During the 50 Days of Easter, my blog will be musings by Joseph of Arimathea on the amazing happenings of the time between Easter and Pentecost--between the Resurrection and the Coming of the Holy Spirit on the disciples. Enter with me into this imagined series of recollections by Joseph. (The image today is from the Saint John’s Bible.)
Confused, stunned, and not a little worried by the stories from the guards and Salome, I sought out my friend Nicodemus.
“Jesus was dead,” I stated to Nicodemus. “We held and buried the dead body. Yet here is the shroud empty and the body gone.” I held out the evidence taken from my empty tomb. “I know he was dead. The beating, the crucifixion, the lance thrust—all the evidence of that is here in the blood on the cloth.”
Nicodemus and I examined the linen although there was nothing to be gained by that. Despite a long conversation, we could not come to any conclusion. I was just as confused when I left his house as when I arrived.
The only thing my friend could offer was the reminder of prophecies in our holy writings. “You will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay,” he had quoted Psalm 16 with a hopeful look.
I wandered toward home, then abruptly turned to the Garden
tomb. Surely, I had missed some piece of evidence of tampering.
Johanna was kneeling by the open tomb. She looked up when the
gravel crunched under my feet. I knew very little about her except that her
husband Chuza was steward in Herod’s household, and she had been one of the
women who followed Jesus.
“Jesus is risen and has appeared to Mary!” I was not
prepared for her words.
“What do you mean?” There was a tinge of harshness in my
question. The claim could not be true. No one could come to life after crucifixion,
much less be seen.
“We women found the grave empty this morning. Salome and I
fled in terror. Mary of Magdala stayed behind. Later she told us what
happened.” There was a long pause. “You may find this hard to believe,” the
woman glanced at me.
“I know the grave is empty. I saw that.” My curt reply brought a nod
and raised eyebrow from my visitor.
“Mary told us that she couldn’t leave the Garden until she
knew who took the body. She said that through her tears she saw a man approach.
‘Why are you weeping?’ he asked. ‘Where have you taken my Lord? Tell me and I
will take him away.’ she responded.”
Salome paused, gazing into the distance.
“That was courageous of her,” I commented, wondering just
how the woman planned to carry away Jesus’ body.
Salome looked up, as if remembering I was there. After a
deep breath she continued, “Then this man said ‘Mary.’ She told us that no one
but Jesus ever said her name in that tone. ‘I knew it was Jesus!’ she told us
with such a radiance in her face that no one could doubt. She said he told her
to ‘go and tell my brothers to meet me in Galilee.’ The men didn’t believe
until they saw the empty tomb. Even then they weren’t sure what to think.”
“I don’t know either,” I admitted.
Johanna nodded, “It is hard to understand, much less
believe. But Jesus told us that he would rise on the third day.”
I wished I could think of some argument to refute this,
although I found myself strangely hoping it could somehow be true. Throughout
the day, I mulled over what I knew of the Rabbi and his teachings. As Nicodemus
said, there was much in his work that reflected the old prophets. But no one
could rise from the dead. Then I remembered hearing that Jesus himself had
brought Lazarus of Bethany back to life. It left me more mystified than ever.
Late in the day I sought out the Upper Room where the
disciples were staying. They let me in, bolting the door behind me. I could see
that they were just as bewildered by the events as I was. They seemed to be
preparing to leave Jerusalem.
“We are going to Galilee,” James told me. “It is what we
were told to do by the angel the women saw.”
Mary of Magdala seemed unfazed by the preparations, and
serenely joyful. When I asked, she repeated the story I heard from Johanna.
Her confidence was impossible to refute. I wished I could
stop seeing the man as the corpse that we had laid in my tomb. I wished I could
believe he was alive.
In the evening we were stunned by another report of Jesus. Cleopas
and a friend had headed out of Jerusalem that morning. They returned after
sunset, bursting with news.
“Jesus met us on the road,” they insisted.
Cleopas noted, “We didn’t recognize him at first.”
I saw Mary nod in understanding. She smiled slightly and
raised her head to gaze upward, pressing her hands together as if in prayer.
“Along the way this stranger told us about the many things
in the scriptures that explain Messiah. Then, at the inn, we asked him to stay
with us and dine. Instead, he took the bread, blessed and broke it. It was just
the way Jesus did every time we ate as a group. Then he was gone. We had to
return and tell you all about it.”
Peter stood up. “Thank you, my brothers for your report.
Indeed, Jesus has been seen by us in this very room despite the door being
locked. He showed us his hands and side. We are to go to Galilee.”
I was surprised to hear of this appearance, but I didn’t think it would be polite to question Peter in front of his friends.
Thomas stood up and gestured wildly. “I think you are
delusional. Unless I see the marks of the nails and put my hand into his side,
I cannot believe.”
Everyone looked at him in stunned silence. It was Mary who
responded. “You will have that opportunity. Jesus won’t exclude you just
because you were at the market earlier when He came.”
The man looked at her, his brows drawn together. “We will
see.”
I left the group to their preparations. As I walked the dark
streets of Jerusalem to my own home, I had much to think about. I wondered if I
dared to believe that Jesus might be alive. But what would such a thing mean
for my faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? What would it mean for
the people of Israel?
