The Gray Monk

Good Friday Service of Devotion
April, 1999

St Lawrence, Bourton on the Water

Joseph of Arimathea
“Burying the Christ”

Matthew 27: v 57 - 60

“As evening approached, there came a rich man of Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus. Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him. Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and placed it in his own tomb, that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away.”

“Hear Oh Israel, the Lord your God is one God; Blessed be the Name of the Lord and great is his gift to his people Israel. For He that is mighty has given great things to all who believe in Him and worship his name, to their enemies He has brought shame and despair, blessed is His Holy Name above all Names. Behold my children, the Lord has given and the Lord has taken away, Blessed is the Name of the Lord and blessed is His faithful servant Yeshua ben Youssef here returned to the God of his fathers and of Moses. Bless the Name of the Lord and give thanks for His mercy on his people Israel. May His will always be our guide.”

I am an old man, awaiting my time to depart this life and be judged by my God. I have served my people and the Law of Moses for all of my life until this day. From today I stand revealed as a follower of him whose death I now mourn, a death which has made me stand away from the Council of which I was member. To reveal that no more can I be of the same mind as those who have argued that this Man of God was a deceiver, a false Messiah seeking to lead our people astray. I have long been a secret disciple with Nicodemus and others. I have listened to his discourse on every aspect of our faith, our relationship with our God, and on our observance in worship and of the Law. No longer can I remain secret; with Nicodemus I now stand revealed and my life is now his, my life is from now no longer mine but Yeshua’s for as long as I may continue.

It was no easy thing to do. To go publicly to Pilate and ask for the body of this son of my friend, my pupil, and then my teacher. I have been secret in following him for fear of losing the esteem of my fellow councillors, the people who work for me and whose opinion meant so much to me in my own community in Arimathea. In going to Pilate I have revealed my fellowship with Yeshua and his followers. Pilate could not refuse me, in truth he was angry with the Sanhedrin for causing him to be involved at all. I think he gave me the body as much to anger them as to please me. Such favours do not come cheaply, and I know that a suitable donation will have to be made in return at some time. But, I could not do otherwise. Youssef and Mariam have been my friends since I took them into Egypt soon after Yeshua was born, and Yeshua has been to me both son I have never had and teacher of my soul in my age. Nicodemus, too, has forsaken much to help me render what is proper to a son and kinsman killed in treachery.

It is only now that I see that he was always my teacher, even before he reached his manhood; he was wise and old ahead of his years. He traveled with me on my trading journeys, learning the languages that I trade in, seeing the peoples who surround us, and speaking with their wise men. When I ceased to travel, he returned to his father Youssef, and made Youssef’s craft his own. Strange how only now can we see that the stones he cut, the wood he fashioned was always better cut and better fashioned than any other. It was almost as if it sought to fashion itself to his will as he worked. Even then he stood apart, he was different; with an inner purpose and a strength that comes not from human experience, but from the experience of God. As the Centurion charged with the killing said at the cross, “This man was truly the Son of God.”

It has been a strange day and I am old and tired. Forgive an old man in his grief and hear my testimony. My part has been small in this great venture. I have contributed money when it was needed to enable the work to be done and now I give the tomb which should have seen my body before ever it saw His. Many will talk of this day in time to come in wonder and awe. There will also be those who will try to explain it away and deny it happened. It did, although I was not here until late, I was not here when the Sanhedrin met, neither was Nicodemus; we hurried here when word reached us last night, but arrived only in time to witness the crucifixion and could do little but watch as he died. At that moment it seemed as if the sun itself darkened. There was no cloud in the sky, it was as if some great and invisible host had gathered in front of it to receive him. The ground itself trembled and it is said that the veil in the Holy of Holies has been torn, but the priests say this is because of poor workmanship in the hanging of it. In the end there was nothing I could do but bury him.

So might Joseph of Arimathea have spoken to an inquisitive newsman if challenged on his role in the events of Good Friday. The gospels tell us little of the man or of the things that happened to him after these events. He is not mentioned in any of the later Acts of the Apostles or the letters. Yet, from the little we are told and from other contemporary sources there is a great deal that can be deduced or pieced together. We know he was one of the leaders of the Jewish nation, a member of the Sanhedrin, the Council which ruled on all matters of the Law. The councillors themselves were appointed by the Roman Procurator, who also appointed the Chief Priest and his assistants. As a body they represented the ruling classes of the Jewish Nation, the people of power, wealth and learning.

Joseph was a man well connected both with the Roman administration and with the Tetrarchy of Herod’s sons. He was also a man of considerable wealth, and there are suggestions that his trade links extended to Spain in the West and to at least the Arabian Gulf in the East. To hold the position of councillor in the Sanhedrin he would have also been a man of the Law, well versed not only in the Law of Moses but also of the myriad laws which extended it into every aspect of existence. To have access to Pilate himself as quickly as this he would have had to have been known in the Procurators court and almost certainly was sufficiently well respected by that worthy to be able to risk asking the unthinkable. Under Roman law, those who had been crucified did not get private burial - they were simply flung into a communal pit, denied any funeral rites and thus any future chance of becoming any sort of icon for potential trouble makers.

That Pilate consented to Joseph’s request tells us a great deal about his standing in the eyes of the authorities. Whatever his standing with the authorities he could no longer be a “secret disciple” - from now on he was out in the open, a supporter of the man who had claimed to be the Messiah, the Christ. Both he and Nicodemus were now marked men, their own would now shun them and even their families might be the target of attempts to discredit them, yet the events of the crucifixion had brought them out of the shadows and into the main arena.

Our four gospels all contain a version of this event, some giving a little more detail than others. Luke tells us that Joseph and Nicodemus must have been absent from the council that condemned Christ, since “they had not consented” yet the council's decision was unanimous. Luke also tells us that “he was waiting for the Kingdom of God” a phrase that can have two distinct meanings, either he was already old and expecting to die soon, or, he belonged to a Messianic sect. This latter is unlikely since, as a member of the Sanhedrin, he could hardly have subscribed to one of the many sects which at this time were advocating violent revolution. John tells us that Nicodemus provided 75 pounds of the spices for burial, yet these do not appear to have been used immediately, since the other three tell us that the women, after seeing where Joseph placed the body, went away to prepare the spices.

Joseph’s story is important for us today because of what it says of so many of us. In many ways we are all “secret disciples”; we do not do much more to proclaim the faith and the gospel than attend church, the odd house group, and maybe acknowledge that we are among the dwindling numbers who still go to church on Sunday. For many of us it is the same dilemma that Joseph faced; if I admit to being a Jesus Freak it may damage my career, my standing in the eyes of my friends, and the society I move in. Certainly, for Joseph, this would have been a very real consideration; his whole life, his entire reputation as a Jew, a man of the Law, and a member of the Council was on the line. His courage in stepping forward and exposing himself to the anger and possibly the revenge of the Sanhedrin in securing a decent burial for Christ cannot be underrated; it is an act of courage we, who have so much less to risk, would do well to emulate.

Now, as we contemplate the broken body of the Son of God, the Man of Sorrows who has died to secure us the benefits of the love of his Father and ours, let us join Joseph and Nicodemus as they take Christ down from the cross, wrap the body, and place it in the tomb Joseph has had prepared for himself.

“Hear O Israel, the Lord thy God is good, the Lord gives, the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Let us pray

Father, hear our prayer and forgive us.
Unstop our ears that we may receive the gospel of the cross.
Lighten our eyes that we may see your glory in the face of your Son.
Penetrate our minds that your truth may make us whole.
Give us grace to have the courage to risk all as Joseph and Nicodemus did in your service, we ask this in His name who died for us, Amen

Job said;

I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes behold, and not another.

In the midst of life we are in death; of whom may we seek succour, but of thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased?
Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts; shut not thy merciful ears to our prayer; but, spare us O Lord most holy, O God most mighty, thou most worthy Judge eternal, suffer us not, at our last hour to fall from thee.

Let us say together the prayer that he who died for us taught;

Our Father,
Which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name,
Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done,
On earth as it is in Heaven,
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation
but, deliver us from evil,
For thine is the Kingdom
The power and the Glory
For ever and ever
Amen

Hymn : 464 : Take my life and let it be, consecrated, Lord to thee.