Have you ever wondered how much seventy-five pounds actually weighs? It’s heavy enough to be awkward, noticeable, impossible to carry discreetly. It’s the weight of a child sleeping heavily in your arms.
It’s the bulk of an overstuffed suitcase pulled from the attic once a year. It’s the uncomfortable load of something you simply cannot hide.
Consider Nicodemus and his seventy-five pounds of burial spices.
We first meet Nicodemus in darkness, quietly approaching Jesus under the cover of night. As a respected Pharisee and prominent member of the Sanhedrin, he had everything to lose by openly associating with this controversial rabbi from Galilee: his reputation, his career, the careful image he’d spent a lifetime curating. So he came under the cloak of darkness, carrying his curiosity like contraband, hidden carefully beneath the folds of his identity.
Later, we catch another glimpse of him, cautiously offering a guarded question to his peers: “Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him?” It’s a small step, subtle enough to avoid drawing too much attention. He’s still careful, still calculating how much risk he can bear. He has stepped partly into the light but remains ready to retreat if necessary.
But then comes that powerful final scene. Jesus is dead. His closest disciples have fled. Everything seems finished. Yet, there’s Nicodemus in broad daylight, no longer hiding, no longer hedging. He walks openly beside Joseph of Arimathea, lugging an extravagant, impossible-to-miss seventy-five pounds of burial spices. John, the Gospel writer, intentionally records the weight—seventy-five pounds of myrrh and aloes. This is no quiet, subtle gesture. It’s impossible to hide, impossible to deny, impossible to explain away.
In that moment, Nicodemus’s seventy-five pounds of spices weren’t simply burial materials. They were a confession, a statement, an undeniable declaration of allegiance to a man he had cautiously admired but now openly honored. He carried the physical weight of spices, yes—but also the profound weight of finally choosing authenticity over safety, visibility over secrecy, courage over comfort.
This moment stirs something deeply familiar within me. How often have I waited until it was safe to say what I truly believed, or waited until the risk had passed to show genuine support for someone on the margins? How often have I opted for carefully measured gestures rather than bold, risky expressions of faith? Like Nicodemus, I’ve carried my devotion quietly, subtly, comfortably hidden beneath the surface.
Yet Nicodemus’s journey reassures me: faith often emerges gradually. Courage grows incrementally. Each hesitant step into the open, each awkward act of authenticity, makes the next one more possible, more real, more necessary. Brené Brown wisely says, “Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome.” Nicodemus finally embraced this vulnerability—not in a moment of triumph, but in a moment of apparent defeat.
Seventy-five pounds, it turns out, weighs exactly as much as courage. It weighs as much as risk. It weighs as much as devotion finally carried from private conviction to public commitment. And I wonder, what would seventy-five pounds of faithfulness look like for me?
What if faith isn’t truly faith until we’re willing to bear its full weight publicly, visibly, unmistakably?
Transformation can’t remain internal forever. The butterfly can’t stay hidden in the chrysalis, no matter how safe it feels there. Seeds don’t remain beneath the soil; inevitably, they bloom. Likewise, our faith calls us out from shadows, compelling us eventually into sunlight, into openness, into places where authenticity outweighs comfort.
Nicodemus teaches me something vital about grace: God patiently honors the pace of our courage. It took him the entire gospel narrative to publicly embrace Christ. And Christ received this late, costly devotion with perfect acceptance.
So today, I ask myself again, “How much does seventy-five pounds really weigh?”
Perhaps it weighs exactly as much as our willingness to finally be seen.
Reflection:
What part of your faith remains hidden, quietly protected? What would be your equivalent of carrying seventy-five pounds of spices openly into the daylight? Consider one tangible step you can take this week toward visibly aligning your actions with your deepest convictions.
Prayer:
Beloved God, I feel the weight of Nicodemus’s spices in my own arms—the weight of authenticity, vulnerability, courage. Thank you for patiently guiding my hesitant steps toward deeper faithfulness. Give me courage today, even in small ways, to carry my convictions openly into the light, trusting fully that your love meets me there. Amen.