Your peace bless my dying day

Pilate was surprised to hear that Jesus was already dead. He called the army officer and asked him if Jesus had been dead a long time. After hearing the officer’s report, Pilate told Joseph he could have the body. Joseph bought a linen sheet, took the body down, wrapped it in the sheet, and placed it in the tomb which had been dug out of solid rock. Then he rolled a large stone across the entrance to the tomb.   (verses 44-46)

Read Mark 15: 40-47

Soon after the early Christians claimed that Jesus was alive some opponents scoffed, ‘He only appeared to die’. Others reckoned that the Christ could not die and therefore the resurrection did not happen. Oh no, Pilate, the army officer and Joseph all attest that ‘Jesus was crucified, dead, and buried’, as we still confess m the creed.

In a time when death is sanitised as we ‘pass on’ or ‘are lost on the table’, you need to know that Jesus has really been there too, not just as a mourner but also as a corpse. He rested in the grave too. We will follow him into his resurrected life just as surely.

Teach me to live, that I may dread
the grave as little as my bed; teach
me to die, that so I may
rise glorious at the awesome day.
(Thomas Ken, 1637-1711)

by Paul Lohe, in ‘Assurance for each Day’ (LCA, Openbook, 2004)

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