Holy Week: Saturday
April 4, 2026
“Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.” John 19:38-42
Joseph of Arimathea takes Jesus’s body from the cross to the tomb. There, Joseph and Nicodemus prepare Jesus’s body for burial, carefully going through the customary practices to make Him ready.
We might imagine that, after the horrors of the day, all is quiet in the garden where they lay Jesus. What does one say? Joseph and Nicodemus work without much conversation, and after they have finished, they roll the stone in place, sealing Jesus’s body in the tomb.
I suspect none of Jesus’s followers slept much. Their minds probably raced with all sorts of memories of the things Jesus had said and done, mixed with all the questions they had. I suspect every time they closed their eyes they saw again the horrors of what had been done to Jesus. Also, there was likely a lot of fear—would they be next?
Jesus had said, “It is finished,” but is it really over? What comes next? Jesus was supposed to be the Savior; the Messiah; the Christ. Were they wrong?
As we sit here today, two thousand years later, we know that Sunday is coming, and with it the most joyous celebration ever. But, then and there, it was only silence and waiting and wondering.
On this Saturday of Holy Week, perhaps we, too, should wait in silence, hoping beyond hope, for what tomorrow may bring.
Grace and peace,
Brandon