JESUS’ CRUCIFIXION RIPPED APART space and matter and time. “At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.” (Matt. 27:51-53) This changed everything. It changed the relationship of mankind with God, it changed the destiny of nations, and it changed individual lives.
Joseph of Arimathea was one of at least two so changed, the other being Nicodemus, who were members of the Sanhedrin favorable to Jesus. Luke describes him as “a member of the Council, a good and upright man, who had not consented to their decision and action.” (Luke 23:50-51a) He is also, significantly, “waiting for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 23:51b) His concern for honoring Jesus is touching at a personal level, but beyond that, he knows something indefinable by scripture to us, but sensed in his actions. He is an important enough figure, apparently quite wealthy, to approach the governor directly and receive deferential treatment. “Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body.” (Luke 23:52)
Another faction of the Sanhedrin raised strident objections. “The chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate to give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. ‘Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.’” (Matt. 27:62-64)
Joseph, however, had already gone from Pilate’s mansion and trudged back up the hill of Golgotha to minister to Jesus’ body. “Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen cloth and placed it in a tomb cut in the rock, one in which no one had yet been laid.” (Luke 23:53) Certainly he must have had help, perhaps one or more of his own servants. There is a tenderness and a reverence here that is palpable. There is also an underlying sense of urgency. Jesus died at about 3pm on Friday, and in the three or four hours before sunset, Joseph had hurried to Pilate from Golgotha, probably had to work his way through a few layers of bureaucracy to meet with the governor, then return to Jesus’ cross, and now has to have the body of Jesus in the tomb before sunset, when all work ceases for the Sabbath. “It was Preparation Day, and the Sabbath was about to begin.” (Luke 23:54)
Joseph of Arimathea’s life has been changed by all of his interactions with Jesus. Scripture accords him this high honor, the burial of Jesus, and we hear of him no more. Pilate, who thought some of his major problems had ended with the death of Jesus, will find instead that his burden of governance only grows exponentially more difficult. The high priest and the rest of the Sanhedrin, who thought the death of Jesus would preserve the theocracy and the nation, instead have sown the seeds of destruction that will bear such bitter fruit in 68-70 A.D., when Titus Andronicus, the Roman general and future emperor, lays waste not just Jerusalem, but the entire country, and scatters the Jews into the final Diaspora that will last two thousand years.
The day of Jesus’ death, however, is not yet over; there is even more to this story. Gathered around Jesus’ cross this cataclysmic day are many spectators, some jeering, some mourning. Even though all the apostles except John had scattered, many of Jesus’ faithful disciples are here. This includes some women followers, and his own mother, Mary. Their lives, also, are changed. Luke tells us that, “The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it.” (Luke 23:55) They are witnesses to Jesus’ torture, his agonizing climb up the Via Dolorosa, hear and see the spikes driven through his flesh to impale him to the cross, and watch the torment of his dying, hear his last words, and watch him die. They have waited, watching, weeping, for his body to come down; when Joseph faithfully appears to complete that task, they follow, for to them remains the final task of preparing the body for burial.
They will wash Jesus’ body, anoint it with oils, and then layer as much as seventy pounds of spices and aromatics in wrap after wrap of linen, all as a matter of honoring the dead. These were common burial practices of the open-air mausoleums so prevalent at that time. In the dry desert air, the aromatics would cloak the powerful scent of decay, and the flesh would rot, leaving only bones that would then, perhaps after two or three years, be gathered into an ossuary and stored in a family crypt.
The lives of these women, especially Mary, have been utterly destroyed by the events of this day, but that too is about to change. Not yet, for three days must pass in order for their mourning to turn to joy, and for redemption to shine forth for mankind. But today, now, there are only two things that they can and must do. The first is to mourn; from this, there is no apparent escape, only the bitterness of death of hope. The second is to exercise in faith the practices of the religion to which they were born and adhere—though that, too, is about to change. They return to their homes as the sun begins to dip below the horizon, but once the last light is gone, they must cease their activities. “Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.” (Luke 23:56)
Every world religion has its faith practices, its doctrines and dogmas. In the continuum between pathos and pain, joy, sorrow, and suffering, it is these practices that give a meaningful cadence to life, a pattern to follow when the mind and spirit are overwhelmed. It is the way in which we protect our souls from disintegration. The life and death of Jesus Christ, but especially his resurrection, did not change world religions; instead, it supplanted all of them with the highest cosmological truth. “God is love” (1 John 4:8), and, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) It is in this highest order of the revelation of God that our faith practices become our trustworthy pathway through this world to the next; only in this way can the heart of men and women be assuaged from the pain of suffering, and only here do we find joy despite it all. There is, for us, the joy of eternity that tempers the travails of this life. “Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.” (James 1:12) For now, in the words of a friend and brother long-passed, “Praise the Lord anyway.”
Q. Can I be tested past my measure of faith; if so, what happens then?
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