Iyyar 14, 5785; from sunset May 11, 2025, to sunset May 12, 2025
(The fourteenth day of the second month)
This is the name of Joseph, the Arimathean, as it appears in Matthew 27:57 in the Greek text.
All four gospels honor Joseph of Arimathea for his loving-kindness and devotion to Jesus. By seeing to the needs of His earthly body, Joseph became ritually unclean and would have been unable to keep the LORD’s Passover in the first month. Did our Father have him in mind more than a millennia earlier when He gave His response to the Israelites who came to Moses and said, “Why should we miss the Passover because we are unclean due to a dead body?” The book of John mentions that Nicodemus helped Joseph and brought myrrh and aloes. Perhaps they kept the Passover in the second month together, the same as the Israelites did back in Moses’ day. If they did, probably took on a whole new meaning for them. Let’s read about the beautiful act of Joseph and Nicodemus as recorded by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus. Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him. Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away. – Matthew 27:57-60 (NIB)
It was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath). So as evening approached, Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. Pilate was surprised to hear that he was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he asked him if Jesus had already died. When he learned from the centurion that it was so, he gave the body to Joseph. So Joseph bought 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. – Mark 15:42-46 (NIB)
Now there was a man named Joseph, a member of the Council, a good and upright man, who had not consented to their decision and action. He came from the Judean town of Arimathea and he was waiting for the kingdom of God. Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body. Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen cloth and placed it in a tomb cut in the rock, one in which no-one had yet been laid. It was Preparation Day, and the Sabbath was about to begin. The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. – Luke 23:50-55 (NIB)
Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jews. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no-one had ever been laid. Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was near by, they laid Jesus there. – John 19:38-42 (NIB)
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