Calm after the Storm

Friday Evening. Quick Burial before nightfall, ahead of Sabbath.

A day after Jesus’ crucifixion and burial, all through yesterday (Saturday), a strange lull and stillness was observed across the city, and the surrounding regions.

As it was the weekly holy day of Sabbath, when Jews normally rest, the streets of Jerusalem were – as usual -mostly empty.

However, small groups of people could be observed,  at various parts of the city, discussing Friday's crucifixion of Rabbi Jesus.

“It was bloody, it was horrifying, and it was too brutal for a great teacher”, said an eye-witness.

“The teacher was given horrible lashes and beatings and was killed in the most humiliating way that is reserved only for lowly criminals”, said another.

"But why did they crucify him, according to Roman Law? Why did they not stone him to death according to Jewish law, for blasphemy - if blasphemy was the real reason - ?" asked another.

"The trial is completely illegitimate", said one legal expert. "How can they conduct a trial during Passover? And how can they decide overnight, the fate of the man who is arrested? The trials were not only unnecessarily fast, but also completely illegal"

Jesus' Burial in Borrowed Tomb

One of the city's wealthy men, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus, before the evening.

With Pilate’s permission, he and another of the city's elders Nicodemus - who was the same Jewish teacher who met Jesus secretly one night - took Jesus' body down the cross, and buried him.

It is learnt that they had brought seventy-five pounds of a mixture of myrrh and aloes, and wrapped the dead body, with spices, in strips of linen, in accordance with Jewish burial customs.

This new tomb was in a garden, hewn out of a rock, close to the place where Jesus was crucified. They rolled a stone across the mouth of the tomb.

As it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus' body there, before the Sabbath began.