Holy Saturday
As the story goes, after the crucifixion of Jesus, his followers held a vigil for the forty hours until his resurrection. The authors of the Apostles’ Creed and the Athanasian Creed refer to this day as the Harrowing of Hell, when they maintain Christ descended into hell to free all the souls who had died since the beginning of the world and allowed the trapped righteous souls to reach heaven. Whether or not this is true it is not the story which commands my attention. Perhaps because I have just spent time with a delightful 9-year-old young man and his dad discussing who we are as men and exploring the question of how we nurture important relationships I am drawn to the story in Mark 15:46-47 in which it is reported a man named “…Joseph brought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was laid.”
Nothing seems to be known about this man named Joseph although there is no shortage of conjecture. I am not sure it matters. I do know that in many religions there are specific people who are assigned the task of washing and preparing the body for burial. Most accounts tell us the task is always done with much love and reverence. In this account of the story it is one lone man, not one of the disciples or apostles, who takes down the body and wraps it in linen before placing it is the tomb. It is not recorded whether he washed the body as would happen in the Jewish tradition. The chevra Kadisha, the Jewish burial society, collects the body and respectfully washes and prepares it for burial. Males prepare males and females prepare females.
Sometimes it seems that we males wait until death to express our love and affection for each other. It seems as if we males expect females to do most or all the direct expression of tenderness and affection for the living – male and females. In many cultures we seem hesitant to express our affection for the living males we love. In death it is okay. If, however, we are preforming as a soldier or in some college or professional sports we males are confident enough of our masculinity to express our affection. We are also okay with showing affection to infants, but we soon decide that we need a manlier relationship with our sons and other young men.
Jesus seems to have no hesitation in showing affection to other men or to women. In fact, his general demeanor was one of tenderly listening, embracing or otherwise comforting others. He consistently demonstrated unconditional love and affection. It is not known whether he had any sexual relationships but his day to day relationships were often affectionately nurturing.
Perhaps on his Holy Saturday this is one of the lessons to which we males need to attend. Although we are very sexual beings we can learn to lead with our hearts. We can practice treating each other with the same love and respect that Joseph showed to the dead body of Jesus. We can cry for and with each other, laugh with each other, caress the wounds of each other and embrace each other with no other agenda; no need to use, abuse, or otherwise treat each other as objects. If we risk doing that we will, I believe, be obeying the commandment to love one another just as Jesus loved us. It really could be that simple.
Written April 20, 2019
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
As the story goes, after the crucifixion of Jesus, his followers held a vigil for the forty hours until his resurrection. The authors of the Apostles’ Creed and the Athanasian Creed refer to this day as the Harrowing of Hell, when they maintain Christ descended into hell to free all the souls who had died since the beginning of the world and allowed the trapped righteous souls to reach heaven. Whether or not this is true it is not the story which commands my attention. Perhaps because I have just spent time with a delightful 9-year-old young man and his dad discussing who we are as men and exploring the question of how we nurture important relationships I am drawn to the story in Mark 15:46-47 in which it is reported a man named “…Joseph brought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was laid.”
Nothing seems to be known about this man named Joseph although there is no shortage of conjecture. I am not sure it matters. I do know that in many religions there are specific people who are assigned the task of washing and preparing the body for burial. Most accounts tell us the task is always done with much love and reverence. In this account of the story it is one lone man, not one of the disciples or apostles, who takes down the body and wraps it in linen before placing it is the tomb. It is not recorded whether he washed the body as would happen in the Jewish tradition. The chevra Kadisha, the Jewish burial society, collects the body and respectfully washes and prepares it for burial. Males prepare males and females prepare females.
Sometimes it seems that we males wait until death to express our love and affection for each other. It seems as if we males expect females to do most or all the direct expression of tenderness and affection for the living – male and females. In many cultures we seem hesitant to express our affection for the living males we love. In death it is okay. If, however, we are preforming as a soldier or in some college or professional sports we males are confident enough of our masculinity to express our affection. We are also okay with showing affection to infants, but we soon decide that we need a manlier relationship with our sons and other young men.
Jesus seems to have no hesitation in showing affection to other men or to women. In fact, his general demeanor was one of tenderly listening, embracing or otherwise comforting others. He consistently demonstrated unconditional love and affection. It is not known whether he had any sexual relationships but his day to day relationships were often affectionately nurturing.
Perhaps on his Holy Saturday this is one of the lessons to which we males need to attend. Although we are very sexual beings we can learn to lead with our hearts. We can practice treating each other with the same love and respect that Joseph showed to the dead body of Jesus. We can cry for and with each other, laugh with each other, caress the wounds of each other and embrace each other with no other agenda; no need to use, abuse, or otherwise treat each other as objects. If we risk doing that we will, I believe, be obeying the commandment to love one another just as Jesus loved us. It really could be that simple.
Written April 20, 2019
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
RSS Feed