The Taking Down From the Cross and the Burial

Scarcely had the chief priests left the praetorium with the wretched permission to shorten the lives of the crucified by a fresh instrument of torment, when another petitioner appeared before Pilate, wishing to obtain leave to take Jesus’s body down from the cross and bury it. This was Joseph of Arimathea. It will not seem out of place if we first say a few words about this holy man, to whom Providence granted the unique honor of rendering the Son of God Himself the last kindness of His earthly life.

Arimathea, Joseph’s homeland, is the ancient Haramathaim (1Sam 1:1), the birthplace of the prophet Samuel—or, more likely, Rama (in Syro-Chaldean, Armatha), a town in the tribe of Benjamin mentioned by St. Matthew (Mt 2:18). His great wealth (Mt 27:57) made Joseph a man of consequence at a time when everything in Jerusalem could be bought for money, from the office of the lowliest tax collector to the dignity of high priest. Besides this, Joseph belonged to the ranks of the most eminent members of the Sanhedrin (Mk 15:43; Lk 23:50), and, together with other right-minded counselors, probably formed within the Sanhedrin an opposition to Caiaphas’s own faction. This party of opposition, whose noble efforts to sustain their failing nation during the last civil strife before the destruction of Jerusalem are remembered so gratefully by the Jewish historian Josephus, sincerely cared for the good of the Jewish people. Neither honors nor riches, which led so many Sadducees to abandon all hope in Providence’s care for the Hebrew people, kept Joseph in the least from awaiting the Messiah’s coming, and sighing, with many true Israelites, for His holy kingdom (Lk 23:51; Mk 10:43). If, like the rest, he thought of that kingdom with certain prejudices, picturing it as earthly and worldly, he was not, like the rest, stubborn in his opinions; he sought instruction with zeal, and was always ready to listen to those who could disclose the truth to him. It was this very zeal that drew him close to Jesus Christ. Despite the fact that the Sanhedrin hated and persecuted the Prophet of Galilee, that the Heavenly Kingdom He proclaimed was wholly opposed to the earthly kingdom the Jewish people expected, that all His discourses concerned a spiritual poverty so distasteful to men possessed of this age’s goods—Joseph became a sincere follower and disciple of Jesus (Mt 27:57). This disciple’s shortcoming was that, fearing persecution by the chief priests, he kept his devotion to the Teacher, and his dealings with Him, secret (Jn 19:38)—a shortcoming excusable enough on the whole, since the Lord, sparing human weakness and foreseeing the ill consequences for Joseph, did not require of him, or those like him, that they acknowledge Him publicly as the Messiah, still less stand up for Him in the Sanhedrin. In the Sanhedrin’s final actions against Jesus Christ, as well as in His trial, Joseph took no part (Lk 23:51)—either because, seeing no way to save the innocent man, he did not wish to witness His condemnation, or because the chief priests’ own cunning found a way to exclude him entirely from the matter. Yet such inaction, at the very moment when Jesus’s fate was being decided in so terrible a manner, must have weighed heavily on a noble heart, ashamed of the faintheartedness of leaving an innocent man undefended, even when one knows he cannot be saved.

Among the extraordinary events that followed Jesus Christ’s death, one must count this too: that His secret disciples were suddenly filled with extraordinary courage. Disregarding the shame of declaring himself, before the whole Jewish people, a follower of a Jesus already executed, Joseph firmly resolved to render Him a last duty of friendship and respect—to save, at least, the mortal remains of his Teacher from disgrace.

This resolve carried no small danger—not from Pilate, from whom a favorable response to a request on Jesus’s behalf might well be expected, since he considered Him a righteous man—but from the chief priests, who saw, in the slightest sign of respect for Jesus Christ, an act of defiance against their own designs, and who could regard an attempt to bury Him with honor as nothing less than a challenge to the Sanhedrin—all the more dangerous now that it was being made by a distinguished member of the Sanhedrin itself, whose example carried great weight with a people already devoted to Jesus’s memory.

Yet Joseph, having once and for all set aside his fear, appeared in the Roman praetorium with a boldness (Mk 15:43) befitting his magnanimity. His request was, for Pilate, the first news that Jesus Christ had already died. The hegemon was greatly surprised at so swift a death, for he knew from much experience that the crucified usually remained alive far longer. Having no reason to doubt the truth of Joseph’s testimony to Jesus’s death, he nonetheless wished to know its particulars. For this, the centurion who had stood guard at Jesus’s cross was at once summoned. «How long ago did He die?» — Pilate asked. And, receiving a satisfactory answer, he ordered Jesus’s body to be given to Joseph for burial.

It could hardly be that the thought of some supernatural bond between Jesus Christ and the Godhead did not rise again in Pilate’s soul at this moment. His swift death on the cross might, to a pagan, serve as a sign of the gods’ favor toward Him. The miraculous signs, too, bore witness to this, if only Pilate had paid them any heed. In any case, the news of the Lord’s swift death eased the conscience of a judge who must have suffered at the thought of the sufferings, on the cross, of a Righteous One he had innocently condemned. Joseph’s request brought a similar relief. In granting Jesus’s burial, in giving His body over to His friends, Pilate, by this indulgence toward the dead, seemed, in a sense, to correct the injustice done to Him while living. Even his very disregard for the chief priests’ hostility—who no doubt took the permission granted to Joseph as a fresh disgrace to themselves—was, as it were, an offering Pilate made to the Righteous One’s memory.

No sooner had the soldiers dealt Jesus Christ’s body the last blow of their inhumanity than Joseph appeared at Golgotha. With him came Nicodemus (Jn 19:39)—the same man who had once come to Jesus Christ by night, and listened to His lofty discourse on the spiritual rebirth necessary for those who wish to enter the Messiah’s kingdom (Jn 3:1-21); the same man who had once said, before the whole Sanhedrin as it condemned Jesus: «Does our law judge a man without first hearing him, and learning what he does?» (Jn 7:51). Like Joseph, Nicodemus was wealthy, and sat in the supreme council of the Jews (Jn 3:1); like him, he belonged secretly to the number of Jesus Christ’s followers, and did not disclose all his thoughts about Him, fearing the chief priests (Jn 19:39); and like him, he now wished, by a noble act of self-denial, to make up for an earlier faintheartedness, sometimes almost unavoidable, but always burdensome to magnanimous hearts. If Nicodemus did not share with Joseph the boldness of appearing before Pilate’s tribunal to request the burial, it was not for lack of zeal, but of necessity: at that very time he was preparing the things needed for the burial.

And so Jesus Christ’s body was at once taken down from the cross. Nothing remarkable, so far as the Gospel history shows, occurred at that moment: only sighs were heard, only tears were seen. The Lord had returned once more to the peaceful circle of friendship and love, from which the betrayer’s hand had torn Him.

At the same time, no doubt, the bodies of those crucified with Jesus were taken down as well. If they had relatives and friends, these too had the right to weep over them, though not the right to bury them without the procurator’s special permission.

In the hands of Jesus’s enemies there now remained only His cross. The time had not yet come for this sacred wood to receive the honor befitting an altar on which the sacrifice for the whole world had been offered. Ancient tradition says that the Jews afterward buried Jesus’s cross in the ground, in a place known to no one but themselves, from which it was later recovered through the zeal of the equal-to-the-apostles Helena, mother of Constantine the Great.

Since very little time remained before the Sabbath evening, Jesus’s friends, having taken His most pure body down from the cross, set at once about the burial, in which speed had to vie with zeal and reverence for the One being buried.

First of all, a fitting place for burial had to be found. Near Golgotha, Joseph had a garden, in which, as throughout the whole region, there were rocky outcrops. In one of these, according to Jewish custom, a cave had been cut out for burial. No one had yet been buried in this cave, and Joseph had probably intended it for himself and his own family (Jn 19:41). Possession of this spot—not altogether pleasant, given its nearness to Golgotha—proved, on this occasion, very convenient for Joseph and Jesus’s other friends, since it made it possible not only to bury the divine Dead without loss of time, but also to come to His tomb without hindrance, to pour out their grief in tears.

And so the Lord’s most pure body was at once carried into Joseph’s garden. Providence showed, in this case too, the traces of its own particular care. Had the cave chosen for laying Jesus’s body already held the bodies of other men buried before, the malice of Jesus’s enemies might later have said that it was not He who rose, but someone else, or that He rose not by His own power, but by contact with the bones of some righteous man, as had once happened in the days of the kings of Israel. For all the absurdity of such a lie, it might still have troubled and misled the credulous.

Preparations for the burial began at once. The Jews, in general, regarded burial as a serious matter, even counting it among the virtues of those who performed it (Tov 12:12-13). Like other peoples, they also loved funeral splendor—costly spices, for instance. And so Jesus Christ’s burial, carried out by two eminent and wealthy men who wished, by their zeal, to wipe away the disgrace done to Him, was as splendid as the time allowed.

The burial linens Joseph provided were the finest and most costly, of the kind usually obtained from Egypt, famed for such goods. And Nicodemus brought spices enough for the burial of a high priest himself. It was a mixture of myrrh (a fragrant resin from a tree growing in Arabia) and aloes (a fragrant plant, one variety of which, not the most valuable, grew in Palestine too, though the best came from India); both were used in burial, sometimes as powders, sometimes as ointment. If the weight of spices mentioned by the evangelist (about a hundred litrai) does not correspond exactly to our own units of weight, it at least suggests that a considerable quantity was brought.

The remaining spices may have been used to strew over the tomb. Some portion was probably burned at the end of the burial, as this too formed part of Jewish funeral rites.

Once the preparations were complete, the Lord’s body was, as was customary (Jn 19:40), washed with clean water; then strewn with spices and wrapped, together with them, in a broad, square cloth (the shroud). The head and face were wrapped in a narrow head-cloth (the napkin). Both were bound with cords. So Jesus Christ was laid in the tomb in the very same manner in which He had raised Lazarus from his own tomb (Jn 11:44). But spices had not saved Lazarus from decay; and in Jesus Christ, the very source of incorruption, they served only as a sign of the imperfect faith of His admirers, who, for all their reverence toward Him, as St. Chrysostom observes, gave no thought at all to the fact that they were now burying the Lord of life and death.

The shortness of time did not allow for the observance of all the other funeral rites. It was hoped to make up for this lack once the Sabbath had passed, when the law of the Old Covenant could no longer stand in the way of zeal for the Lawgiver of the New.

The entrance to the cave in which Jesus’s body had been laid was sealed tightly with a great stone (Mt 27:60-61)—a precaution necessary in Judea, where wild beasts and birds of prey were found, but superfluous for the One who, even in the tomb, never ceased to be Lord of heaven and earth.

As at the taking-down from the cross, so too at the burial, some of the women devoted to the Lord were present, whom we saw standing at His cross—Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses (Mt 27:61). Joseph’s and Nicodemus’s own zeal left no room, for the moment, for theirs: they could only watch how, and where, the Lord was buried (Mk 15:47). Yet their tender love for Jesus did not fail to notice that some further signs of reverence might still be shown to His precious remains; and they resolved to provide themselves once more with fragrant ointments, so that, after the Sabbath, they might come and anoint their Teacher’s body. This intention was adopted, no doubt, with Joseph’s consent, who had wealth and love for Jesus enough to fill the whole cave with spices, but did not wish to stand in the way of the tender zeal of people far less wealthy than himself, yet no less magnanimous and reverent toward Jesus’s memory.

Once the burial was finished, all who had taken part in it withdrew at once, each to his own home, to keep the eve of the paschal Sabbath, which was the greatest of feasts.

How dark, how joyless that day now was for Jesus’s disciples and friends—especially for His Mother, and for Peter, who had cause to grieve both the loss of his Teacher and his own fall! This thought filled his whole soul, crowding out every other thought, giving him no chance to collect himself, to grasp, even a little, this sudden, terrible event. The future lay hidden in impenetrable darkness; the past troubled him more than it comforted him. The memory of Jesus’s miracles, of His former greatness, made His cross and His tomb seem still more terrible. Until now His disciples had walked an uneven, narrow, often thorny road; but they had walked it in the footsteps of a Teacher clothed in the power of the Son of God, drawing everyone’s attention, sharing in His glory, comforting themselves with magnificent hopes for the future: and now this road suddenly brought them to Golgotha, was cut short by their Teacher’s cross, and came to its complete end at His tomb! A grievous, comfortless state!

The disciples’ grief would not have been so extreme, had they been less certain of Jesus’s own dignity. Then it might soon have turned into a cooling of feeling toward the One who had so suddenly overturned their hopes, subjecting Himself to death, and them to disgrace. Then it would have been wounded self-regard that grieved.

But love and reverence for Jesus were not diminished in the least in these grateful hearts. His disciples’ souls were bound to Him by an eternal, heavenly tie. His tomb became, for them, a sanctuary, in which all their holy thoughts, all their pure desires, all their faith, were now enclosed.

And this very holy love was ceaselessly met by a terrible thought: «He has died! He is not what He was, what we believed Him to be! He is not the Messiah! He, who was, and is, everything to us!»

Jesus Christ’s own predictions of His death and Resurrection ought to have dispelled their doubts, eased His disciples’ grief. But these predictions, as we have seen, had not held their attention, or had seemed incomprehensible to them. Unable to picture how the Messiah could die, they gave no thought to His Resurrection. And Jesus’s repeated promises, at His farewell to them at supper, that they would soon see Him again, were now forgotten, or wrongly understood. Had anyone said: «He will rise; we shall see Him»—a heart torn by grief, weighed down by doubt, might have answered just as Martha once answered: «I know that he will rise again—in the resurrection, at the last day: then we shall all see him». Only after the Lord’s Resurrection did His disciples recall those times when He had foretold it to them.