Silences

The silences woven into   the stories after Easter Sunday persist until today.

In the week after the Resurrection,  scripture accounts include  appearances  to women outside the tomb, a skeptical Tomas asked to place his fingers on the crucifixion wounds to Peter and John served breakfast, by the risen Lord, on Lake Galilee’ shores.

But what about Pontius Pilate? The Roman procurator kept on top of things. Only after a centurion confirmed Christ’s death, did he agree to the body be taken down from the cross. When did he know of the empty tomb?  

Did Pilate tell his wife about the set aside burial shrouds?  At the mock trial of Christ, she sent a note to Pilate, then sitting on the judgment seat: “Don't have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him.” Or did she learn of Easter from others?

The last mention, in scriptures, about Joseph of Arimathea was when he and Nicomedus, who’d furtively visited Christ at night, rolled the stone to seal the grave that he donated to accommodate the crushed body of Christ. All four gospels write about this “honorable” counsellor and member of the Jewish Sanhedrin 

He was a rich man who “went boldly unto Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus”. He then purchased fine linen, Mark writes, to wrap the body of Jesus taken down  and  applied the myrrh and aloes, Then, they brought the body into  a man-made cave hewn from rock in the garden of his house nearby, John recounts. This was done speedily, "for the Sabbath was drawing on”.

Who told Joseph and Nicodemus of the empty tomb? When? And did they see the stone seal rolled away burial shroud laid aside? The gospels are silent.

The Filipino phrase for Simon of Cyrene is chamba. By chance, he was passing by when the Man carrying a cross crashed into the ground before him. Was he at the wrong place at the wrong time? He was conscripted to carry the cross to Golgotha.

“He was (not) central to the event,” the theologian Karl Rahner notes. Simon was forced “to do something inside a great drama. Yet, what did radically reshaped his life, in a way not according to his own choosing.” The gospels give sparse details about this istambay conscript. Only that his two sons were named Alexander and Rufus were disciples. That is all.

Others have tried to fill that gap. In the Mel Gibson movie on the Passion, the arms of Jesus and Simon are linked, as they bear the cross together, recalls Catalino Arevalo, SJ, of Loyola School of Theology. As Jesus grows weaker, Simon takes on increasingly a greater share of the burden. “We’re almost there,” he says repeatedly to urge him over the last agonizing steps.

“At the place of execution, he who was forced to help the condemned criminal, stands by him almost as a friend. The Roman soldiers have to force him to leave. Bearing the cross together created a bond”. At the end, they are linked by a human communion.

“God did not come to take away our suffering,” the poet Paul Cladel writes He did not come to explain it. Rather, he came to fill it with his presence reach out, and in spirit, touch his hand, as Simon did on the road to Calvary.” Simon never appears again in scriptures. The rest is conjecture.

A Roman centurion is mentioned in three of the four gospel accounts.  A centurion then commanded a detachment 100 what were most probably Syrian born soldiers. He had, in all likelihood, presided over the crucifixion of hundreds. And Jesus was only to be another in a long line of people he was commanded to execute. He was impervious to cursing and screaming of those crucified.

Yet Good Friday proved different. Jesus cried out “It is finished... (And).” Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” At that moment Jesus died. At a violent earthquake shook the land with such ferocity that rocks were split. Matthew tells us “when the centurion and those with him, who were guarding Jesus, saw the things that had happened, they feared greatly, saying, “Truly this was the Son of God!”

Luke expands on this saying “when the centurion saw what had happened, he glorified God, saying, “Certainly this was a righteous Man!” Thus, the executioner became the first person to become a believer.” Then, there is no further mention of him.

And what about Judas? 

“When Judas, his betrayer, saw that he was condemned, he repented and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, saying, ‘I have sinned in betraying innocent blood.’ The scriptures recount:  

“They said, ‘What is that to us? See to it yourself.’ And throwing down the pieces of silver, he departed; and he went and hanged himself”.

Jesus never abandoned Judas, says Father Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the Pontifical Household. “Friend” was the last word that Jesus addressed to him in the Garden of Olives after the cold kiss of betrayal. “Who can say what transpired in Judas’ soul during those final moments?”

Christ said of his betrayer: “It would have been better for that man if he had not been born”. True. Yet, when Jesus prays from the cross, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do,” he certainly does not exclude Judas from those he prays for.”

“Horrible was the nature of my sins, says the ex-communicated king of Sicily Manfred on his death bed. “But boundless mercy stretches out its arms to any man who comes in search of it.”