Crucified, Dead, and Buried.' (part 2 of 2)

We further notice that, the name of the Virgin-Mother being omitted, the other three are the same as mentioned by St. John; only, Mary of Clopas is now described as the mother of James and Jose,'⁶¹²⁴ and Christ's Mother's Sister' as Solome'⁶¹²⁵ and the mother of Zebedee's children.'⁶¹²⁶ Thus Salome, the wife of Zebedee and St. John's mother, was the sister of the Virgin, and the beloved disciple the cousin (on the mother's side) of Jesus, and the nephew of the Virgin. This also helps to explain why the care of the Mother had been entrusted to him. Nor was Mary the wife of Clopas unconnected with Jesus. What we have every reason to regard as a trustworthy account⁶¹²⁷ describes Clopas as the brother of Joseph, the husband of the Virgin. Thus, not only Salome as the sister of the Virgin, but Mary also as the wife of Clopas, would, in a certain sense, have been His aunt, and her sons His cousins. And so we notice among the twelve Apostles five cousins of the Lord: the two sons of Salome and Zebedee, and the three sons of Alphæus or Clopas⁶¹²⁸ and Mary: James, Judas surnamed Lebbæus and Thaddæus, and Simon surnamed Zelotes or Cananæan.⁶¹²⁹

We can now in some measure realise events. When St. John had seen the Saviour nailed to the Cross, he had gone to the City and brought with him for a last mournful farewell the Virgin, accompanied by those who, as most nearly connected with her, would naturally be with her: her own sister Salome, the sister-in-law of Joseph and wife (or more probably widow) of Clopas, and her who of all others had experienced most of His blessed power to save - Mary of Magdala. Once more we reverently mark His Divine calm of utter self-forgetfulness and His human thoughtfulness for others. As they stood under the Cross, He committed His Mother to the disciple whom He loved, and established a new human relationship between him and her who was nearest to Himself.⁶¹³⁰ And calmly, earnestly, and immediately did that disciple undertake the sacred charge, and bring her - whose soul the sword had pierced - away from the scene of unutterable woe to the shelter of his home.⁶¹³¹ And this temporary absence of John from the Cross may account for the want of all detail in his narrative till quite the closing scene.⁶¹³²

Now at last all that concerned the earthward aspect of His Mission - so far as it had to be done on the Cross - was ended. He had prayed for those who had nailed Him to it, in ignorance of what they did; He had given the comfort of assurance to the penitent, who had owned His Glory in His Humiliation; and He had made the last provision of love in regard to those nearest to Him. So to speak, the relations of His Humanity - that which touched His Human Nature in any direction - had been fully met. He had done with the Human aspect of His Work and with earth. And, appropriately, Nature seemed now to take sad farewell of Him, and mourned its departing Lord, Who, by His Personal connection with it, had once more lifted it from the abasement of the Fall into the region of the Divine, making it the dwelling-place, the vehicle for the manifestation, and the obedient messenger of the Divine.

For three hours had the Saviour hung on the Cross. It was midday. And now the Sun was craped in darkness from the sixth to the ninth hour. No purpose can be served by attempting to trace the source of this darkness. It could not have been an eclipse, since it was the time of full moon; nor can we place reliance on the later reports on this subject of ecclesiastical writers.⁶¹³³ It seems only in accordance with the Evangelic narrative to regard the occurrence of the event as supernatural, while the event itself might have been brought about by natural causes; and among these we must call special attention to the earthquake in which this darkness terminated.⁶¹³⁴ For, it is a well-known phenomenon that such darkness not unfrequently precedes earthquakes. On the other hand, it must be freely admitted, that the language of the Evangelists seems to imply that this darkness extended, not only over the land of Israel, but over the inhabited earth. The expression must, of course, not be pressed to its full literality, but explained as meaning that it extended far beyond Judæa and to other lands. No reasonable objection can be raised from the circumstance, that neither the earthquake nor the preceding darkness are mentioned by any profane writer whose works have been preserved, since it would surely not be maintained that an historical record must have been preserved of every earthquake that occurred, and of every darkness that may have preceded it.⁶¹³⁵ But the most unfair argument is that, which tries to establish the unhistorical character of this narrative by an appeal to what are described as Jewish sayings expressive of similar expectancy.⁶¹³⁶ It is quite true that in old Testament prophecy - whether figuratively or really - the darkening, though not only of the sun, but also of the moon and stars, is sometimes connected, not with the Coming of Messiah, still less with His Death, but with the final Judgement.⁶¹³⁷ But Jewish tradition never speaks of such an event in connection with Messiah, or even with the Messianic judgments, and the quotations from Rabbinic writings made by negative critics must be characterised as not only inapplicable but even unfair.⁶¹³⁸

But to return from this painful digression. The three hours' darkness was such not only to Nature; Jesus, also, entered into darkness: Body, Soul, and Spirit. It was now, not as before, a contest - but suffering. Into this, to us, fathomless depth of the mystery of His Sufferings, we dare not, as indeed we cannot, enter. It was of the Body; yet not of the Body only, but of physical life. And it was of the Soul and Spirit; yet not of them alone, but in their conscious relation to man and to God. And it was not of the Human only in Christ, but in its indissolube connection with the Divine: of the Human, where it reached the utmost verge of humiliation to body, soul, and spirit - and in it of the Divine, to utmost self-exinanition. The increasing, nameless agonies of the Crucifixion⁶¹³⁹ were deepening into the bitterness of death. All nature shrinks from death, and there is a physical horror of the separation between body and soul which, as a purely natural phenomenon, is in every instance only overcome, and that only by a higher principle. And we conceive that the purer the being the greater the violence of the tearing asunder of the bond with which God Almighty originally bound together body and soul. In the Perfect Man this must have reached the highest degree. So, also, had in those dark hours the sense of man-forsakenness and His own isolation from man; so, also, had the intense silence of God, the withdrawal of God, the sense of His God-forsakenness and absolute loneliness. We dare not here speak of punitive suffering, but of forsakenness and loneliness. And yet as we ask ourselves how this forsakenness can be thought of as so complete in view of His Divine consciousness, which at least could not have been wholly extinguished by His Self-exinanition, we feel that yet another element must be taken into account. Christ on the Cross suffered for man; He offered Himself a sacrifice; He died for our sins, that, as death was the wages of sin, so He died as the Representative of man - for man and in room of man; He obtained for man eternal redemption,'⁶¹⁴⁰ having given His Life a ransom,⁶¹⁴¹ for many.' For, men were redeemed' with the precious Blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot;'⁶¹⁴² and Christ gave Himself for us, that He might "redeem" us from all iniquity;'⁶¹⁴³ He gave Himself "a ransom" for all;'⁶¹⁴⁴ Christ died for all;'⁶¹⁴⁵ Him, Who knew no sin, God made sin for us;' Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us' - and this, with express reference to the Crucifixion.⁶¹⁴⁶ This sacrifice, vicarious, expiatory, and redemptive character of His Death, if it does not explain to us, yet helps us to understand, Christ's sense of God-forsakenness in the surpreme moment of the Cross; if one might so word it - the passive character of His activeness through the active character of His passiveness.

It was this combination of the Old Testament idea of sacrifice, and of the Old Testament ideal of willing suffering as the Servant of Jehovah, now fulfilled in Christ, which found its fullest expression in the language of the twenty-second Psalm. It was fitting - rather, it was true - that the willing suffering of the true Sacrifice should now find vent in its opening words: My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?' - Eli, Eli, lema sabachthanei?⁶¹⁴⁷ These words, cried with a loud voice⁶¹⁴⁸ at the close of the period of extreme agony,⁶¹⁴⁹ marked the climax and the end of this suffering of Christ, of which the utmost compass was the withdrawal of God and the felt loneliness of the Sufferer. But they that stood by the Cross, misinterpreting the meaning, and mistaking the opening words for the name Elias, imagined that the Sufferer had called for Elias. We can scarcely doubt, that these were the soldiers who stood by the Cross. They were not necessarily Romans; on the contrary, as we have seen, these Legions were generally recruited from Provincials. On the other hand, no Jew would have mistaken Eli for the name of Elijah, not yet misinterpreted a quotation of Psalm xxii. 1 as a call for that prophet. And it must be remembered, that the words were not whispered, but cried with a loud voice. But all entirely accords with the misunderstanding of non-Jewish soldiers, who, as the whole history shows, had learned from His accusers and the infuriated mob snatches of a distorted story of the Christ.

And presently the Sufferer emerged on the other side. It can scarcely have been a minute or two from the time that the cry from the twenty-second Psalm marked the high-point of His Agony, when the words I thirst'⁶¹⁵⁰ seem to indicate, by the prevalence of the merely human aspect of the suffering, that the other and more terrible aspect of sin-bearing and God-forsakenness was past. To us, therefore, this seems the beginning, if not of Victory, yet of Rest, of the End. St. John alone records this Utterance, prefacing it with this distinctive statement, that Jesus so surrendered Himself to the human feeling, seeking the bodily relief by expressing His thirst: knowing that all things were now finished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.'⁶¹⁵¹ In other words, the climax of The anthropic Suffering in His feeling of God-forsakenness, which had led to the utterance of Psalm xxii. 1, was now, to His consciousness, the end of all which in accordance with Scripture-prediction He had to bear. He now could and did yield Himself to the mere physical wants of His Body.

It seems as if St. John, having perhaps just returned to the scene, and standing with the women afar off,' beholding these things,⁶¹⁵² had hastened forward on the cry from Psalm xxii.,⁶¹⁵³ and heard Him express the feeling of thirst, which immediately followed. And so St. John alone supplies the link between that cry and the movement on the part of the soldiers, which St. Matthew and St. Mark, as well as St. John, report. For, it would be impossible to understand why, on what the soldiers regarded as a call for Elijah, one of them should have hastened to relieve His thirst, but for the Utterance recorded in the Fourth Gospel. But we can quite understand it, if the Utterance, I thirst,' followed immediately on the previous cry.

One of the soldiers - may we not be allowed to believe, one who either had already learned from that Cross, or was about to learn, to own Him Lord - moved by sympathy, now ran to offer some slight refreshment to the Sufferer by filling a sponge with the rough wine of the soldiers and putting it to His lips, having first fastened it to the stem (reed') of the caper (hyssop'), which is said to grow to the height of even two or three feet.⁶¹⁵⁴ But, even so, this act of humanity was not allowed to pass unchallenged by the coarse jibes of the others who would bid him leave the relief of the Sufferer to the agency of Elijah, which in their opinion He had invoked. Nor should we perhaps wonder at the weakness of that soldier himself, who, though he would not be hindered in his good deed, yet averted the opposition of the others by apparently joining in their mockery.⁶¹⁵⁵

By accepting the physical refreshment offered Him, the Lord once more indicated the completion of the work of His Passion. For, as He would not enter on it with His senses and physical consciousness lulled by narcotised wine, so He would not pass out of it with senses and physical consciousness dulled by the absolute failure of life-power. Hence He took what for the moment restored the physical balance, needful for thought and word. And so He immediately passed on to taste death for every man.' For, the two last sayings' of the Saviour now followed in rapid succession: first, that with a loud voice, which expressed it, that the work given Him to do, as far as concerned His Passion, was finished;'⁶¹⁵⁶ and then, that in the words of Psalm xxxi. 5, in which He commended His Spirit into the Hands of the Father.⁶¹⁵⁷ Attempts at comment could only weaken the solemn thoughts which the words awaken. Yet some points should be noted for our teaching. His last cry with a loud voice' was not like that of one dying. St. Mark notes, that this made such deep impression on the Centurion.⁶¹⁵⁸ In the language of the early Christian hymn, it was not Death which approached Christ, but Christ Death: He died without death.⁶¹⁵⁹ Christ encountered Death, not as conquered, but as the Conqueror. And this also was part of His work, and for us: now the beginning of His Triumph. And with this agrees the peculiar language of St. John, that He bowed the Head, and gave up the Spirit' (t pnema).

Nor should we fail to mark the peculiarities of His last Utterance. The My God' of the fourth Utterance had again passed into the Father' of conscious fellowship. And yet neither in the Hebrew original of this Psalm, nor in its Greek rendering by the LXX., does the word Father' occur. Again, in the LXX. translation of the Hebrew text this word expressive of entrustment - the commending - is in the future tense; on the lips of our Lord it is in the present tense.⁶¹⁶⁰ And the word, in its New Testament sense, means not merely commending: it is to deposit, to commit for safe keeping.⁶¹⁶¹ That in dying - or rather meeting and overcoming Death - He chose and adapted these words, is matter for deepest thankfulness to the Church. He spoke them for His people in a twofold sense: on their behalf, that they might be able to speak them; and for them,' that henceforth they might speak them after Him. How many thousands have pillowed their heads on them when going to rest! They were the last words of a Polycarp, a Bernard, Huss, Luther, and Melanchthon. And to us also they may be the fittest and the softest lullaby. And in the Spirit' which He had committed to God did He now descend into Hades, and preached unto the spirits in prison.'⁶¹⁶² But behind this great mystery have closed the two-leaved gates of brass, which only the Hand of the Conqueror could burst open.

And now a shudder ran through Nature, as its Sun had set. We dare not do more than follow the rapid outlines of the Evangelic narrative. As the first token, it records the rending of the Temple-Veil in two from the top downward to the bottom; as the second, the quaking of the earth, the rending of the rocks and the opening of the graves. Although most writers have regarded this as indicating the strictly chronological succession, there is nothing in the text to bind us to such a conclusion. Thus, while the rending of the Veil is recorded first, as being the most significant token to Israel, it may have been connected with the earthquake, although this alone might scarcely account for the tearing of so heavy a Veil from the top to the bottom. Even the latter circumstance has its significance. That some great catastrophe, betokening the impending destruction of the Temple, had occurred in the Sanctuary about this very time, is confirmed by not less than four mutually independent testimonies: those of Tacitus,⁶¹⁶³ of Josephus,⁶¹⁶⁴ of the Talmud,⁶¹⁶⁵ and of earliest Christian tradition⁶¹⁶⁶ . The most important of these are, of course, the Talmud and Josephus. The latter speaks of the mysterious extinction of the middle and chief light in the Golden Candlestick, forty years before the destruction of the Temple; and both he and the Talmud refer to a supernatural opening by themselves of the great Temple-gates that had been previously closed, which was regarded as a portent of the coming destruction of the Temple. We can scarcely doubt, that some historical fact must underlie so peculiar and widespread a tradition, and we cannot help feeling that it may be a distorted version of the occurrence of the rending of the Temple-Veil (or of its report) at the Crucifixion of Christ.⁶¹⁶⁷

But even if the rending of the Temple-Veil had commenced with the earthquake, and, according to the Gospel to the Hebrews, with the breaking of the great lintel over the entrance, it could not be wholly accounted for in this manner. According to Jewish tradition, there were, indeed, two Veils before the entrance to the Most Holy Place.⁶¹⁶⁸ The Talmud explains this on the ground that it was not known, whether in the former Temple the Veil had hung inside or outside the entrance and whether the partition-wall had stood in the Holy or Most Holy Place.⁶¹⁶⁹ Hence (according to Maimonides)⁶¹⁷⁰ there was not any wall between the Holy and Most Holy Place, but the space of one cubit, assigned to it in the former Temple, was left unoccupied, and one Veil hung on the side of the Holy, the other on that of the Most Holy Place. According to an account dating from Temple-times, there were altogether thirteen Veils used in various parts of the Temple - two new ones being made every year.⁶¹⁷¹ The Veils before the Most Holy Place were 40 cubits (60 feet) long, and 20 (30 feet) wide, of the thickness of the palm of the hand, and wrought in 72 squares, which were joined together; and these Veils were so heavy, that, in the exaggerated language of the time, it needed 3000 priests to manipulate each. If the Veil was at all such as is described in the Talmud, it could not have been rent in twain by a mere earthquake or the fall of the lintel, although its composition in squares fastened together might explain, how the rent might be as described in the Gospel.

Indeed, everything seems to indicate that, although the earthquake might furnish the physical basis, the rent of the Temple-Veil was - with reverence be it said - really made by the Hand of God. As we compute, it may just have been the time when, at the Evening-Sacrifice, the officiating Priesthood entered the Holy Place, either to burn the incense or to do other sacred service there. To see before them, not as the aged Zacharias at the beginning of this history the Angel Gabriel, but the Veil of the Holy Place rent from top to bottom - that beyond it they could scarcely have seen - and hanging in two parts from its fastenings above and at the side, was, indeed, a terrible portent, which would soon become generally known, and must, in some form or other, have been preserved in tradition. And they all must have understood, that it meant that God's Own Hand had rent the Veil, and for ever deserted and thrown open that Most Holy Place where He had so long dwelt in the mysterious gloom, only lit up once a year by the glow of the censer of him, who made atonement for the sins of the people.⁶¹⁷²

Other tokens were not wanting. In the earthquake the rocks were rent, and their tombs opened. This, as Christ descended into Hades. And when He ascended on the third day, it was with victorious saints who had left those open graves. To many in the Holy City on that ever-memorable first day, and in the week that followed, appeared the bodies of many of those saints who had fallen on sleep in the sweet hope of that which had now become reality.⁶¹⁷³

But on those who stood under the Cross, and near it, did all that was witnessed make the deepest and most lasting impression. Among them we specially mark the Centurion under whose command the soldiers had been. Many a scene of horror must he have witnessed in those sad times of the Crucifixion, but none like this. Only one conclusion could force itself on his mind. It was that which, we cannot doubt, had made its impression on his heart and conscience. Jesus was not what the Jews, His infuriated enemies, had described Him. He was what He professed to be, what His bearing on the Cross and His Death attested Him to be: righteous,' and hence, the Son of God.' From this there was only a step to personal allegiance to Him, and, as previously suggested, we may possibly owe to him some of those details which St. Luke alone has preserved.

The brief spring-day was verging towards the evening of the Sabbath.' In general, the Law ordered that the body of a criminal should not be left hanging unburied over night.⁶¹⁷⁴ Perhaps in ordinary circumstances the Jews might not have appealed so confidently to Pilate as actually to ask⁶¹⁷⁵ him to shorten the sufferings of those on the Cross, since the punishment of crucifixion often lasted not only for hours but days, ere death ensued. But here was a special occasion. The Sabbath about to open was a high-day' - it was both a Sabbath and the second Paschal Day, which was regarded as in every respect equally sacred with the first - nay, more so, since the so-called Wavesheaf was then offered to the Lord. And what the Jews now proposed to Pilate was, indeed, a shortening, but not in any sense a mitigation, of the punishment. Sometimes there was added to the punishment of crucifixion that of breaking the bones (crurifragium, skelokopa) by means of a club or hammer. This would not itself bring death, but the breaking of the bones was always followed by a coup de grâce, by sword, lance, or stroke (the perforatio or percussio sub alas), which immediately put an end to what remained of life.⁶¹⁷⁶ Thus the breaking of the bones' was a sort of increase of punishment, by way of compensation for its shortening by the final stroke that followed.

It were unjust to suppose, that in their anxiety to fulfil the letter of the Law as to burial on the eve of that high Sabbath, the Jews had sought to intensify the sufferings of Jesus. The text gives no indication of this; and they could not have asked for the final stroke to be inflicted without the breaking of the bones,' which always preceded it. The irony of this punctilious care for the letter of the Law about burial and high Sabbath by those who had betrayed and crucified their Messiah on the first Passover-day is sufficiently great, and, let us add, terrible, without importing ficticious elements. St. John, who, perhaps, immediately on the death of Christ, left the Cross, alone reports circumstance. Perhaps it was when he concerted with Joseph of Arimathæa, with Nicodemus, or the two Marys, measures for the burying of Christ, that he learned of the Jewish deputation to Pilate, followed it to Prætorium, and then watched how it was all carried out on Golgotha. He records, how Pilate acceded to the Jewish demand, and gave directions for the crurifragium, and premission for the after-removal of the dead bodies, which otherwise might have been left to hang, till putrescence or birds of prey had destroyed them. But St. John also tells us what he evidently regards as so great a prodigy that he specially vouches for it, pledging his own veracity, as an eyewitness, and grounding on it an appeal to the faith of those to whom his Gospel is addressed. It is, that certain things came to pass [not as in our A. V., were done'] that the Scripture should be fulfilled,' or, to put it otherwise, by which the Scripture was fulfilled. These things were two, to which a third phenomenon, not less remarkable, must be added. For, first, when, in the crurifragium, the soldiers had broken the bones of two malefactors, and then came to the Cross of Jesus, they found that He was dead already, and so a bone of Him' was not broken.' Had it been otherwise, the Scripture concerning the Paschal Lamb,⁶¹⁷⁷ as well that concerning the Righteous Suffering Servant of Jehovah,⁶¹⁷⁸ would have been broken. In Christ alone these two ideas of the Paschal Lamb and the Righteous Suffering Servant of Jehovah are combined into a unity and fulfilled in their highest meaning. And when, by a strange concurrence of circumstances, it came to pass' that, contrary to what might have been expected, a bone of Him' was not broken' this outward fact served as the finger to point to the predictions which were fulfilled of Him.

Not less remarkable is the second fact. If, on the Cross of Christ, these two fundamental ideas in the prophetic description of the work of the Messiah had been set forth: the fulfilment of the Paschal Sacrifice, which, as that of the Covenant, underlay all sacrifices, and the fulfilment of the ideal of the Righteous Servant of God, suffering in a world that hated God, and yet proclaimed and realising His Kingdom, a third truth remained to be exhibited. It was not in regard to the character, but the effects, of the Work of Christ - its reception, alike in the present and in the future. This had been indicated in the prophecies of Zechariah,⁶¹⁷⁹ which foretold how, in the day of Israel's final deliverance and national conversion, God would pour out the spirit of grace and of supplication, and as they shall look on Him Whom they pierced,' the spirit of true repentance would be granted them, alike nationally and individually. The application of this to Christ is the more striking, that even the Talmud refers the prophecy to the Messiah.⁶¹⁸⁰ And as these two things really applied to Christ, alike in His rejection and in His future return,⁶¹⁸¹ so did the strange historical occurence at His Crucifixion once more point to it as the fulfilment of Scripture prophecy. For, although the soldiers, on finding Jesus dead, broke not one of His Bones, yet, as it was necessary to make sure of His Death, one of them, with a lance, pierced His Side,' with a wound so deep, that Thomas might afterwards have thrust his hand into His Side.⁶¹⁸²

And with these two, as fulfilling Holy Scripture, yet a third phenonmenon was associated, symbolic of both. As the soldier pierced the side of the Dead Christ, forthwith came there out Blood and Water.' It has been thought by some,⁶¹⁸³ that there was physical cause for this - that Christ had literally died of a broken heart, and that, when the lance pierced first the lung filled with blood and then the pericardium filled with serous fluid,⁶¹⁸⁴ there flowed from the wound this double stream.⁶¹⁸⁵ In such cases, the lesson would be that reproach had literally broken His Heart.⁶¹⁸⁶ But we can scarcely believe that St. John could have wished to convey this without clearly setting it forth - thus assuming on the part of his readers knowledge of an obscure, and, it must be added, a scientifically doubtful phenomenon. Accordingly, we rather believe that to St. John, as to most of us, the significance of the fact lay in this, that out of the Body of One dead had flowed Blood and Water - that corruption had not fastened on Him. Then, there would be the symbolic meaning conveyed by the Water (from the pericardium) and the Blood (from the heart) - a symbolism most true, if corruption had no power nor hold on Him - if in Death He was not dead, if He vanquished Death and Corruption, and in this respect also fulfilled the prophetic ideal of not seeing corruption.⁶¹⁸⁷ To this symbolic bearing of the flowing of Water and Blood from His pierced side, on which the Evangelist dwells in his Epistle,⁶¹⁸⁸ and to its external expression in the symbolism of the two Sacraments, we can only point the thoughtful Christian. For, the two Sacraments mean that Christ had come; that over Him, Who was crucified for us and loved us unto death with His broken heart, Death and Corruption had no power; and that He liveth for us with the pardoning and cleansing power of His offered Sacrifice.

Yet one other scene remains to be recorded. Whether before, or, more probably, after the Jewish deputation to the Roman Governor, another and a strange application came to Pilate. It was from one apparently well known, a man not only of wealth and standing,⁶¹⁸⁹ whose noble bearing⁶¹⁹⁰ corresponded to his social condition, and who was known as a just and a good man.⁶¹⁹¹ Joseph of Arimathæa was a Sanhedrist,⁶¹⁹² but he had not consented either to the counsel or the deed of his colleagues. It must have been generally known that he was one of those which waited for the Kingdom of God.' But he had advanced beyond what that expression implies. Although secretly, for fear of the Jews.⁶¹⁹³ he was a disciple of Jesus. It is in strange contrast to this fear,' that St. Mark tells us, that, having dared,'⁶¹⁹⁴ he went in unto Pilate and asked for the Body of Jesus.' Thus, under circumstances the most unlikely and unfavorable, were his fears converted into boldness, and he, whom fear of the Jews had restrained from making open avowal of discipleship during the life-time of Jesus, not only professed such of the Crucified Christ,⁶¹⁹⁵ but took the most bold and decided step before Jews and Gentiles in connection with it. So does trial elicit faith, and the wind, which quenches the feeble flame that plays around the outside, fan into brightness the fire that burns deep within, though for a time unseen. Joseph of Arimathæa, now no longer a secret disciple, but bold in the avowal of his reverent love, would show to the Dead Body of his Master all veneration. And the Divinely ordered concurrence of circumstances not only helped his pious purpose, but invested all with deepest symbolic significance. It was Friday afternoon, and the Sabbath was drawing near.⁶¹⁹⁶ No time therefore was to be lost, if due honour were to be paid to the Sacred Body. Pilate give it to Joseph of Arimathæa. Such was within his power, and a favour not unfrequently accorded in like circumstances.⁶¹⁹⁷ But two things must have powerfully impressed the Roman Governor, and deepened his former thoughts about Jesus: first, that the death on the Cross had taken place so rapidly, a circumstance on which he personally questioned the Centurion,⁶¹⁹⁸ and then the bold appearance and request of such a man as Joseph of Arimathæa.⁶¹⁹⁹ Or did the Centurion express to the Governor also some such feeling as that which had found utterance under the Cross in the words: Truly this Man was the Son of God?'

The proximity of the holy Sabbath, and the consequent need of haste, may have suggested or determined the proposal of Joseph to lay the Body of Jesus in his own rock-hewn new tomb,⁶²⁰⁰ wherein no one had yet been laid.⁶²⁰¹ The symbolic significance of this is the more marked, that the symbolism was undersigned. These rock-hewn sepulchres, and the mode of laying the dead in them, have been very fully described in connection with the burying of Lazarus⁶²⁰² We may therefore wholly surrender overselves to the sacred thoughts that gather around us. The Cross was lowered and laid on the ground; the curel nails drawn out, and the ropes unloosed. Joseph, with those who attended him, wrapped' the Sacred Body in a clean linen cloth,' and rapidly carried It to the rock-hewn tomb in the garden close by. Such a rock-hewn tomb or cave (Meartha) had niches (Kukhin), where the dead were laid. It will be remembered, that at the entrance to the tomb' - and within the rock' - there was a court,' nine feet square, where ordinarly the bier was deposited, and its bearers gathered to do the last offices for the Dead. Thither we suppose Joseph to have carried the Sacred Body, and then the last scene to have taken place. For now another, kindered to Joseph in spirit, history, and position, had come. The same spiritual Law, which had brought Joseph to open confession, also constrained the profession of that other Sanhedrist, Nicodemus. We remember, how at the first he had, from fear of detection, come to Jesus by night, and with what bated breath he had pleaded with his colleagues not so much the cause of Christ, as on His behalf that of law and justice.⁶²⁰³ He now came, bringing a roll' of myrrh and aloes, in the fragrant mixture well known to the Jews for purposes of anointing or burying.

It was in the court' of the tomb that the hasty embalmment - if such it may be called - took place. None of Christ's former disciples seem to have taken part in the burying. John may have withdrawn to bring tidings to, and to comfort the Virgin-Mother; the others also, that had stood after off, beholding,' appear to have left. Only a few faithful ones,⁶²⁰⁴ notably among them Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, the mother of Joses, stood over against the tomb, watching at some distance where and how the Body of Jesus was laid. It would scarcely have been in accordance with Jewish manners, if these women had mingled more closely with the two Sanhedrists and their attendants. From where they stood they could only have had a dim view of what passed within the court, and this may explain how, on their return, they prepared spices and ointments'⁶²⁰⁵ for the more full honours which they hoped to pay the Dead after the Sabbath was past.⁶²⁰⁶ For, it is of the greatest importance to remember, that haste characterised all that was done. It seems as if the clean linen cloth' in which the Body had been wrapped, was now torn into cloths' or swathes, into which the Body, limb by limb, was now bound,'⁶²⁰⁷ no doubt, between layers of myrrh and aloes, the Head being wrapped in a napkin. And so they laid Him to rest in the inche of the rock-hewn new tomb. And as they went out, they rolled, as was the custom, a great stone' - the Golel - to close the entrance to the tomb,⁶²⁰⁸ probably leaning against it for support, as was the practice, a smaller stone - the so-called Dopheq.⁶²⁰⁹ It would be where the one stone was laid against the other, that on the next day, Sabbath though it was, the Jewish authorities would have affixed the seal, so that the slightest disturbance might become apparent.⁶²¹⁰

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It was probably about the same time, that a noisy throng prepared to follow delegates from the Sanhedrin to the ceremony of cutting the Passover-sheaf. The Law had it, "he shall bring a sheaf [literally, the Omer] with the first-fruits of your harvest, unto the priest; and he shall wave the Omer before Jehovah, to be accepted for you." This Passover-sheaf was reaped in public the evening before it was offered, and it was to witness this ceremony that the crowd had gathered around the elders. Already on the 14th Nisan the spot whence the first sheaf was to be reaped had been marked out, by tying together in bundles, while still standing, the barley that was to be cut down, according to custom, in the sheltered Ashes-Valley across Kidron. When the time for cutting the sheaf had arrived - that is, on the evening of the 15th Nisan, even though it were a Sabbath, just as the sun went down, three men, each with a sickle and basket, set to work. Clearly to bring out what was distinctive in the ceremony, they first asked of the bystanders three times each of these questions: "Has the sun gone down?" "With this sickle?" "Into this basket?" "On this Sabbath? (or first Passover-day)" - and, lastly, "shall I reap?" Having each time been answered in the affirmative, they cut down barley to the amount of one ephah, or about three pecks and three pints of our English measure. This is not the place to follow the ceremony farther - how the corn was threshed out, parched, ground, and one omer of the flour, mixed with oil and frankincense, waved before the Lord in the Temple on the second Paschal day (or 16th of Nisan). But, as this festive procession started, amidst loud demonstrations, a small band of mourners turned from having laid their dead Master in His resting-place. The contrast is as sad as it is suggestive. And yet, not in the Temple, nor by the priest, but in the silence of that garden-tomb, was the first Omer of the new Paschal flour to be waved before the Lord.'⁶²¹¹

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Now on the morrow, which is after the preparation [the Friday], the chief priests and the Pharisees were gathered together unto Pilate, saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, which He was yet alive, After three days I rise again. Command, therefore, that the sephulchre be made sure until the third day, lest haply His disciples come and steal Him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first. Pilate said unto them, Take a guard, go your way, make it as sure as ye can. So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, the guard being with them.'

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But was there really need for it? Did they, who had spent what remained of daylight to prepare spices wherewith to anoint the Dead Christ, expect His Body to be removed, or did they expect - perhaps in their sorrow even think of His word: I rise again?' But on that holy Sabbath, when the Sanhedrists were thinking of how to make sure of the Dead Christ, what were the thoughts of Joseph of Arimathæa and Nicodemus, of Peter and John, of the other disciples, and especially of the loving women who only waited for the first streak of Easter-light to do their last service of love? What were their thoughts of God - what of Christ - what of the Words He had spoken, the Deeds He had wrought, the salvation He had come to bring, and the Kingdom of Heaven which He was to open to all believers?

Behind Him had closed the gates of Hades; but upon them rather than upon Him had fallen the shadows of death. Yet they still loved Him - and stronger than death was love.