What do you do with a dead Jesus?

The jolting question sits at the bottom of Good Friday, daring us to pause and consider it. Up until Joseph of Arimathea brought his request to Pilate, the disciples had made no burial plans. And how could they? They were still reeling, haunted by all they’d witnessed, scarcely able to believe it really happened. Only Joseph had the presence of mind to raise the very practical, very grisly matter of the Lord’s corpse and what to do with it.

No one wants to be the undertaker for a crucified Christ.

Give us the living one instead. That’s the Jesus who caused such a stir, both positive and negative. The living Jesus made bold claims. Changed the weather. Silenced demons. Healed disease. Embarrassed religious leaders and infuriated rule-keepers and delighted crowds and loved the world.

You couldn’t easily ignore the Living One.

Even the dying Jesus called for a response, drawing stares from onlookers and jeers from enemies and belief from strangers. The dying Jesus still quoted scripture and welcomed a thief, cared for his mother and caused the ground to shake. In the process of losing his life, he continued to speak life into those around him.

And, of course, there’s also the risen Jesus, who never fails to capture our attention. We’d thrill to every story he told on the way to Emmaus, each syllable a spark of recognition. We’d gladly jump overboard with Peter and swim our way to the Lord standing on the shore. We have tasted the hope and power and joy and transformation his resurrected self continues to bring. That version of Jesus moves us most of all.

But what is there to say of a dead Jesus? When the voice is silenced and the spirit has departed and all that’s left is the shell, the incomparable personality can no longer provoke us or challenge us or comfort us. A dead Jesus can only be a present absence, a gruesome burden, a sober reminder of a dream not just gone – but beaten and bruised and broken.

He didn’t even rescue himself. Now he appeared powerless to alleviate the agony of his despondent friends, let alone change the world. Now he himself needed to be lifted and carried and mourned.

So, what do you do? If you’re Joseph of Arimathea, you accept the unacceptable. At this point in the gospel narrative, Joseph made a remarkably personal decision. Emerging from the shadows of his secret discipleship, he risked the wrath of his peers, boldly asking Pilate if he could have Jesus’ body. With fear of judgment now silenced by his love of Christ, he pressed in uncomfortably close to the blood-soaked, sweat-stained, lead-weight remains of a lifeless Savior.

Rather than recoil in horror at the sight, Joseph embraced the bleak truth, feeling the full weight of it physically as he hefted the body of Jesus from the cross and gave it the one thing he had to offer: his very own grave.

The dead Jesus was laid to rest in the space intended for a dead Joseph.

Joseph had no expectation for this body. He didn’t claim it for what it could do for him. His faith was not yet so big as to believe there could be something more, something beyond a funeral. But still – he wanted to honor this death, to connect himself to it, to wrap the significance of it into his own existence.

Joseph’s tomb couldn’t gloss over the brutality of the cross or reverse its ugly consequences. It couldn’t make the crucifixion anything less than total devastation. But that space proved big enough to hold the awfulness of Friday and the silence of Saturday until Sunday could rewrite the ending, for Joseph and all the rest of us.

What are we to do with this dead Jesus? We offer him our own graves, our own dead places.

We’d rather not see him there, laid out on the slab meant for you and me. We’d rather not hear the words, “This is my body which is given for you,” as body and blood are held out for our taking. Because we’d rather not admit we needed such an offer.

But he is always Emmanuel, even in death. God with us in our deepest incapacities.

It took a completely dead Jesus to meet the full scope of the Fall in the furthest reaches of human experience. Anything less would be something less.

Can we stand having him so uncomfortably close? Can we bear the truth of a slain Savior who chose not to resist, who suffered the injustice and guilt and shame and misunderstanding and mockery and abuse and abandonment and helplessness of the whole world?

When we allow that part of the story into our story, we find that last rites are not the last word. It is only a matter of time before he takes whatever sepulcher we offer him and transforms it.

It is by his wounds that we are healed. To share in his death ultimately leads to sharing in all that comes next, where he lifts our mortal bodies along with his own.

So lay your fears at his lifeless, nail-scarred feet. Give him your own tomb, your own grief, your own deadness. Then wait. You’ll see.