Good Friday

     On Good Friday, we remember what Jesus suffered.  Most of the disciples ran away.  A few managed to stay at the cross.  There was Mary Magdalene, another Mary (Matthew says she was the mother of James and Joseph), and the mother of the sons of Zebedee (see entry below.)  John's list tells us that his mother was there (can any of us imagine what she felt in those moments?), his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene, and the "disciple whom he loved" (but unnamed, simply that this disciple was standing next to Jesus' mother).  Others seems to have been there also, standing at a distance, but we don't know whom.  
     It is not surprising that the lists of those watching are different in the various gospels.  In fact, if all the accounts had been exactly the same, we would wonder whether someone had deliberately fixed them to make them agree.  No two reports of momentous events are ever exactly the same.  The police are always suspicious if wtinesses agree too closely.  The stories of the crucifixion and later of the resurrection, were shared from various points of view of those who experienced those events.    The writers of the gospels were confident in the truth of what they relayed, and thus felt no need to change anyone's story to match anyone else's. 
     After the death of Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea asked for his body and seems to have respectfully and lovingly laid it in his own tomb.  But the tomb was not used for long!