Saturday, 20 April Luke 23:50-56
Written by Dr Graham Leo. ©2019.
Easter Saturday doesn't have a proper name. Perhaps it should be called Bleak Saturday.
When we go through this day, we’ve had the Good Friday services and we know that the Easter Sunday services are all planned. We know that tomorrow we’ll be singing Charles Wesley’s glorious hymn, Christ the Lord is risen today! Alleluia! (If your church still chooses to sing those grand hymns which sustained the people of God through centuries of wars and revolutions.)
The people who are living in Luke’s story don't know any of this. As far as they know, their hoped-for Messiah is dead and buried. They saw him die. They know that Joseph of Arimathea buried him in his own tomb. Luke carefully tells us that they followed him there and watched him laid in the tomb and the great stone rolled across the entrance.
They know that dead men don't come out of their graves. The only one Man who could have helped, well, he’s the one in the grave! They have no hope. Their Saturday is the bleakest day they have ever lived through. They have no reason to look forward to Sunday morning. None. They are emptier than a widow’s pantry in mid-winter. Colder than a miser’s sitting-room. Lonelier than a man sobbing in his garden in the twilight.
But Luke doesn't even mention this day. Why not? Surely the reason is simple.
Because nothing happened! Luke is an historian, a chronicler, not a poet.
And that’s the whole point. Nothing happened, because nothing of any importance could happen any more. W. H. Auden said it most poignantly:
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
But we have a reading to consider. What shall we make of it on this dark day?
Luke tells us that Joseph was a member of the ‘Council’. That’s the Council that was mentioned back in 22:66. Luke now tells us something that we would not have known if he had not taken the time to tell us this little snippet of information.
Joseph was a dissenting voice on the Council that sent Jesus to Pilate, condemning him to death. I'm so glad that Luke has taken a few lines of his history to tell us this.
I've served on quite a few Councils or Boards in my life. Church Councils, Corporate Councils, School Councils, International Councils… What I’ve discovered in my life is that when you're on a Council, every so often a difficult issue comes up. And that’s when you separate the men and women from the boys and girls.
The moment will always come, when there’s a difficult moral question to be addressed; or a hard decision to be taken, where to take a strong ethical line will be unpopular or costly; or where the decision must be made to discipline a CEO or CFO, or to draw a line in the sand and risk the loss of an influential friend, or a wealthy source of funds. And those moments are very telling in their sifting of men’s and women’s characters.
I'm so glad that Luke has told me of Joseph of Arimathea, who stood up against a Council, in what must have been the hardest meeting of his whole life. When there was death and betrayal in the air, when a wrong allegiance could cost his very life, he stood up and dissented. Luke is clear. Joseph had not consented – not to the decision and not to the subsequent action (v51).
It’s standard governance practice that even if you disagree with a decision made by a Board, you are obliged to support it after a majority of Board members have passed it. Yes, well, perhaps. But Joseph did not do so. On this occasion, the moral principle was so important that he refused to support the ensuing action, even after the majority decision.
Let’s not minimise this. It would have been very easy for Joseph to have dissented from the decision, and then said, ‘Oh well, I disagreed, but I guess I’ve got to along with the group, now’. But Joseph was made of sterner stuff. And it didn't stop there!
Joseph now goes straight to Pilate, right up to the Lion’s Den. Completely disregarding the risks he was running, to himself, to his family, to his business and reputation, he asks for Jesus’ body. There was every chance that Pilate could have arrested him, or told his soldiers to quietly dispose of him in a back street on Joseph's way home, because he sensed that here was trouble in the making. That sort of thing had been done before.
There can be no doubt that Joseph’s action was one of deep conviction and earnest courage. Perhaps every Board and Council meeting immediately after Easter should commence with a two minute standing silence for Joseph of Arimathea, just to remind members of their obligations!
Joseph had read his Old Testament. He knew what the Lord had spoken to Joshua:
This is my command – be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. Josh. 1:9
Although, strictly speaking, this event did not take place on Bleak Saturday, it was perhaps the holiest and most courageous action that anyone performed, after Jesus’ death and before his resurrection.
Let all those who sit on committees and Councils, who discuss and debate great matters, learn from Joseph of Arimathea’s courage.
Prayer: For courage, O Lord, just as Joseph showed, I pray. Help me to be strong and of good courage, when I am needed most to make a stand for righteousness and truth. Help me not to waver, when my moment of testing comes. Amen.
