This sermon was preached on April 4, 2015 for Holy Saturday at Grace Episcopal Church in Medford, MA. The texts for this sermon were: Lamentations 3:1-9, 19-24, 1 Peter 4:1-8, John 19:38-42, and Psalm 31:1-4, 15-16.
Today we are gathered at the darkest moment of the Christian faith. The body hangs still and brutalized on the cross, Christ’s most loyal disciples have scattered. The nightmare of Good Friday is over, but the night lingers on. Jesus is dead.
Into this moment, enter our two characters from the John passage today. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, wealthy, privileged and powerful elites of Jewish religious sects, people who had the most to lose by associating with Jesus. Indeed, John tells us that Joseph’s fear of the Jewish authorities kept him from revealing his discipleship to Christ. And yet here, right at the moment when he has everything to lose and nothing to gain, Joseph asks Pilate for permission to bury Jesus’s body. Nicodemus, who first sought out Jesus under anonymity of nightfall, finds his moment now, too, when everyone else is lost in the dark. He helps Joseph pack the corpse with spices and wrap him tenderly in linen cloth.
It is Joseph and Nicodemus’s actions that allow for the full glorification of God. It is Joseph’s unused tomb that we find empty on Easter. It is the two men’s hasty, unfinished preparations of the body before the Sabbath that necessitate Mary Magdalene’s return to the tomb on Easter. And it is their brave act of service right when everyone else has given up that illuminates the new story Christ has to offer each one of us.
Your preparation of this space today allows for the joy of Easter and glorification of God in our church and community tomorrow. I want thank you for the small and large ways the work that you do today brings hundreds of people closer to the good news of Jesus Christ tomorrow.
It would be impossible to carry on preparing today as if we did not know what was coming. But that is just what Joseph and Nicodemus did. They gave freely of the considerable resources they had—a burial site and materials of fit for a king—despite believing the movement finished and the prophet dead.
I want to thank you as well for all those moments where you have been Joseph and Nicodemus in your own lives. For those “afterwards” times when all seemed lost and you carried on anyway. After the life had ended and the disease had won, after the final decision had been made and the opportunity denied. When going through the motions seemed pointless and you did it anyway. I want to thank you because sometimes it is those very actions that God uses to reveal himself to others. Sometimes it is that quiet and foolish courage that saves us all.
So thank you, for all that you do.
Let us pray.
Holy and Merciful God,
In the darkest of moments, you call us to step forward to do what needs to be done, whether in haste or desperation, or with the quiet, still hope of new life yet to come. Be with us as we prepare this sanctuary for Easter and prepare our hearts for the resurrection of your son. Grant that all our actions be used to the glorification of your holy name.
In the memory of the crucified Jesus, Amen.
Today we are gathered at the darkest moment of the Christian faith. The body hangs still and brutalized on the cross, Christ’s most loyal disciples have scattered. The nightmare of Good Friday is over, but the night lingers on. Jesus is dead.
Into this moment, enter our two characters from the John passage today. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, wealthy, privileged and powerful elites of Jewish religious sects, people who had the most to lose by associating with Jesus. Indeed, John tells us that Joseph’s fear of the Jewish authorities kept him from revealing his discipleship to Christ. And yet here, right at the moment when he has everything to lose and nothing to gain, Joseph asks Pilate for permission to bury Jesus’s body. Nicodemus, who first sought out Jesus under anonymity of nightfall, finds his moment now, too, when everyone else is lost in the dark. He helps Joseph pack the corpse with spices and wrap him tenderly in linen cloth.
It is Joseph and Nicodemus’s actions that allow for the full glorification of God. It is Joseph’s unused tomb that we find empty on Easter. It is the two men’s hasty, unfinished preparations of the body before the Sabbath that necessitate Mary Magdalene’s return to the tomb on Easter. And it is their brave act of service right when everyone else has given up that illuminates the new story Christ has to offer each one of us.
Your preparation of this space today allows for the joy of Easter and glorification of God in our church and community tomorrow. I want thank you for the small and large ways the work that you do today brings hundreds of people closer to the good news of Jesus Christ tomorrow.
It would be impossible to carry on preparing today as if we did not know what was coming. But that is just what Joseph and Nicodemus did. They gave freely of the considerable resources they had—a burial site and materials of fit for a king—despite believing the movement finished and the prophet dead.
I want to thank you as well for all those moments where you have been Joseph and Nicodemus in your own lives. For those “afterwards” times when all seemed lost and you carried on anyway. After the life had ended and the disease had won, after the final decision had been made and the opportunity denied. When going through the motions seemed pointless and you did it anyway. I want to thank you because sometimes it is those very actions that God uses to reveal himself to others. Sometimes it is that quiet and foolish courage that saves us all.
So thank you, for all that you do.
Let us pray.
Holy and Merciful God,
In the darkest of moments, you call us to step forward to do what needs to be done, whether in haste or desperation, or with the quiet, still hope of new life yet to come. Be with us as we prepare this sanctuary for Easter and prepare our hearts for the resurrection of your son. Grant that all our actions be used to the glorification of your holy name.
In the memory of the crucified Jesus, Amen.
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