Letters from Adina - #36

Letter XXXVI. Joseph of Arimathea reclaims the body of the Christ.

"Pilate has commanded me to keep watch to-night with my men.’’

Jerusalem, Third Morning after the Crucifixion.

My Dear Father,

I closed the last letter, only to resume in another the mournful narrative which I have been writing to you.

It is now half an hour to sunrise, and as those who went forth to the sepulchre have not yet returned, I will still continue to tell of these things.

When John saw that Jesus was indeed quite dead, and that all hope of His restoration to life was destroyed, he drew near, and asked permission of the centurion to have the body; for he had promised the mourning mother of the dead son that he would recover it, if possible, for the rites of burial.

But the centurion, though a good and generous man, answered that he could deliver the body to no man without an order signed by the Procurator’s own hand.

Therefore when he obtained the promise of the Centurion that the body should not be taken down until his return, John ran quickly towards the city to ask the consent of Pilate.

But in the meantime, Rabbi Joseph, the counsellor of Arimathea, whom, my dear father, you have, many years ago, well known to be a just and holy man, and who now stands high in favor with Pilate, met the Governor as he was passing the wall of the city with his cohort, and asked him if, after Jesus should be pronounced dead, he might take down the body and give it burial.

Pilate did not hesitate to give his ready consent to this request, and taking from his purse a small signet engraved with his cipher, he placed it in the hands of the rich Rabbi.

“Go and receive the body of this just man,” he said. “Methinks thou art one who knew him well. What thinkest thou concerning him, O Rabbi?”

Joseph, perceiving that Pilate asked the question with deep interest, and that he seemed greatly troubled in mind, he answered him boldly -

“I believe that he was a Prophet sent from God, and that to-day has died on Calvary the most holy, the wisest, and the most innocent man in Caesar’s empire.”

“My heart does echo thy words,” answered Pilate, gloomily; and putting spurs to his horse, he galloped forward in the direction of the Garden of Gethsemane.

John, therefore, did not see Pilate, but on returning from the city, weary and disappointed, he met the ruler Nicodemus, who, attended by one of his Gibeonite slaves, was hastening into Jerusalem to purchase spices and linen to wrap the body in, as our manner is to bury.

From him John learned with great joy, how that Rabbi Joseph had seen Pilate, and obtained from him permission to take down and bury the body.

When John reached the cross he found that Joseph, by the aid of Lazarus, Simon Peter, Mary, Martha, and Rabbi Amos, had taken it out of the socket in the rock, with its precious burden, and gently laid it upon the ground with the body still stretched upon it.

With many tears and lamentations they wrapped the white limbs in the spices and white linen which Nicodemus presently brought.

In the still, holy twilight of that dread day, they bore away from the hill of death the body of the dead Prophet.

Nicodemus, Peter, Lazarus, and of John, gently sustained the loving weight of Him they once honored above all men, and whom, though, as they believed, He had fatally deceived Himself as to his divine mission as the Christ, they still loved for the sorrows He had so patiently borne, and whose virtues they vividly remembered.

Slowly the little group wound their way along the rocky surface of Golgotha, the last to leave that fearful place in the coming darkness.

Their measured tread, their low whispers, the subdued wail of the women who followed the rude bier of branches, the lonely path they trode, all combined to render what they did a solemn and sacred thing.

The shades of evening were gathering thick around them. They walked by secret ways for fear of the Jews.

But some that met them turned aside with awe when they knew what corpse was borne along; for remembrance of the fearful things done that day had not yet wholly passed away from their minds.

At length they reached a gate in the wall of the garden belonging to the splendid abode of the wealthy Rabbi Joseph, who went before, and with a key unlocked it, and admitted them into the secluded enclosure.

Here the thickness of the foliage of olive and fig trees made a complete darkness; for by this time the evening star was burning like a lamp in the west.

They rested the bier upon the pavement beneath the arch, and awaited in silence and darkness the coming of torches, which Rabbi Joseph had sent for to his house.

The servants bearing them were soon seen advancing, the flickering light from the torches giving all things visible by it a wild look, in keeping with the hour.

“Follow me,” said Joseph, in a low voice, that was full of great sorrow, as the servants walked before him with their torches.

The silent bearers of the dead body of Jesus raised their sacred burden from the ground, and trod onward, their measured foot-falls echoing among the aisles of the garden.

At the end thereof, where the rock hangs steep over the valley, and forms at this place the wall of the garden, was a shallow flight of stone steps leading to a new tomb hewn out of the rock.

It had been built for the Rabbi himself, and had just been finished, and in it no man had ever been laid.

The torches flashed brightly upon its massive door, and upon a dark cypress tree, the branches of which drooped in majestic gloom around it.

It looked a fitting resting-place for the dead, so silent so solemn, so peacefull was all around.

The servants, at the command of Joseph, rolled back the stone, and opened the dark vault of the gaping sepulchre.

“Wherefore, most worthy Rabbi,” said a Roman Centurion, suddenly lifting up his voice to speak, “that you thus bury with honor a man who has proved himself unable to keep the dazzling promises wherewith he has allured so many among you?”

All turned with surprise at seeing not only the centurion, but half a score of soldiers, on whose helmets and armour the torches brightly gleamed, as they marched across the grass towards the spot.

“What seekest thou here, O Roman?’’ asked Rabbi Joseph.

“I am sent hither by command of the Procurator,” replied the centurion; “the chief Jews have sought him out, and informed him that the man whom he had crucified had foretold that after three days he would rise again.

They therefore asked a guard might be set over the sepulchre till the third day, lest his disciples secretly steal away the body, and report that their master is risen. Pilate, therefore, has commanded me to keep watch to-night with my men.’’

While the centurion was yet speaking, several of the priests whom Joseph knew drew near, bearing torches; and also a company of women and relatives of Joseph and Mary, who had heard where they were burying the body, came to see the place wherein He was laid.

“We bury him with this deference and respect, O centurion,” answered Rabbi Joseph, “because we believe Him to have been deceived, not a deceiver. We honor thus His memory inasmuch as we love Him.”

The body of Jesus, wrapped in its shroud of spotless linen, and surrounded by the preserving spices of Arabia, was then borne into the tomb, and laid reverently upon the table of stone which Joseph had prepared for his own last resting-place.

By the light of the torches all present looked once again on the body, even the women of Galilee also, and ere they closed the tomb, Mary of Bethany; her sister Martha, and Lazarus,  appeared, to gaze likewise for the last time upon the calm features of the dead Prophet, for since the wondrous signs  attending His death, we are all now assured He must have been a Prophet; and that we have wholly misunderstood, many of his sayings and prophecies concerning Himself.

Simon Peter was the last to quit the body, near which he knelt as if he would never leave it, and shedding all the while great tears of bitter grief.

But John at last, drawing him gently forth, enabled the centurion and the soldiers to close the heavy door of the tomb.

Having secured it evenly, the signet-bearer of procurator, who had come with the soldiers, placed a mass of wax, melted by a torch upon each side of it over the crevices, and sealed the stone with the imperial signet, which to break is punishable withdeath.

The Jews who were present, seeing that the sepulchre was thus made sure by the sealing of the stone, and by the setting of the watch of eighteen Roman soldiers, departed.

Rabbi Joseph, Nicodemus, and the rest of the friends of Jesus, then slowly went their way, leaving a sentinel pacing to and fro before the tomb, and others standing or sitting around, beneath the trees or on the steps of the sepulchre, playing at their favorite game of dice, or gazing upon the broad moon,  conversing or singing the songs of  their native land; yet with their arms at hand, ready to spring to their feet at the least alarm or word of alert.

The tall mailed figure of the centurion, standing motionless, leaning upon the hilt of his long straight sword beside the tomb, was at length shut out from the view of the retiring disciples by the angle in the path, which now turned in the direction of the gate.

Something fearful must have happened as I write; for the house has even now been shaken as if with an earthquake. What can be the meaning of these wonders?

I now hear the voices of Mary and Martha, in the court of the street returning from the tomb. They are talking loudly, and their voices sound joyously! What can mean the commotion—the outcries —the running and shouting all through the corridors and court! I must close and fly to learn what new terror or wonder has occurred.

Your loving daughter,

Adina.

Next Letter

LADY DONNA PROGRAM

The new Lady Donna Immersion in Spirituality, Academics and Citizenship @ the "I AM" School will study abridged excerpts of the Letters from Adina taken from Reverend Ingraham's original edited version of 'The Prince of the House of David', published by Cassell & Co. Ltd (1903), that reveal remarkable insights into the Living Etheric Record left by Beloved Jesus's Ministry in the Holy Land.