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Gospel according to Mark 15: 42-47 (NIV)
42 It was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath). So as evening approached, 43 Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. 44 Pilate was surprised to hear that he was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he asked him if Jesus had already died. 45 When he learned from the centurion that it was so, he gave the body to Joseph. 46 So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. 47 Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was laid.
We know so little about Joseph of Arimathea. He was a rich man (Matthew 27:57), he was a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling Council (Mark 15: 43), he had not consented to the Sanhedrin’s decision to have Jesus killed (Luke 23:51), probably because he had secretly become a disciple of Jesus (John 19: 38). Having been introduced (verse 43) as the one who approached Pilate to gain permission to take Jesus’ dead body down from the cross, he did so, assisted by Nicodemus (John 19: 39). He and Nicodemus used linen cloth which Joseph had bought and a mixture of myrrh and aloes supplied by Nicodemus to wrap Jesus’ body before placing it in Joseph’s own new tomb (Matthew 27: 60). Joseph rolled a big stone over the entrance to the tomb and disappeared from the biblical record.
According to John’s gospel, Joseph was secretly a disciple because he feared the Jewish leaders. What courage he displayed then to abandon the secrecy, to approach Pilate boldly with his request and to allow himself to be identified as the one who would bury this executed man.
What penalty was Joseph to pay for his boldness? What penalty did Nicodemus pay? We do not know. It seems to me that Jesus’ words in Mark 8: 34b-38 could well be applied to them both:
Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.
In the end, neither Joseph nor Nicodemus was ashamed of Jesus and of his words. May we be given the strength of character and persistence of will never to deny our Lord and never to desert him.