The Fourteenth Station: The Body of Christ is Buried
(Those of us who have had the privilege and honor of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land always make Jerusalem part of the holy time. There, although the Jewish Temple has been replaced by a grand mosque, we can see the very places we read about in the New Testament, the actions of our redemption through the life, passion, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Many make the way of the cross, the Via Dolorosa, an ancient prayer service with stops at places that commemorate events of Our Lord’s tortuous journey to the place of His execution. Some of the stations, as they are called, are taken directly from the Gospels, some are inferred from the practice of crucifixion, and a few come from the more reliable Christian traditions.)
As one enters the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the holiest place in all Christendom, the entire panorama of our Redemption moment is spread out before him. On the right, up some stairs to an ornate Byzantine chapel, is the place of crucifixion, the small hill of Calvary now completely built over by the church and chapel. At the foot of that hill is a long, flat stone of anointing, where tradition tells us Mary accepted the body of Jesus and then Joseph and Nicodemus laid Him out on the fine linen cloth that covered His whole body, front and back. Then another cloth was wrapped around His head. Myrrh and aloes were wrapped in the burial shroud as a sign of respect. Their intention, as with all Jewish burials at the time, was to place the Body in the tomb, allow it to decompose, and then after a few years collect the bones for a permanent reliquary. That, of course, was not to be in the plan of God.
At the extreme left are a series of chapels in the vicinity of the actual tomb, originally meant for Joseph but now dedicated to His Master, His Lord. The tomb is quite small, just enough for a priest and deacon to stand to celebrate Mass, while pilgrims stand outside. That is a real privilege, and I can attest that the tomb is, indeed, empty. It’s pretty much just as Mary and Peter and John discovered on the third day. Jesus is not there; He is risen.
If Jesus is not risen, we are, as Paul writes, the most pitiable of humans, giving our lives over to someone who is just another dead Jewish rabbi. But He is risen. How do I know that? Ultimately, it’s not because my parents raised me to believe in it, and in Him, the Christ. It’s not even because of the stories written in inspired Scriptures. After all, fairy tales are printed in books, too.
Our faith rests on the testimony of other human beings, people we call saints, who went to their deaths rather than deny what they knew to be true. Of the eleven apostolic survivors, all but one were murdered for their faith. And they all insisted that they had seen their Lord alive and glorious, and not just a spirit but a living human in a divinized body. So we are not to be pitied, but to be believed and followed, because being with Christ and in Christ is the only true path to salvation and holiness and eternal happiness.
