“Those who are sowing in tears…will sing when they reap.”
–Psalm 126
I wonder if Nicodemus … and Joseph of Arimathea … might perhaps have had Psalm 126 in mind when they retrieved Christ’s broken bloodied body from the cross.
What did they think they were doing? How did their love of Jesus, their faith in him, survive the horror of the day?
Neither man knew to hope in the resurrection: it had not yet occurred.
So why risk fortune and status to extend a simple courtesy to an executed criminal? Why petition Pilate for the body? Why not just scurry-on-home in sadness and futility, as so many other disciples had done?
Perhaps they’d come to love Mary as much as they loved Jesus … and wanted to apply this soothing balm to her broken heart. Perhaps that explains it.
But here’s what I notice in this “Holy Saturday” moment: Joseph and Nicodemus acted from the heart, not the head. They heard the Spirit stirring in the stillness. And ever-obedient, they wrapped the sacred body in linen.
The very same cloth … that would give witness to the resurrection in the empty tomb.
Help us, Lord, to learn from Nicodemus and Joseph this day. Help us to pause … and ponder … your Paschal Mystery. And the invitation you extend to each of us … to participate in it.
Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.
IHS
With Us Still 