Please find here some ideas from the Nicodemus Rotation © 2004, LD McKenzie. Written and developed for the children of St. John's United Church, Georgetown, Ont. (Canada).

Ideas described here include:

• Kitchen (Nic's Night Sky Cookies)

• Background notes

• Drama (Script for Shadow Puppet play, "Nic's Night Visit").

Click here for full Nicodemus lesson set click here.

Kitchen Idea -- Nic's Night Sky Cookies:

These are simply your basic chocolate with white chocolate chips cookie. We wanted to emphasize the idea of the visit taking place at night, the whole light in the darkness thing. The kids liked the idea that the white chips represented stars in the night sky. Our leader did an excellent job of not burning the chocolate cookies (something I still haven't mastered), and this lab was a huge hit!

Suggestion:  Use Blue food coloring in the dough to make the cookies the color of the night sky.

Background Notes:

Who was Nicodemus?
John 3:1 tells us Nicodemus was a "Pharisee" and "leader of the Jews."

Why is his night visit significant here?
In John 2, Jesus has just finished making a big scene, turning tables upside down in the temple and whatnot. Church types are definitely keeping a watchful eye on him.

What is a pharisee?
The Canadian Oxford Dictionary defines a Pharisee as: "a member of an ancient Jewish sect, distinguished by strict observance of the traditional and written law...."

A deeper description of Nicodemus.
Canadian scholar Northrop Frye provides an excellent contextual explanation of the figure of Nicodemus in a sermon called, "A Breath of Fresh Air," in the collection Northrop Frye on Religion. He writes this "is one of the few places in the Gospels where Jesus is shown directly dealing with the imaginative needs of an educated person. Nicodemus is a cultivated, intelligent, tolerant member of the Sanhedrin or Jewish council who is fascinated by Jesus, and wants him to have at the very least a fair hearing."

What's all this about spirits being born anew?
In reply to Nicodemus's query about the source of Jesus's authority, Jesus has told him "no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above" (New Revised Standard Version). Nicodemus, thinking literally and having the self-confidence to say what we're all thinking out loud, responds with essentially, 'You've gotta be kidding.'

So what does being born from above really mean?
Here's Frye again on this question. "The thing which is most difficult for Nicodemus to do is precisely what he is being challenged to do: to turn around and look his own cultural conditioning in the face... [The 'womb' Nicodemus speaks of] is the body of assumptions he acts on without examining."

Light and dark imagery.
In the quotation above, Frye uses the expression "to turn around." This phrase links Nicodemus's night visit to the theme of repentance. From there, this story also becomes linked to the body of reversal images and symbols that surround Jesus's life and teachings, as well as those that introduce and conclude this story.

Wind and spirit imagery.
In these phrases, "the wind blows where it chooses…but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it must be with everyone who is born of the Spirit" (NRSV), Jesus connects wind imagery to this discussion of spiritual matters/kingdom of God.
Frye again provides helpful detail on this concept: "This world of air and light is what Jesus calls the kingdom of heaven. It is a world of the spontaneous freedom, the independent power of action, which the image of wind suggests. No such power is possible except on the basis of love, and the New Testament constantly insists that love and freedom are the same thing."

Everlasting Life.
In this world of air and light, spontaneous freedom and independent power of action, we have further context for the frequently cited verse at John 3:16 found in this story of Nicodemus's encounter with Jesus:
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have everlasting life" (NRSV).

Friendship with wisdom.
In the story of this night meeting between Jesus and his intellectual peer and fellow student Nicodemus, readers can perhaps catch a glimpse of this liberating world of air and light.
Frye goes into more depth about matters of the spirit in another excellent piece, well worth reading, called "To Come to Light," in the same collection: "The wisdom books tell us that knowledge is the road to wisdom, and that wisdom is one of the most serious goals in life. At the same time it's constantly associated with the highest kind of pleasure. The Book of Proverbs speaks of wisdom as "playing" throughout the earth; the Book of Wisdom itself says that in the friendship of wisdom there is "pure delight."
A uncommon bond, at any rate, must account in part for Nicodemus's reappearance near the end of John's gospel (19:39), when he shows up with a costly bundle of embalming oils as Christ's body is taken down from the cross.

Book of Wisdom 8:16 - 18.
To conclude, how can we improve on these verses from the Book of Wisdom of Solomon in the Apocrypha (NRSV) :

When I enter my house, I shall find rest with her [wisdom];
for companionship with her has no bitterness,
and life with her has no pain, but gladness and joy.
When I consider these things inwardly,
and pondered in my heart
that in kinship with wisdom there is immortality,
and in friendship with her, pure delight,
and in labors of her hands, unfailing wealth,
and in the experience of her company, understanding,
and renown in sharing her words,
I went about seeking how to get her for myself.
 
Questions for Discussion:

• Describe the kind of man Nicodemus was.
• Were his questions for Jesus good or reasonable ones?
• Have you ever felt you needed to ask a 'silly question' from someone you admired or respected? Did you ask it or chicken out? How would you handle it next time?
• What does being 'born from above' mean to you?
• Why did Nicodemus visit Jesus at night?
• Does this story imply people of God are 'free spirits?'
• What do you think is the significance of wind in this story?
• What does everlasting life mean to you?
• Is this night visit the last we hear of Nicodemus in John's gospel?