Jesus is Laid in the Tomb
Matthew 27:57-61; Mark 15:42-47; Luke 23:50-56; John 19:38-42
by Steven Darst
57 Now when evening had come, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who himself had also become a disciple of Jesus. 58 This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be given to him. 59 When Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, 60 and laid it in his new tomb which he had hewn out of the rock; and he rolled a large stone against the door of the tomb, and departed. 61 And Mary Magdalene was there, and the other Mary, sitting opposite the tomb. (Matthew 27:57-61)
Pilate gives permission to bury the man he had killed. Just earlier he had other words to say. “Behold the man!” remarked Pontius Pilate as he presented the condemned King of the Jews to his people. The crowds knew what this meant as he looked with his fixated gaze towards Golgotha: torture and death would be put on display for the world to see. Roman rule and authority would be hailed as absolute, more absolute than human life. This is what happens to all that dare to lay claim to something that only Rome was worthy to grasp.
But what does it mean to behold the man? What is humanity really? And better yet, what is the ideal human? What would this look like? To the religious elite, it would look like a savior from Rome. One that throws off the shackles of the tyrants with brutality and vengeance. To the Romans it looks like one that brings order and peace through military conquest. Through brutal subjugation to any and all that would stand in the way of their rightful claim to peace and prosperity to all the world.
“Behold the man!” Says Pilate. Ironically he shows the crowd what the true human really is.
Authority and power are what each empire has reached for with eager hands only to see it dissipate before they can get a firm grip. Rulers live and die, giving the world the gift of peace or wrath- Subjecting the world to their whims or subjecting the world to order. Empires have risen and fallen since that day, 2000 years ago. Many have gone down in history as tyrants or lenient rulers, many of which were cloistered away from the pains and suffering of everyday living. Many have grasped for power to avoid suffering– to lay claim to authority over those that lack the ability to rise from the muck and mire of hard and harsh existence.
But Jesus lays claim to authority in heaven and earth by dying. By suffering. By allowing himself to be at the mercy of God the Father. He is ridiculed by the world, hated, killed, and laid away in a borrowed tomb. He never owned a thing. He never owned a house, a family, a city, an empire, and not even a tomb. Yet, God placed all these things under his feet. Making him ruler of all the earth. And under his pierced feet, his wounded and scorned feet, the world rests in his rule. And he rules the world by entering into the suffering of the world. He enters into the wounds of the forgotten, the pierced and broken. Where we see the tears and turmoil, the worry and doubt or eyes wide and ready to receive even the slightest hint of hope, there he is seen in the world. And there his rule is seen and manifested by the ones who take up his name and cross, who are willing to likewise enter into the sufferings of others and allow themselves to be used by God for the healing of the world.
The world rests under his feet. May I find rest there as well.