unto Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus." He had summoned
courage so to do. Hitherto as John explains he had been "a disciple of
Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews." John implies that Joseph was
naturally timid like Nicodemus. As Pilate had delivered Jesus to His
open enemies to be crucified, he delivered the crucified body to Joseph,
the once secret but now open friend. The Jews "led him"--the living
Christ--"away to crucify Him." Joseph "came" and tenderly "took away His
body" from the cross.

"There came also Nicodemus," says John, "he who at the first came to Him
by night." Yes, that night which John could not forget, in which to this
same Nicodemus Jesus made known the Gospel of God's love, manifested in
the gift of His Son whose body in that hour these timid yet emboldened
members of the Sanhedrin took down from the cross. They were sincere
mourners with him who watched their tender care as they "bound it in
linen cloths with the spices" for burial, with no thought of a
resurrection.

Perhaps Joseph and Nicodemus recalled moments in the Sanhedrin when they
whispered together, speaking kindly of Jesus, but were afraid to defend
Him aloud; thus silently giving a seeming consent to evil deeds because
timidity concealed their friendship. But at last the very enmity and
cruelty of His murderers emboldened them as they met at the cross.

It is John who tells us that Jesus the night before His crucifixion went
"where was a garden into which He entered," and who also says, "Now in
the place where He was crucified there was a garden." The one was ever
more suggestive to him of a coming trial; the other of that trial past.
"There," in the garden--probably that of Joseph--John says "they laid
Jesus." There also were laid John's hopes, which seemed forever buried
when Joseph "rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and
departed." What a contrast in his thoughts and feelings between the
rolling _away_ of the stone from the tomb of Lazarus, and the rolling
_to_ that of Jesus. The one told him of resurrection; but the other of
continued death; for as he afterward confessed, "as yet" he and Peter
"knew not that Jesus must rise from the dead."

Two mourners at least lingered at the closed tomb. "Mary Magdalene was
there, and the other Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre" of their
Lord, after they "beheld where He was laid." John's parting from them at
that evening hour was in sadness which was to be de