17th June

You will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. Psalm 16, 10

Joseph of Arimathea

Scripture only mentions a little of this person. However, we know that he was a disciple of Jesus, a rich man (Matthew 27, 57), a honourable adviser (Mark 15, 43) as well as a man of good and right (Luke 23, 50). He followed Jesus timidly, fearing to be badly seen by the Jews. He had not joined the consulting of the Sanhedrin which had condemned his Master.

God invites him to get out of his shadow. Undoubtedly there was a real danger to line up with Christ at the time when the hatred of the Jews was expressed with such a violence. They had come to claim the crucifixion of their Messiah. Putting his fears aside, Joseph requests the body of Jesus from Pilate. He buys a shroud and with respect puts the body of the Master, into a tomb cut in the rock where nobody ever had been laid before. After he rolls a large stone in front of the entry.

Although the faith of Joseph was so timid God recognizes him and in his sovereign grace, he will enable Joseph to achieve this act of veneration with regard to his Son. One would have liked to see Joseph following his Master more closely and to find him with the disciples after the resurrection of Jesus, but the Scripture does not mention him any more. Didn't he do, as Mary of Bethany (Mark 14, 8), "what was in his capacity" and at the desired time?