Episode Transcript
PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Abba, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Abba, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
John 19:38–42 (NIV)
Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.
CONSIDER THIS
So many horrible things had happened to Jesus and in a very short period of time. His disciples were likely shocked that such a person—a gentle and gifted teacher, a caring miracle worker and friend, and one who loved the Holy One of Israel so deeply and in an exemplary way—would meet such a tragic and abrupt end. And yet it was so. All his disciples were gone by now, even the beloved disciple who earlier had been with Mary, his mother, at the cross. A couple of days later, by the first day of the week, the disciples were hiding together behind closed doors “for fear of the Jewish leaders” (John 20:19). Who would be next? they probably wondered.
When those convicted of crimes against Rome—such as sedition, insurrection, or treason—were crucified, their bodies were normally left to rot on the pole, to be swarmed by flies and other insects, and to be picked apart by ravenous birds of prey. By this practice, Rome intended to magnify both the degradation and the shame for the ones so condemned. After this, the body would be removed and dumped in a common grave for criminals. But that would not be the case here. Enough! By the grace of God, Joseph of Arimathea, who was able to overcome his fear of the Jewish leaders, and in a way that the disciples of Jesus, themselves, obviously had not, stepped forward and asked Pilate if he could take the body away for a proper burial. Probably not thinking very much of the contrived charges leveled against Jesus by the Jerusalem leadership, Pilate agreed.
Joseph of Arimathea was a rich man (Matt. 27:57), a member of the Council, the Sanhedrin (Luke 23:50), as well as a secret disciple of Jesus. But can one really be a secret disciple of Jesus? How does that work? At any rate, although all four Gospels take note of him, he was nevertheless a mysterious figure who is suddenly introduced in our text to play his specific role, and then he just as quickly vanishes from the scene. In his work, however, of caring for the body of Christ, he was joined by a far less mysterious figure who surfaced three times in the Gospel of John, but not at all in the Synoptic Gospels. Who was this man? It was none other than Nicodemus, a Pharisee, who had come to Jesus much earlier at night and who had exclaimed: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him” (John 3:2). Nicodemus and Jesus had gone back and forth in terms of the important question, especially for a religious leader like Nicodemus: Just what does it mean to be born again?
A person of means, Nicodemus brought with him a considerable amount of spices, lavish in some respects, so that he and Joseph could wrap the body, interlacing strips of linen with the myrrh and aloes. This was a Jewish custom in preparation for burial. In contrast, the Egyptians disemboweled the body and placed the organs in separate canisters before they mummified the corpse. Joseph and Nicodemus didn’t have these additional tasks in preparing the body, but they nevertheless had to work quickly because the Sabbath was approaching when no work could be done at all.
The courage of both Joseph and Nicodemus, as they performed the Jewish burial customs, was remarkable, but their actions also came at an additional cost as well: that is, by coming into contact with a dead body, this would render them both unclean, ritually unfit, to celebrate the upcoming Passover meal. Jewish law was very clear and strict on this point. However, basic human decency, making sure that a good person such as Jesus would have a proper burial, overcame any considerations of fear or concerns about ritual purity. If Joseph and Nicodemus had been secret disciples of Jesus in the past out of fear, then they were clearly secret disciples no longer, but this time out of love. The cross had a couple of its earliest converts, beyond the thief on the cross. Together Joseph and Nicodemus made it known publicly that Jesus, the crucified, would not be subject to the usual after-death arrangements of Rome’s crucified. The body of Jesus would be treated with respect.
If we examine a map of Jerusalem during the first century, we can see not only the place where Jesus was crucified at Golgotha, just outside the city walls of Jerusalem, and west of the temple, but we can also see the supposed garden of Joseph of Arimathea just slightly northwest of the crucifixion site. In that garden was a fresh tomb, owned by Joseph himself (Matt. 27:60), in which no one had ever been laid. Joseph and Nicodemus, therefore, hurried and placed the body of Jesus in that tomb, one that was actually fit for a king, for the day of Preparation was almost over.
In the many details of the burial of Jesus—such as avoiding the Roman dump for criminals, having the body prepared in accordance with Jewish burial customs with an extravagant amount of spices used, and by being placed in the fresh tomb of a wealthy man—all of these elements together pointed in the direction that the slander, the mocking, the insults, the character assassination, and the hateful designs directed at Jesus would finally be over. At last! If we thought this, however, we would be wrong, dead wrong. Indeed, the kind of strong aversion and animus harbored by the religious leaders against Jesus throughout his ministry didn’t just go away after his death. It lingered. To be sure, even after Jesus was dead and buried, some of the religious leaders, the chief priests, and Pharisees, in particular, just couldn’t stop the slander or the badmouthing—and all of this bad behavior was driven not only by fear, the usual culprit, but also by an enormous concern for their own situation and prerogatives. The Gospel of Matthew provides us with the sorry details:
The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ So 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.”
“Take a guard,” Pilate answered. “Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.” So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard. (27:62–66, emphasis added)
After all that Jesus had suffered at the hand of the religious leadership, and after what he had uttered on the cross in a generous and gracious spirit, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34), what did the religious leaders themselves do? They turned around and called Jesus a “deceiver,” even after he was dead, as the one who probably along with his disciples had helped to plan the “last deception.” Attributing such intentions to Jesus (and others) actually says something about the chief priests and the Pharisees, those who had concocted such things out of their own imagination and fears, but it tells us nothing—absolutely nothing—about Jesus. Christ was no deceiver. The ministry of the Lord had been open, public, and full of light. To fail to recognize that simple truth would entail measures of spiritual darkness, a darkness that could be felt.
THE PRAYER
Father, may we be counted among those who faithfully glorify the name of your Son among the earth. Save us from the deception of the enemy and align us to the truth of your gospel. Fill us with your Spirit that we might be your ambassadors in all places.
