The gospel message repeats itself through the lectionary: along with the psalms. And the text is always fresh. It is not boring: it is the record of our life, our salvation. For God is not incarnate in the words of the book but in Christ: here the Muslims fall into a great error.
Books are important, but fungible.
And today we look at another Joseph who took courage and asked for the body of Christ to be buried. One should not assume he was fainting, as others say: the Romans had too much practice in execution, including execution for political reasons. He was dead, and buried.
But Joseph took courage… and went to the Roman Authorities. Pilate may have been a tyrant, but I wonder if the courage was as much around the council, who had damned Jesus, and would look unfavourably on any who associated themselves with him.
There were also women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. When he was in Galilee, they followed him and ministered to him, and there were also many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem.
And when evening had come, since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate was surprised to hear that he should have already died. And summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he was already dead. And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph. And Joseph bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was laid.
You have to give the Renaissance artists credit. Garafalo has painted what the Romantics would consider a great painting, and put it in the background. In the foreground we see the tomb, with Mary holding her son’s hand, with other women. Mary was a common name: the Jews qualified it by the place (Magdalene) or relationships (the Mother of Joses). For that is the true story. Although nature is wonderful, and beautiful, it saves us not.
(This second shot is from the Aurora Australis Facebook Group).
In this time, we must take our courage in our hands and deal with the issues that face us. This has costs: you can become physically ill, or despair, with its wingmen acedia and nihilism can overwhelm us. Acedia is not mere laziness, but a loss of energy and draining of motivation. But we need to remain positive regardless. We have a great example of this in the Apostles, who counted it joy to imitate Christ in his suffering.
And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
(Philippians 1:6-11 ESV)
Joseph took courage. So should us. The goal in front of us is great. Lets not lose sight of this: that we should be full of righteousness, so that all shall praise God, even if God they know not. That is far higher than we can achieve by ourselves. But Christ, who gives us courage, can add to it wisdom, grace, and discernment. May this be so.
Hey there Chris, I was wondering what your opinion was on the refugee crisis. http://www.aholyexperience.com/2015/09/why-now-is-the-churchs-moment-it-will-take-all-of-us-not-to-miss-it-wewelcomerefugees/
I don’t see refugees I see people smuggling, using our good will.
I’d go full Abbott: we will not let you in if you attempt to enter illegally. We WILL let you in as refugees and support facilities for them, elsewhere, but you don’t get into the homeland until we say so.
And we don’t tolerate queue jumpers. The most merciful thing we can do is ensure these people do not get onto the boats and place themselves and their families at risk.
I have a huge support for resettling Assyrian Christians, Iraqui Christians: that should be our priority. Did I add that part of going full Abbott is having no dole for new immigrants? They can be supported by churches until they are working, and they can work. Know plenty of refugees with full blown PTSD who drove Taxis. Admittedly they were generally Serbs and Bosnians.
I also don’t respond well to emotive photos. I deal with too many such people in real life: it is never as romanticized or as simple as the propaganda makes it look.
thank you
Thanks back: it did lead to a post, after all