Dear Theophilus,
It is indeed a terrible scene, a
fate I would not wish upon my worst enemy.
I cannot bear the thought of looking upon the cross, seeing a broken and
beaten body there, suffering such a terrible death. He certainly did not deserve it, and I hope
that those Jewish leaders felt pangs of regret for the rest of their lives for
what they had done to orchestrate his death.
Perhaps the tearing of this curtain helping move that guilt along.
But what now? There he is, dead upon the cross. You speak of hope and life and forgiveness,
yet the man who is supposed to bring all of those is himself dead. What makes him different than any other
person? How am I supposed to believe all
of those things when he could not even escape death? Some evidence of his power in this regard
would be helpful. I can scarcely offer
myself to a man whose story ends in such a fashion. You say that the story does not conclude
here, yet I find it hard to fathom where else it goes. I have a reliable record that says a man
named Joseph, from the place called Arimathea, went to Pilate to ask for Jesus’
body. I don’t know too much about the
man, other than that he was generally regarded as a good man, a righteous man,
a member of the council who is said to have not been a part of the conspiring
against Jesus. It is said that he was
eagerly awaiting God’s kingdom, and so he certainly watched Jesus with keen
interest.
He went and claimed the body,
laying it in newly-hewn tomb after wrapping it in a linen cloth. The women who followed and loved Jesus
watched to see the tomb and the way his body was laid there, so that they might
anoint the body with spices and ointments, giving it the proper and respectful
treatment the body of a beloved deserves, rather than the disrespectful abuse
it had received at the hands of the Romans.
They were required by law to rest on the Sabbath, and since this was
just before it, they would not be able to treat the body until after the
Sabbath. Their wait must have been
torturous, as they were surely encompassed by mourning and wailing for the
death of the man they loved.
That is what I know,
Theophilus. I do not imagine we have
omitted many details. What more is there
to say? I know you have many thoughts about
the life of this man, but his death seals my ears to any more of them. I simply cannot choose to place my faith in a
man who, while performing extraordinary miracles, dies in such an ordinary and
awful way. This last act destroys what
confidence I might have had in him and leads me to conclude that perhaps he was
not the intriguing singularity I was beginning to believe that he was.
I am sorry, friend, but I cannot
offer my faith to placate you, even though part of me would like to. It is simply beyond what I can do.
Sincerely,
Luke
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