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"Against the day of My burying hath she kept this!" so had Jesus spoken
when Mary anointed His feet with the very precious spikenard. I do not
suppose that any in the room save herself and her Lord understood His
reference; not one of them believed that He would really die, and His
body be carried to the tomb; but Mary knew better. She had sat at His
feet, and drunk in His very spirit. In the glow of the evening
twilight, when Martha was busy in the house, and Lazarus was away in
the field, they two had sat together, and Jesus, in words similar to
those He had so often used to His apostles, had told her of what was
coming upon Him. Mary believed it all. She knew that she would not be
present at that scene. She did not think that any would be able to
perform the last loving rites for that beloved form. She feared that
it might be utterly dishonored; but she did what she could, she came
beforehand to anoint the Lord's body for His burying.

It was a beautiful act of tender foresight. But in the sense of being
absolutely necessary, as the only act of care and love bestowed on the
Lord's dead body, it was not required; for He who at birth had prepared
the body for His Son, took care that in death it should receive due
honor. When Jesus expired, Luke tells us that many of His
acquaintances, and the women that had followed Him from Galilee were
standing afar off, beholding all that was done; John too was there, and
others who had loved Him and were the grateful monuments of His healing
power: they must have wondered greatly what would be done with that
loved form. Yet what could they do?--they were poor and unimportant;
they had no influence with the capricious and terrible Pilate; they
seemed helpless to do more than wait with choking sobs until some
possible chance should allow them to intervene.

Meanwhile God was preparing a solution of the difficulty. Amongst the
crowd around the cross there stood a very wealthy man named Joseph. He
was a native of the little town of Arimathea, that lay among the
fruitful hills of Ephraim; but was resident in Jerusalem, where he had
considerable property. Some of this lay in the close neighborhood of
the highway by which the cross of our Lord had been erected. He was
also a member of the Jewish Sanhedrim, but it is expressly stated that
he had not consented to the counsel or deed of them; if indeed he was
summoned to that secret midnight meeting in the palace of Cai