HOLY WEEK REFLECTIONS
Saturday 30th March
The Burial of Jesus - Matthew 27:57-66
So Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth. He laid it in his own new tomb, which he had carved out of the rock. Then he rolled a large stone across the doorway of the tomb, and went away.
Matthew 27:59-60
Rev. Wayne Dulson writes:
This would have been a strange day. After the events of yesterday, the brutality and the horror of the crucifixion, today would have been a day of limbo. It was the Sabbath so it was a day when nothing could be done, no work of any kind. It was a day of waiting for those women who would go tomorrow to prepare Jesus’ body for complete burial.
Many of us will know this feeling. When someone close to you has died and you have the period before the funeral. This is especially felt the morning after your loved one has died and you have the first full day without them.
I can remember the day my mum died. It was a Saturday and as she died very early in the morning I had a full day ahead of me, once I had learnt of her death at around 4.30 in the morning. It was a surreal day that was marked with huge sadness and pain and also a realisation that life was now very different.
In some respects I felt like I had walked into a tomb of grief and also a tomb of orphanage, as while I was an adult, I now had no parents alive. It was a tomb where I felt all that had grounded me and given me my earthly life was now gone, which in truth took a while to navigate.
On this Saturday while Jesus was in the tomb may have felt similar for those who loved Jesus. Maybe they had thought that even when he was on the cross Jesus was somehow going to do something amazing that would have negated the need for a tomb for a dead body.
It is interesting that while no work was permitted on the Sabbath the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate and asked him if they could make the tomb more secure than it would have been. Interesting for two reasons:
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When Jesus was alive they had constantly berated him about what he did on the Sabbath and was it work … and yet now when they are concerned, we find they are doing something that could be construed as work.
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While all who loved Jesus are mourning today and we will see some women go to the tomb tomorrow to prepare his body these opposers of Jesus are worried that his body will not be there because Jesus said he would rise on the third day.
Personally I wonder if they are really concerned about Jesus’ body being stolen or if they are wondering if there may have been some truth is what Jesus had said.
After all the reality that Jesus rose from the dead is central to what it means to be an apprentice of Jesus, but why?
For me, the truth that Jesus escaped the tomb of death speaks to me on two levels:
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That there is the offer of eternal life for those who love Jesus.
This gives me hope but it also gives me assurance that those who I love who have died have not stayed in their tombs of death.
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It also speaks to me about the situations I face in life that can feel like tombs.
For it says to me that if Jesus escaped the tomb of death then he has the power to help me escape those tombs in my life that try to hold me captive.
And so while today is a day of waiting for the joy of tomorrow, because I live post the resurrection, I can live in the present with awe and hope for a resurrection to occur in my own life. This means that I can put to death the things in my life that entomb me as opposed to the things in my life that entomb me, putting me to death.
So Jesus escaping from the tomb is not only central to my faith but it inspires me to live my life now, daily, in all circumstances. I can confidently rise from that which would entomb me and live again, fully live!
Prayer:
Jesus thank you that you were willing to spend time in the tomb to show me that you didn’t stay there. Thank you for showing me that you know what it is like to be entombed by circumstances in life. But thank you that I know tomorrow is coming and this means that today is momentary and one day it will pass. May I be willing to be led out of my tomb by your powerful hand and so tomorrow, even if my circumstances feel like a tomb, I may celebrate because you have the power to one day bring me out.
Amen.