"There came also Nicodemus," says John, "he who at the first came to Him by night." Yes, that night which John could not forget, in which to this same Nicodemus Jesus made known the Gospel of God's love, manifested in the gift of His Son whose body in that hour these timid yet emboldened members of the Sanhedrin took down from the cross. They were sincere mourners with him who watched their tender care as they "bound it in linen cloths with the spices" for burial, with no thought of a resurrection. Perhaps Joseph and Nicodemus recalled moments in the Sanhedrin when they whispered together, speaking kindly of Jesus, but were afraid to defend Him aloud; thus silently giving a seeming consent to evil deeds because timidity concealed their friendship. But at last the very enmity and cruelty of His murderers emboldened them as they met at the cross. It is John who tells us that Jesus the night before His crucifixion went "where was a garden into which He entered," and who also says, "Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden." The one was ever more suggestive to him of a coming trial; the other of that trial past. "There," in the garden--probably that of Joseph--John says "they laid Jesus." There also were laid John's hopes, which seemed forever buried when Joseph "rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed." What a contrast in his thoughts and feelings between the rolling _away_ of the stone from the tomb of Lazarus, and the rolling _to_ that of Jesus. The one told him of resurrection; but the other of continued death; for as he afterward confessed, "as yet" he and Peter "knew not that Jesus must rise from the dead." Two mourners at least lingered at the closed tomb. "Mary Magdalene was there, and the other Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre" of their Lord, after they "beheld where He was laid." John's parting from them at that evening hour was in sadness which was to be deepened when he met Mary Magdalene again.