Meditation for Today: The Feast of Joseph of Arimathea

Recently I read Christ the Lord; Out of Egypt.  It’s a fantasy by Ann Rice about the life of Jesus from the time the family fled Judea for the safety of Egypt until about Jesus’ 8^th birthday, just after Herod died.  We have no real records of that period in Jesus’ life, and Rice does a good job of raising some questions about how the boy might have been treated and how he might have felt in response. 

Mary Higgins Clark has written a book called The Lost Years, which she turns into a mystery centered on a letter supposedly written by Jesus.  I haven’t read it, but the premise is a bit reminiscent of The DaVinci Code.  All of this – believe it or not – has some relationship to today’s Gospel lesson.

When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who was also a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus; then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. So Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb. (Matthew 27:57-61)

From this brief mention of the “rich man” who assumed responsibility for the burial of Jesus there have proceeded all sorts of legends.  The simplest legend is that Joseph went on to found Christianity in England in 63 AD.  If you want more complications, it is rumored that he was the uncle or cousin of Mary the mother of Jesus, making him a cousin of some sort to Jesus.  Some even say that when Joseph, Mary’s husband, died, this Jospeph became her Leverite husband and cared for her until her death.  It’s also said that Joseph of Arimathea had the goblet from Jesus’ last supper, and that he had a vial filled with Christ’s blood that had dripped down from the cross.  And now here we have the mother of all legends.  This places Joseph of Arimathea are the very center of the Holy Grail legends and drops him into the geneology of the legendary King Arthur. 

The Grail legends are fascinating, but there is another story about Joseph and Jesus that I find more interesting.  It involves those lost years of Jesus’ early life.  William Blake wrote:

And did those feet in ancient time.
Walk upon Englands mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On Englands pleasant pastures seen!

And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

If you were watching the last royal wedding (William and Kate, April, 2011) you would have heard these words sung as the magnificent hymn “Jerusalem.”  What does it mean when it questions whether Jesus walked “upon England’s mountains green?”  Part of the “lost years” legends says that Jesus as a small child (7 or 8) accompanied his “uncle” Joseph on a business trip to England and that Jesus walked the hills of Glastonbury.  Glastonbury would later become the site of the story of Joseph returning to England in 63 AD where – amid many miraculous signs – he built the first Christian church in England and hid the Holy Grail.

Fascinating!

Learning and telling these stories is fun for me, but I also want to call your attention to a serious fact.  Many of the “facts” that we believe or celebrate as part of our faith are myths rooted in imagination.  We need to know what the scriptures truly say.  There are a great many things about our “faith” that we take for granted.  In the scriptures we have the story of God’s relationship with us.  The story runs from Genesis to Revelation.  Understanding that story is not always simple, and so we have allowed fantasies to grow up within our faith that are easier and less threatening to us.  Read scripture.  Struggle with it and pray about it.  Take the time to learn what God intends for us all and for you.

Read the scripture.  Struggle with it.  Wrestle with it as Jacob wrestled with the angel (or was it God?).  Engage your faith and your soul with God.  Read scripture and pray … a lot!

Prayer:  Merciful God, You have tried repeatedly to tell us of Your love.  Guide us to hear Your words, and to learn to separate them from our own words.  Teach us to pray and listen as You speak to us.  In Jesus’ name we pray.  Amen.

Today’s readings are Judges 4:4-23; Acts 1:15-26; Matthew 27:55-66; Psalm 70, 71 & 74.

With the Psalmist (Ps. 70) let us proclaim that all who seek the Lord will rejoice and be glad.  Let those who love God’s salvation say evermore, “God is great!”

Blessings.

Pastor Jim