My name is Joseph.  I come from Arimathea, in the Judean highlands.  I am a disciple of the Nazarene, Jesus, called Christ.  Ironic that this is the first time I’ve said that out loud.  Until now, I’ve followed him in secret, because…because (God forgive me), I was afraid of the authorities—both the Romans (which goes without saying) and my peers—the leaders of my own people.

Yet I am one of them—a prominent member of the supreme Jewish Council in Jerusalem, the Great Sanhedrin. I am one of 71 elites, the cream of Jewish society and the ultimate authority under Rome, in civil, criminal, and religious affairs.  But my vote was one they didn’t get that night, and I can’t have been the only one who didn’t endorse the unjust verdict and death sentence for Jesus.

So, what made me step out of the shadows and into the light, at last?  Why go public NOW, only AFTER I’d seen him die, nailed to a Roman cross in front of me?  Simple.  I HAD to.  Look, what happened to Jesus was such a travesty, an injustice so grotesque, it…it—well, SOMEONE had to care for him!

After the crowd drifted away, I couldn’t bear to see him hanging there a minute longer— so shamefully exposed, so cold and pale, so pitiful and still, with no one wiling to own him and none to give him burial.  What could I do?  There was nothing else to do but go straight to Pilate and ask him for the body—beg for it if I must.

A towering outrage gripped me.  Righteous indignation spurred me on to the Prefect’s residence.  Guilt at my silence wrestled with my grief the whole way there.  The three hours’ darkness, the earthquake, huge rocks splitting and graves opening up, the way that Jesus dismissed his spirit and died…it was all so unnerving.  I tell you, I was shaking—but I was no longer afraid.

My visit caught Pilate off guard, as other things seemed to have done that fateful day.  Due to my wealth and position I suspect, he came out to me and listened politely, if impatiently, to my greeting and explanation for coming to see him late in the day on the verge of the sabbath.  But he held up his hand when I actually petitioned him for Jesus’ body.

Pilate seemed startled and dubious that Jesus could have expired after “only” six hours on the cross.  He gave me no answer, instead exchanging whispered words with an aide, who departed immediately.  Soon thereafter, the soldier in charge of Jesus’ execution squad appeared.  He and the Procurator spoke briefly, after which Pilate was satisfied that Jesus was in fact, surely and safely dead.  Gesturing in my direction, Pilate curtly granted permission for Jesus’ body to be released to me.  Then, he headed back inside.  I was now in sole legal possession of the dead body of the hope of Israel. 

Now what?  My thoughts raced.  The sun was already low.  Sabbath would begin soon.  Fortunately, my own tomb, cut out of rock and brand new, was nearby.  I could use it.  But there was no time to properly prepare the body of Jesus for burial.  On the way to the tomb, I could at least buy a long sheet of linen to wrap it with.  I’d have to lay him in the grave, give him a quick ‘once over’ and leave the rest for later.  Roll the stone across the entrance and hurry home until after the sabbath.

As I started out, I ran into Nicodemus, a fellow Council member and clandestine follower of Jesus.  He offered to buy some spices for temporary use, and to help me move the body.  We couldn’t ask our servants to do it, because any contact with the dead would make them ceremonially unclean and like us, unable to eat the Passover meal.   My colleague and I were past caring, but it would have been most unfair of us to give orders that deprived others.

Upon returning from the markets, we moved quickly to collect Jesus’ remains.  Once his lifeless form was lowered within our reach, it was swiftly separated from the wood and the iron spikes which had held it in place and utterly helpless during the execution.  Lifting and shouldering, carrying and resting, pushing and pulling, we hoisted the body onto the back of a pack animal and soon arrived at the doorway to the tomb.

Lamps were lit, the linen sheet spread out and Jesus’ corpse carefully lain atop the fabric.  Nicodemus busied himself with the spices, while I took pitcher and basin and began to scrub down Jesus’ pallid flesh.  As I did so, I began to notice in grisly detail, just what this body had been through on its journey to this cramped place of grim death and silent repose.

I began by rolling him onto his side, so I could reach his back.  But I quickly abandoned that effort.  The scourging had been so savage that the skin and muscle were in ribbons—a tangled mess.  Then, gently and apologetically, I laid the body flat again, momentarily forgetting the fact that it was no longer capable of sensation.

There had been much blood on and below Jesus’ cross, even though the Romans had flogged him elsewhere.  The rags I was using quickly turned red, as did the water in my basin.  I began at the feet, each of which now carried a jagged hole from being secured to the cross with the nine-inch iron spikes used for the purpose by Rome.

The hands displayed similar wounds, where each had been separately pinioned at the wrist.  The thumbs bent inward where the nails had robbed them of their flexibility.  There were rope burns at the forearms and waist, where Jesus had been bound and led around like a criminal.

As I worked, my gaze traveled upward to the gaping hole in his side, rent by a spear thrust from below, confirming, rather than hastening his death.  The Romans were experienced killers who knew their brutal craft.  By piercing the heart, they left no chance of failing in their mission.

There were bruises all over the upper body.  The shoulders were rough and raw from carrying the crossbeam of his own instrument of humiliation and death.  Based on what I was seeing, the surprise was not that Jesus could not carry it all the way to Skull place, but that he had managed to carry it at all—a miracle of selfless, vulnerable, and boundless love in the teeth of vicious, unrelenting and pitiless hate.

At last my eyes were drawn involuntarily and irresistibly to Jesus’ face…or what had once been his face.  Not only did he scarcely resemble himself as he had looked in life, it is no exaggeration to say that he did not even look human.  His countenance was swollen, puffy, and discolored from obvious and fierce battery.

The hair that had once framed his face was dirty, matted with sweat and sputum and yes, more blood, especially where sharp thorns from a mocker’s “crown” had deeply lacerated and punctured his scalp.  His head was also knurled with welts, marking the impacts of a wooden soldier’s staff, a “scepter” placed in the hand of The King of the Jews, only to be yanked away for use as a cudgel with which to beat him.

I did my best to concentrate on the task at hand, despite the shock and horror of seeing my lord this way.  Through my tears, I dabbed at the face I had grown to love, with tender affection.  Yet I could hardly stifle the impulse to set a facecloth in place as fast as I could and flee from that awful chamber.

Softly but urgently, I slapped Nicodemus on the back with the flat of my hand, to hurry him along.  When he turned, I pointed to the entrance and the fading sunshine outside.  We both felt like traitors, prematurely taking our leave, yet there was nothing more we could do for Jesus at that moment.  So, we stepped out of the shadowy, cramped, and earthy tomb and into light, fresh air and open space.  We grunted and groaned until the stone was released, to grind and scrape along its groove and come to rest across the entrance.  Then we uttered a hasty prayer and scurried to our homes, vowing to return after sabbath.

Of course, we didn’t understand then, that Jesus’ agonizing suffering and death was endured on our behalf, that Christ shed His blood to pay the penalty for our sin.  We couldn’t conceive that the Messiah’s path to the throne of earth ran through humanity, through servanthood, through the cross, through the grave.  We couldn’t imagine that He would rise from the dead on the third day, even though the scriptures repeatedly predicted it and Jesus Himself promised it again and again.

We never credited God the Father with the love and ingenuity to come up with a plan like that, to save us through the willing sacrifice of His only begotten Son.  We never dreamt that God could justify us by His grace and make us righteous by faith, without setting aside or bending His law, or compromising His holiness to do it.

We couldn’t see how God could make eternal life with Him a free gift, bestowed on anyone and everyone who truly repents of their sin, calls on the name of the Lord and believes that God raised Him from the dead.  We didn’t realize that Jesus is coming again to fulfill God’s promises of an earthly kingdom that precedes His eternal kingdom.

All I knew for sure was that Jesus’ death was not the end—for Him or for us.  And I believed that if Jesus is stronger than death, I must bow to Him.  If Jesus is my Savior, I must thank Him.  If Jesus is God, I must worship Him.  If Jesus’ approval is all that matters, I must live that way.

HOW TO BE SAVED:

• Admit to God that you are a sinner (that you have not kept His moral law to perfection; in your thoughts, words, and actions you have done what His law forbids and have failed to do what His love demands).  This is seeing yourself from God’s point of view and agreeing that He is right about you.  Be as specific as you can.
• Believe in your heart that Jesus died for your sins and that God raised Him from the dead.
• Sincerely repent (turn away) from your sins, asking God to forgive you and to use His power to help you resist temptation, no matter how strong the pull of sin may be, at first.
• Acknowledge Jesus as the Lord of your life.  Invite Him to move into your heart and take up residence there, so that He can change you from the inside out.
• Trust His promise to save you and give you a new spiritual birth and a new nature (thoughts, desires, priorities, hopes, dreams, and character).

SOME KEY TRUTHS:

• “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”  (Romans 3:23)
• “As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one.”  (Romans 3:10)
• “For the wages of sin is death: but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”  (Romans 6:23)
• “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  (John 3:16)
• “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  (Romans 5:8)
• “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.”  (I Corinthians 15:3,4)
• “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” (John 1:12)
• “Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him…”  (Revelation 3:20)
• “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”  (Romans 10:13)
• “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.  For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”  (Romans 10:9-10)
• “Verily, verily, I say unto you; He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life; and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.”  (John 5:24)
• “But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing, ye might have life through his name.”  (John 20:31) 
• “These things I have written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.”  (I John 5:13)