Scripture Daily

Context No. 1091 of 4322 · Mark

Context · Reflection

Mark 15:40-47: in context

40There were also women watching from afar, among whom were both Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome; 41who, when he was in Galilee, followed him and served him; and many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem. 42When evening had now come, because it was the Preparation Day, that is, the day before the Sabbath, 43Joseph of Arimathaea, a prominent council member who also himself was looking for God’s Kingdom, came. He boldly went in to Pilate, and asked for Jesus’ body. 44Pilate was surprised to hear that he was already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he had been dead long. 45When he found out from the centurion, he granted the body to Joseph. 46He bought a linen cloth, and taking him down, wound him in the linen cloth and laid him in a tomb which had been cut out of a rock. He rolled a stone against the door of the tomb. 47Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses, saw where he was laid.

At the cross, when the disciples have fled, a group of women stand watching from a distance, women who had followed Jesus and served him in Galilee and come up with him to Jerusalem. Then Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent council member who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, takes courage and goes to Pilate to ask for Jesus' body. Pilate, surprised Jesus is already dead, confirms it with the centurion and releases the body. Joseph buys linen, takes Jesus down, wraps him, lays him in a rock-cut tomb, and rolls a stone across the entrance, while the women watch where he is laid.

When the men closest to Jesus had scattered in fear, two unexpected sets of people stayed close in his death. The women, who followed and served and now stand watching, unwilling to leave even at the end, keeping vigil at the cross and the tomb when there was nothing left to gain and real danger in being associated with a crucified man. And Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the very council that condemned Jesus, who steps out of the shadows and does a bold thing, going publicly to Pilate to claim the body of an executed criminal, spending his own money and his own new tomb, at obvious cost to his standing. Both are quiet, costly acts of devotion offered when the cause looked utterly lost. It is worth noticing who shows up at the darkest hour: not the inner circle, who have fled, but the faithful women who kept serving and a secret believer who finally found his courage. Sometimes the people who stay when everything collapses are not the ones you would have predicted, and grief and defeat draw out a devotion that easier days never required.

When a cause or a person I love seems utterly defeated, will I quietly stay close and do the costly, unglamorous thing, like the watching women and bold Joseph, when the confident have fled?

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