No Longer a Secret Disciple (Mark 15:42-46)

The message Jesus had proclaimed that the kingdom of God was near had ignited a spark that became a flame of longing within the heart of Joseph of Arimathea. Nicodemus had shared with him what he had learned the night he had secretly gone to Jesus. “Unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). I believe Nicodemus and Joseph had many secret meetings as they watched Jesus’s ministry grow. 

Joseph of Arimathea was a prominent member of the Sanhedrin. We know from the Gospel of John that he was a disciple of Jesus, but not openly. He kept his belief in Jesus a secret because others in the Sanhedrin were vehemently opposed to Jesus. He was afraid. He could lose everything if he made his belief public.

Joseph had marveled as he listened to the answers that Jesus gave to the Pharisees, Sadducees and Herodians. No one could find fault with Him, and Joseph had hoped that this would at last convince the Sanhedrin that Jesus was the Messiah for whom they had been waiting. All hopes were dashed when he had been awakened early in the morning for the illegal trial of Jesus. Though Joseph had opposed the Sanhedrin’s plans and actions, he was powerless to prevent them.

I wonder if Joseph and Nicodemus were together at the cross and if they remembered what Jesus had told Nicodemus when he had met with Jesus in secret under the cover of night. “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in Him will have eternal life. For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world that He might judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. Anyone who believes in Him is not judged, but anyone who does not believe is already judged, because he has not believed in the name of the One and Only Son of God” (John 3:14-18).

Joseph of Arimathea had not consented to what the Sanhedrin did. He had been unable to prevent what was happening; however, he did what he could. He went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’s body. He and Nicodemus were no longer secret disciples. Joseph placed Jesus in a tomb cut out of a rock. In doing this he fulfilled the prophecy, “He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth” (Isaiah 53:9). Joseph of Arimathea was no longer a secret disciple.