It was great to see so many people at our Good Friday meeting on zoom this morning! If you weren’t able to join us, or you simply wanted to read them again, we will be posting all four of our monologues from this morning on the blog today! The monologues help to convey the feelings of four people mentioned in John 19.
Our fourth and final monologue is from the perspective of Joseph of Arimathea…
“I’ve come for the body”, I said.
Pilate looked up – I think he recognised me from the Council.
“Please, can I take the body?”
We both knew who I was talking about
He spoke quietly to a guard who scurried away. And Pilate nodded to the seats to the side – but I stood. I waited.
It was getting dark by now – proper dark, and despite the hour, I stood.
Pilate busied himself, but glanced my way every few minutes – I think he looked curious, or it just might have been fatigue.
After what felt like an age, the guard returned and told Pilate what I already knew – Jesus was dead.
I realised then that I hadn’t stopped weeping since I walked in, perhaps that was what Pilate had been curious about. I didn’t care, I stood where I was and said again – “Can I have the body?”
Pilate signed the warrant without a word and waved me away. I didn’t outstay my welcome.
I got outside and looked around for Nico – he’d dosed off and I nudged him awake – “Joe?” “Yes,” I said, “I’ve got it.” I helped him up and we stood there, hands clasped a little longer than intended. It was good to have a friend. We went quickly as we could – back to Golgotha.
The soldiers read the warrant and without ceremony they lifted the cruciform down, leaving us to take his body.
I think they enjoyed seeing two old men struggling with the nails, working them free, sobbing the whole time. We worked together, neither of us were used to working with our hands and it wasn’t quick work. We were soon bloody and hurting. I noticed as we laboured, neither of us looked him in the face – part shame and part reluctance to look the truth in the eye. Our Rabbi, our Lord had been silenced for good.
“Come on, , let’s get this done,” Nico encouraged, “I got the spice, have you got the linen?”
I unrolled the strips of linen and we wrapped his body with spice, the scents doing nothing to disguise the finality of what we were doing. We didn’t speak more than a few words, but there was comfort in the ritual that we were both practiced in - treating the body of a well-loved friend or one of our family with the honour they deserve. This was no different in some ways, though we were short of time. We dispensed with the normal psalm recitation – bowed together with a short prayer, affirming that divine judgment is righteous, despite what our hearts felt.
“Joe, come on, formal mourning will have to wait.” I suppose Nico could see my hesitancy. It felt callous to treat the Rabbi this way – but it was the law, we had to hurry. We laid him in my unused tomb, seemed the least I could offer him. And we left him in the darkness.
Nico gave me an uncharacteristic hug – there in the garden, in the silence and I sobbed again.
I couldn’t help but think back -
“I am the way the truth and the life, he’d said.
I am the bread of life, he’d said
The Spirit gives life, he’d said
He promised us the light of life.
He promised life to the full.
I am the resurrection, he’d said.
What’s going on, Nico?!!?
Was it all just words – just figurative language? Was this too just a parable?
What’s in the name of Jehovah is going on?!
And we wept together as we walked home.
Written by Steve Page
