Intimate Moment with Joseph and Nicodemus

As much as I usually dislike Gire's reckless habit of putting words and thoughts into people's minds and mouths, I certainly liked this chapter. Two men from the margins, two fence sitters, finally make their move in faith.

Sure, Jesus was dead. But the threat of association with him was still very real. And these men had much to lose if the tides turned nasty. Yet they did what they could then. It's an interesting aside at the beginning of the chapter, when Gire mentions the irony of men worrying about keeping the appearances of the Sabbath when the Son of God has just been murdered.

But that too is so very human, isn't it? We do what we can when we can, and sometimes we're a day late and a dollar short. We've been planning to visit a sick friend in the hospital... and then she dies before we get there. We've been meaning to back up all those blogs we've been writing and Blogger fritzes out and loses the archives. We've been talking about turning our lives over to God totally... you know what I mean. Fear and procrastination are a lethal combination.

So whether these two guys were really reciting prophetic scripture while they were disposing of Jesus' body is up for grabs. Their final act of service to the man they cared about in secret was public. Good for them. The guilt must have been unbearable. I bet they worked in silence, with tears streaming down their faces, but that's my way of dealing with the harsh realities of my own apathy and negligence.