Saturday 19th April Holy Saturday

St Luke 23: 50 – 56

Now there was a good and righteous man named Joseph, who, though a member of the council,  had not agreed to their plan and action. He came from the Jewish town of Arimathea, and he was waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.  Then he took it down, wrapped it in a linen cloth, and laid it in a rock-hewn tomb where no one had ever been laid.  It was the day of Preparation, and the sabbath was beginning. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid.  Then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments. On the sabbath they rested according to the commandment.

Reflection

“One day a company of people will make their way to a churchyard, and lay a coffin in the ground, and then all go home again. Except that one of them will not come back, and that will be me.” Those words were written by a famous Christian thinker of a few decades ago, Karl Barth. Death waits for us all. It is a natural part of being human, the full stop at the end of the story.

Holy Saturday, the day he lay buried, is part of the natural story of Jesus. He entered fully into our human experience, right up to the ebbing away of life. The word became flesh, and flesh is perishable, not permanent.

Yet our human flesh is made to carry the image of God. It deserves to be treated with respect, even in death. Joseph, a man of rank and sympathetic to Jesus’ cause, decides to offer this. A shroud and a new tomb bring some decency and dignity. Joseph’s is a discipleship of grief, but of generosity too.

As it is for the women who walked with Jesus from Galilee. In sorrow and love they follow the little cortege, watch the burial, prepare gifts to tend and scent Jesus’ body, and wait in quiet readiness until it is time to bring these to the grave.

These disciples, doing the last things they can, speak to me of seasons when change, loss or disappointment assail us, when the best we can achieve and offer to God is far less than we would once have hoped. Yet the best we can give is always worthwhile. As so often with God, even if the full stop seems to be all that is left to write, this is not the end of the story.

Prayer

God of Holy Saturday, 
thank you for entering our weakness, 
for sharing our flesh and our frailty, 
our days and our dying. 
Thank you that when we step through the door of death, 
we shall walk a path that already carries the footprints of Jesus. 
Whom we name as risen Lord, 
and in whose name we pray. Amen.