Nicodemus came by night. Why by night? Why in darkness?

In her book Learning to Walk in the Dark,[1] Barbara Brown Taylor describes numerous biblical images in which darkness — night’s most obvious quality — is “bad news.” Taylor notes that in the New Testament darkness stands for ignorance and, in the case of John’s gospel, darkness stands for spiritual blindness.

Nicodemus the Pharisee, came by night, came secretly to speak with Jesus. Those dismissive of Jesus, through their representative Nicodemus, came in darkness — in spiritual blindness — and their spiritual blindness kept them from seeing that the man Jesus was the Christ (the Messiah) and was of God, was divine, was therefore the Son of God.

We Christians, today, declare, proclaim, witness, and celebrate Jesus of Nazareth as…