Reliving The Passion #38

Mark 15:44–45

And Pilate wondered if he were already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he was already dead.

And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the body to Joseph.

“Jesus of Nazareth?” says Pilate.

“Yes.”

“Dead already?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Crucified and died in—what? Six hours?”

“He was scourged first. He lost blood.”

“So who doesn’t get scourged? It still takes three days to die! And I saw this Jesus. A young man, intense and healthy, right? He was not weak. Clear-eyed, self-controlled, steadfast. Six hours?”

“There was a storm, sir.”

“I know. I live here.”

“A strange storm. A really dreadful storm, sir.”

“So, then! Exposure killed the King of the Jews! Or maybe Jupiter of Thunderbolts. So the others are dead too, right?”

“No. They’re alive.”

“Right. And so is Jesus of Nazareth. No. You can’t have his body. We’re civilized. We bury the dead, sir, not the living. Get out.”

“I promise you upon my honor that the man has died.”

“You’re a physician?”

“No, sir.”

“Then Jesus is sleeping. He’s soporifer. Comatose, you understand? This Rabbi found a way to beat the pain—and you too, by the looks of it. Get out.”

“Governor, I could prove his death, but there’s so little time. It’s almost sunset. I beg you to believe me. Jesus is dead. Dead and dead and he must be buried. He can’t be above when the sun goes down! Can I pay you? Can I buy the body, sir? I have money. What do you want? My rank? I’ll give you my rank on the counsel. I give it away! Believe me—”

“Shut up.”

“—I touched his flesh, as cold as clay—”

“Shut up! I’m tired of the business! I am tired of the day and the Jews and your thousand certitudes, your incomprehensible passions, wild-eyed, fanatic. You’re all so…religious! Shut up, Joseph of Arimathea. Shut up. Get out.”

“No.”

“What?”

“No. I can’t leave. Not without his body. No.”

“Raca! You idiot! Fatue! Do you know what I can do to you? Did you see what I did to your King?”

“You killed him.”

“I did not kill him! He is not dead! But I can kill you!”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry, sir, but it really doesn’t matter. Apart from him I am nothing anyway. I want to bury my Lord in dignity, with honor. Except for that, you can take whatever you want from me. Take my life!”

“We are Romans! We do not bury the living!”

“He is dead. There is no breath in his pale corpse. The blood is thickening in his extremities. He is dead.”

“WHERE’S THAT CENTURION? BRING THE OFFICER IN CHARGE OF THE DAY’S EXECUTION. NOW! You, Joseph, shut up. Wait and say nothing. I’ll believe those paid to be honest. Besides, that old soldier’s about to be pensioned, nothing to gain in a lie—and what do you think he thinks of your Jewish religious involutions? Right. We’ll both defer to a pragmatist, a Roman—”

And so there appears before the Governor a solid centurion: clear-eyed, controlled, immovable. Steadfast.

“Yes, sir,” he says, “Jesus of Nazareth is dead.”

And then, without being asked, offering the thought of his own accord, he says, “And you ought to release the body, sir, in order to bury him speedily. In dignity. With honor.”

Pontius Pilate gapes at the centurion, then at Joseph. He stares back and forth from the fighter to the ruler, from the Roman to the Jew, from the hard man to the soft man, from the poor man to the rich—and he suffers a sort of disorientation because they look alike, these two. Brothers! All at once the supplicants look like brothers.

Pilate is defeated.

He believes this much: that Jesus is dead. He goes this far: to grant the corpse to Joseph.

More than that…well, well, he’s tired of the whole affair. He’s sick to death of a people so completely, so unreasonably, so irredeemably religious!

“Go on, get out. Both of you. Go.”

They leave together.

On Maundy Thursday, consider: we do bury the living, after all—and often! We bury the living Lord in the graves of ourselves whom he changes, by his indwelling, from tombs to living stones!

This is the persistent gift of the Lord’s last supper: that every time we faithfully eat and drink it, Jesus comes within us, and we become his temple here.

Jesus:

Dead, you entered Joseph’s tomb

And once, for all, did not exist.

Alive, you enter and commune

Myself in every Eucharist.

For this you mystified the wine,

For this reduced the bread to bone—

To lodge your body, Christ, in mine!

Then here, my Love: come home. Come home.