…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.
— John 19:38-42
A small act of mercy on the part of Joseph of Arimathea meant that Jesus’ limp and lifeless body would not be thrown into a pit of a grave, but laid carefully in a rock-hewn garden tomb. Joseph was probably a man with significant conflicts. Wealthy and a prominent member of the Jewish council, he represented the very establishment that was committed to Jesus’ demise. Yet he believed in Jesus, secretly. To believe in Jesus does put one on the spot. Being a committed disciple of Jesus always upsets the status quo.
Nicodemus, also fearful but compelled, came to the tomb as well. So two men with associations that put them at odds with Jesus, but who really wanted to believe, are the ones who respectfully wrap the body in cloths and 75 pounds of spices. Yet the only thing that can really take away the stench of death and its empty stare is resurrection.
These two men and the other disciples were still stuck in that no man’s land between life and death. All Jesus’ followers had to hold on to were Jesus’ vague words about rising from death. Could such words be taken seriously? What would they do during these days of waiting? Would they be arrested? And so they waited behind locked doors because there was nothing else to do.
Ponder This: Is there some way in which you are waiting to see what will happen next? How will you find faith in the waiting place?
