carrying jesus

Imagine how heavy his body was. How they lifted the slumped body down from its resting place. It must have been awkward to carry, even for people experienced with such things. They shuffled as they carried him. For Nicodemus and Joseph the smell was intense. Of death to be sure - but mostly of the myrrh and aloes – spices fit for a king. The smell was right up their noses. I doubt they talked as they worked, binding the body, straining to lift, turning the heavy form carefully, up on a his perhaps, then onto the front. Life was continuing with some required tasks. If Jesus had had a house Nicodemus and Joseph would have gone through that, eventually as well – through the drawers and the attic, doing the jobs that are done after someone dies. There was notjing left to fear. The worst had happened. And now Nicodemus comes in public to Jesus where at first he had slipped in to see him at night.

There is a gentleness here in the freshly cut tomb, the garden, the loving hands on Jesus’ body. Jesus’ struggle is over and he lies still. Nicodemus and Joseph are strong enough to do these things for Jesus where perhaps Peter and the others were not. We too, who know how the story ends are strong enough to bear seeing Jesus’ body, to smell the spices, to bind him with this pair. But this death is real, and the tomb is real and final. The Apostles’ Creed not just Jesus’ death by crucifixion but the fact he “was buried”. The story moves with clear eyes through these last details of death. There is nothing left to fear for us who have seen the worst of death in stories in Bible or in the Times or the Guardian or in our own lives. In Jesus’ still face we see the last human expression God had yet to take on and God bore it even into the grave.

Nathan Eddy

St Peter’s House Church and Chaplaincy, The University of Manchester