Thoughts for the Day

When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who was also a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus; then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. So Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb.

The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, ‘Sir, we remember what that impostor said while he was still alive, “After three days I will rise again.” Therefore command that the tomb be made secure until the third day; otherwise his disciples may go and steal him away, and tell the people, “He has been raised from the dead”, and the last deception would be worse than the first.’ Pilate said to them, ‘You have a guard of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you can.’ So they went with the guard and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone.

(Lectionary New Revised Standard Version)

Thoughts

Before sunset on the Day of Preparation, Jesus' body was taken down from the cross. If there was no one to claim the body of a crucified person it was left there. Since Jesus' family and friends came from Galilee there would have been no grave prepared in Jerusalem, so it is fortuitous that Joseph of Arimathea steps forward. He is obviously a rich man to own a new unused tomb, but it was a generous gesture by this disciple.

In Jerusalem today at the Garden Tomb we can see how it might have looked after the body of Jesus was placed there. Outside the entrance there is a deep groove which supports a large round stone that would be rolled across after the body was placed inside. It would have taken a few men to put this in place.

The most bizarre occurrence though happens on the Jewish sabbath, on the Saturday. John has mentioned in his gospel that the Jewish leaders spoke to Pilate outside his Headquarters before Jesus' death and before the sabbath, but now on the sabbath Matthew just says that they go to see Pilate. They are prepared to break all the sabbath laws and make themselves ritually unclean to stop anyone taking the body of Jesus away. So Pilate orders a guard, which in Roman terms is a minimum of four soldiers, all fully armed, and a Roman seal to be placed across the entrance. Anyone breaking that would be faced with the full might of Roman Law.

So all is quiet during the Saturday - the Eve of Easter. The body of our Lord rests in the coolness of the stone tomb! It is a day for us to reflect on all that has happened in the week and prepare ourselves for the morning.

Lord Jesus Christ,
You were to defeat death
and overcome evil,
and give up Your life for us,
You call us this day
to pause awhile in expectation
of that first Easter morning.
May we ready ourselves
with prayer and worship
for the moment that You
burst out of the tomb,
to rescue us from sin and death.
Amen.