Courage and discipleship

“After these things, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus.  Pilate gave him permission; so he came and removed his body.  Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes…” (NRSV, John 19:38,39)

Jesus died on the Cross at three o’clock on Good Friday afternoon.  The Jewish Law required that even on an ordinary day the bodies of those who had been crucified should be removed from their crosses before sunset and their burial would follow at once.

On this particular occasion, however, there was a special urgency because the next day, which according to Jewish reckoning began at sunset, was not only the Sabbath but also the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

In the normal way the bodies would have been taken down and buried, not in places of honour such as family tombs, but in special tombs set aside for executed criminals. (1) We can imagine the distress of Our Lord’s mother and his disciples as they contemplated the prospect of his receiving a dishonoured grave.

And this would have happened had not two secret disciples intervened.  They were Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, both members of the Sanhedrin, the Supreme Jewish Council, but as disciples of Jesus they had so far not really succeeded in matching their convictions with their courage.  For example, when Nicodemus had protested to his fellow councillors two years before that it was unjust to condemn Jesus on hearsay they had no difficulty in snubbing him into silence (John 7:50-52).

St Luke tells us that though Joseph of Arimathea was a member of the Council, he “had not agreed to their plan and action” (NRSV, Luke, 23:50,51).  We do not know whether Joseph was absent from the Council meeting that condemned Jesus to death, or whether he lacked the moral courage to oppose the verdict and instead abstained from voting.  But one thing seems plain – Joseph, like Nicodemus, was a somewhat timid disciple.

But now the thought of Jesus being buried in a dishonoured grave spurred them into open action, and they decided to bury him themselves.  Joseph actually owned a new and empty tomb in a garden close to the place of the crucifixion and so he was the obvious one to approach Pilate and ask for the body of Jesus.  While, therefore, Nicodemus went to buy the linen grave cloth and spices required, Joseph plucked up his courage (Mark 15:43) and secured an audience with Pilate.  The latter was quite willing to grant his request and, after making sure that Jesus was really dead and that this was not a plan to rescue a still living prisoner, he gave his formal consent.

Joseph and Nicodemus took down the body of Jesus from the Cross and wound it round with the linen cloth and spices.  Then they laid it on the recessed ledge within the inner chamber of Joseph’s rock-hewn, cave-like tomb, and finally closed the low and narrow entrance by rolling a large stone, like a great millstone, across it.

It must have needed more than ordinary courage for Joseph and Nicodemus to come out into the open in this way as friends and disciples of Jesus.  Their action would rightly be seen as a public rejection of the Sanhedrin’s verdict condemning Jesus and a dramatic assertion of his complete innocence.   At the next Council meeting they would be treated as outcasts but having already committed themselves irrevocably to the defence of Jesus, they would be well able to take all the contempt and hostility that came their way.  Indeed, they would understand the force of Our Lord’s affirmation, “Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man” (our italics) (NRSV, Luke 6:22) (also Matthew 5:11).

Since that day a courageous spirit has always been required of every follower of Jesus.  This is made abundantly clear at the time of Baptism when new Christians are received into his Church and are signed with the sign of the Cross.

In the Prayer Book Service, the sign of the Cross is a token that the person shall “not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight under his banner against sin, the world and the devil; and to continue Christ’s faithful soldier and servant” until the end of his or her life. (2) In the Common Worship Service the priest says:

“Do not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified”.

And everyone present says:

“Fight valiantly as a disciple of Christ
against sin, the world and the devil,
and remain faithful to Christ to the end of your life”. (3)

What does this mean in practice?

To confess – to make no secret of the fact that we are Christians.
To fight – courageously to uphold Christian beliefs and Christian moral standards.
To be faithful – to be unfailingly loyal to Jesus and to Christian beliefs and standards, all along the line to the end.

That is something which has gained a new relevance in today’s secular society in which Christianity is becoming increasingly marginalised.  The Christian’s duty is clear.  We must at all times and in all places stand up boldly for Our Lord by opposing what we know from him to be wrong, and by defending what we have learnt from him to be right, whatever opposition we may meet in so doing.

At a time when abortion is an accepted part of medical practice and there are increasingly strident calls for euthanasia to be legalised, particular courage is required to defend the sanctity of human life from conception onwards.  And there are many others areas of life where the Christian voice needs to be heard.

Jesus himself has summed up the matter for us very simply, “Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven” (NRSV, Matthew 10:32-33).

For whether we like it or not, we are faced with the choice of bearing witness to Our Lord and incurring opposition, or of surrendering to the opposition and so failing him.  We shall not in this country be martyred for upholding the Christian faith and Christian standards, but we must display the same resolution as the martyrs have done.

On July 17th, in the year 180 AD in Sicily, six men and six women were on trial for being Christians and the transcript of the proceedings has come down to us.  One of the women was called Vestia.  She only spoke very briefly.  When asked to renounce the Christian faith she said, “I am a Christian”.  When sentenced to death she said, “Thanks be to God”. (4)

There have been people who have spoken at greater length, but none so much to the point.

References

1. Evans, C.A. (2008) ‘The silence of burial’, In Miller, T.A. (ed) Jesus, the final days, London: SPCK, pp.39-73.

2. Church of England (1662) The Ministration of Public Baptism of Infants to be used in the church. Available from:
http://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/worship/book-of-common-prayer/public-baptism-of-infants.aspx (Accessed 15 February 2011) (Internet).

3. ©The Archbishops’ Council (2006) Common Worship.  Baptism and Confirmation.  Available from: http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1190836/holy%20baptism.pdf (Accessed 15 February 2011) (Internet).

4. Kidd, B.J. (1920) Documents illustrative of the history of the Church, Vol. I to AD 313, No 67, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.