Jesus Is Laid in the Tomb

V. We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee.

R. Because by Thy holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world.

Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus wrapped the body of Jesus in clean linen cloths with the burial spices, following Jewish burial custom, and placed him in a new tomb hewn from rock in a garden near Golgotha — a tomb in which no one had yet been laid. A large stone was rolled across the entrance. Mary Magdalene and the other women who had followed from Galilee observed where the body was placed, and then went to prepare spices and ointments for a proper anointing after the Sabbath (Luke 23:55-56). The stone was sealed, and guards were posted at the request of the chief priests, who feared that the disciples might steal the body and claim a resurrection (Matthew 27:62-66).

The entombment is the last act of the Passion, the moment of complete silence. The Word who spoke creation into existence, who commanded winds and waves, who called Lazarus out of his tomb — he lies still and silent behind a sealed stone. This is the Great Sabbath, the day on which creation rests in anticipation of something entirely new. The disciples do not know what is coming. They know only grief, and the terrifying silence of the tomb.

We end the Stations here, in the silence before the Resurrection. The fourteenth station does not include the Resurrection — it holds us in the darkness of Holy Saturday, inviting us to sit with the disciples in their grief and confusion and to ask ourselves: do we trust in the God who appears to have fallen silent? Do we keep vigil at the sealed tombs in our own lives — the relationships that seem dead, the hopes that seem buried, the prayers that seem unanswered — believing that God will act? The stone will roll away. But first, we wait in the dark.