdom of God, these two men defied the chanting mob’s of their own constituency who were calling for the crucifixion of Jesus.

This decision was certainly not in their best interest. There was no resurrected Christ at this point. Both Nicodemus and Joseph were simply burying another dead “would be Messiah”. Yet there was something about this Jewish rabbi that resonated with their very being. Something about his message of love, mercy, and forgiveness not just for Israel, but as a Way forward for the entire world.

Those two men must have met with heaps of scorn and ridicule from their own party. But today, while the term Phrarisee has become a negative pejorative, history looks back at Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus and says, “well, but not those two.”

Profiles in Courage are almost never seen immediately

History will no doubt look on the present Republican leadership’s condoning of “an appalling abuse of public trust”in a negative light but with the addendum, “Well, except for Mitt Romney”