convicted criminal, a criminal who s guilty of political sedition. i have a tomb somewhere secure, somewhere we can prepare his body. so by going to pilate and asking for this rather personal favor, it s almost as if he might be guilty himself. you can imagine it being a very tense meeting between the two men. yes. pontius pilate gives joseph of arimathea the body, but he probably thought he was just letting some jewish custom play out. so far as he was concerned, that was going to be the end of it. in allowing joseph to take the body, pilate had unwittingly started a journey that would turn jesus s burial shroud into one of the most venerated and mysterious relics of all time. oh! oh! oh!
from the cross. you think this is acceptable? he goes to see the roman procurator for judea, pontius pilate. get out. pilate is an essential figure because only he as the roman procurator had the power to pronounce a death sentence. so it was he who ultimately is responsible for jesus crucifixion and death. you ve come for me, rabbi? pilate is famously anti-semitic. he doesn t like jews. he doesn t like being in judea. jesus of nazareth. i ve come to ask for his body. we have to wonder what joseph was thinking. he s taking quite a risk. he s going to pilate and asking for the body of a convicted
he s supplying really very expensive products to be used in the process of embalming the body. first century jewish law said that to touch a dead body would make you unclean. and so for joseph and nicodemus to actually go through the process of preparing jesus for burial, there had to have been tremendous love and devotion just to care for him. a rock is rolled across the entrance to seal the tomb shut. three days after the crucifixion, john and simon peter, two of jesus disciples, visit the tomb. they find it empty. according to john s gospel, then simon peter came and went into
burial cloth in which the crucified body of jesus is laid to rest. the bible tells that the cloth was given by joseph of arimathea, a wealthy member of the jewish council, the sanhedrin. the gospels describe joseph of arimathea as being a sympathizer with the jesus movement. he s fascinated by jesus. so fascinated that even after the crucifixion, he wants to make sure that the right thing is done, that jesus gets the right burial. everyone who encounters jesus in the gospels is transformed. they re either healed or they want to follow him. simply meeting jesus even for one time was life changing and that probably changed joseph s life. but first, joseph needs permission to take jesus down
now. clearly, it would have been an important artifact for the disciples and then for the early christians. so the notion that it would have been preserved makes total sense to me. my gut tells me that it s real. it doesn t seem likely to me that it s real, but the this is something unavoidable about the jesus story of just how much he suffers. jesus may be glorious, enthroned in heaven lord of lords and king of kings. but this moment of suffering and pain is etched in the shroud, his most human moment. for many, the shroud is also a poignant reminder of a man trying to do the right thing. i think a part of joseph s story is our story. even though he didn t understand the outcome, even though he