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| Descent from the Cross by Van der Weyden |
Jesus is dead. His body is wrapped up in linen cloth saturated with spices and ointment, buried in the tomb of Joseph, the Arimathean. His family, friends, and followers weep.
My question to us this Holy Saturday is -- what if he remained dead and buried? What if he's just another dead Jewish prophet, long forgotten in history? Leaving behind not a timeless, far-reaching global legacy, but a small group of disillusioned, frightened followers cowered in their hiding places?
What would your world, your community, your family, your life be like if Jesus remained dead, on the metanarrative and personal level? Let's allow our imagination take us there in a vivid way.
It'll be worthwhile for all of us, atheists and people of faith, to reflect on this today, and to revisit it every Saturday after Good Friday and before Resurrection Sunday -- imagining our life in a world with a dead and buried Jesus with none of his resurrected legacy.
Now there was a man named Joseph, from the Jewish town of Arimathea. He was a member of the council, a good and righteous man, who had not consented to their decision and action; and he was looking for the kingdom of God. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down and wrapped it in a linen shroud and laid him in a tomb cut in stone, where no one had ever yet been laid. It was the day of Preparation, and the Sabbath was beginning. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments. On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.
Luke 23:50-56
