Week 4 Tuesday — That First Easter... I Was There
Day 23: The Secret Disciples
Day 23: The Secret Disciples
John 19:38-42; John 3:1-2; Mark 15:43
Introduction
They had been watching from a distance for a long time.
Joseph of Arimathea was a member of the Sanhedrin — the same council that had voted to hand Jesus over to Pilate. Luke tells us he had not consented to their decision, but he hadn’t stopped it either. He was a disciple of Jesus, John tells us, but secretly, “because he feared the Jewish leaders.” A prominent man, a careful man, a man with too much to lose to be seen standing too close to a Galilean rabbi who was making dangerous enemies.
Nicodemus we’ve met before. He came to Jesus in the night — hungry, honest, asking the questions his credentials wouldn’t let him ask in daylight. Jesus gave him the gospel in the dark. And Nicodemus had carried it quietly ever since, defending Jesus once in a council meeting with a procedural objection, never quite stepping all the way into the light.
Two men. Significant positions. Private faith. And then Jesus died.
Something about the cross broke them open in a way the miracles hadn’t. Something about the finality of it — the body that needed to be buried, the dignity that needed to be preserved, the moment that demanded someone step forward — moved them from the shadows into the most public act of devotion either of them had ever attempted.
Joseph went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Nicodemus came with a hundred pounds of spices. Together, they wrapped Him and laid Him in a tomb.
It was too late to save Him. It was exactly the right time to honor Him.
Scripture
³⁸ Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. ³⁹ He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. ⁴⁰ Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. ⁴¹ At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. ⁴² Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.
— John 19:38-42 (NIV)
¹ Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. ² He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
— John 3:1-2 (NIV)
⁴³ Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body.
— Mark 15:43 (NIV)
Reflection
What the Cross Unlocked
For months — maybe years — Joseph and Nicodemus had kept their faith private. And there were reasons. Real ones. A seat on the Sanhedrin wasn’t just a title; it was influence, access, the ability to do good within a system that could crush you if you stepped out of line. Associating publicly with Jesus meant risking everything they had spent their lives building. The calculation kept coming up the same way: not yet. Not openly. Not this much.
And then the cross happened.
Mark’s word for what Joseph did is striking: he went boldly to Pilate. The same man who had been too afraid to dissent publicly in the council chamber walked into the Roman governor’s residence and asked for the body of a man who had just been executed as an enemy of the state. That’s not a small step. Claiming the body of a condemned criminal was itself a political statement — an implicit challenge to the verdict, an act that painted a target on Joseph’s back.
Nicodemus came with a hundred pounds of spices. That’s a burial fit for a king — an extravagant, unmistakable act of honor that could not be explained away as procedural or neutral. He wasn’t hedging anymore. He was declaring, with seventy-five pounds of myrrh and aloes, exactly where he stood.
Here is what’s easy to miss: none of Jesus’ closest disciples could have done what these two men did. Peter couldn’t walk into Pilate’s office — he was hiding behind a locked door. The Twelve didn’t have the resources, the social standing, or the knowledge of royal burial customs that this moment required. The very things Joseph and Nicodemus had spent their lives accumulating — position, wealth, access to power, fluency with the rites of Jewish nobility — turned out to be precisely what was needed to honor the King in His death.
They came to faith late and declared it later still. But they were the only ones in Jerusalem that Friday who understood, in the way their whole lives had prepared them to understand, what it meant to bury a King.
God had been preparing them for this specific moment all along. They just didn’t know it yet.
We Are Like Them
Notice what God didn’t do. He didn’t arrange for Peter to care for the body of Jesus, or John, or any of the Twelve who had walked closest with Him. Not because they loved Jesus less — but because they weren’t made for that moment. Joseph and Nicodemus were.
That’s a striking thing about how God works in His Kingdom. It isn’t one size fits all. He doesn’t give everyone the same role or the same moment or the same way of expressing devotion. He shapes each of us — through our background, our gifts, our experiences, even the positions we’ve carefully built and the resources we’ve quietly accumulated — for something specific. Something that only we, with our particular combination of who we are and what we’ve been given, are positioned to do.
We tend to measure our usefulness to God against the most visible people in the room. The ones with platforms, the ones up front, the ones whose names get called first. And we wonder if what we have — our particular background, our professional world, our social connections, the influence we’ve spent years earning — actually counts for anything in the Kingdom.
Joseph and Nicodemus answer that question. The things they thought were in tension with following Jesus openly — their prominence, their council seats, their access to Pilate, their knowledge of how kings were buried — turned out to be the very instruments of their most significant act of faith.
The criminal on the cross yesterday had nothing, and recognized the King with nothing. Joseph and Nicodemus had everything — and recognized the King by honoring Him with everything. Two opposite ends of the social spectrum, the same recognition, the same devotion, expressed in the only way each of them could express it.
God’s love for us is that specific. He doesn’t just save us generally. He shapes us individually — for moments only we can fill, with what only we have been given.
Secret discipleship is still worth naming honestly: both men had kept careful distance, and there is a real conviction in that. But the deeper invitation isn’t simply stop hiding. It’s look at what God has been building in you all along — and ask whether you’re willing to let it finally be used for Him.
We were there in the council chamber, keeping faith private, waiting for a safer moment. We are there now. But the moment God prepared us for doesn’t wait forever. And it may require exactly what we’ve been so carefully protecting.
Grace Note
“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” — Ephesians 2:10 (NIV)
You are not a generic follower of Jesus. You are His handiwork — crafted specifically, shaped deliberately, placed precisely. The good works He prepared for you in advance weren’t designed for someone else and handed to you by default. They were made for you — for your background, your gifts, your access, your particular way of seeing and serving. Joseph and Nicodemus didn’t know their careful, costly act of devotion was preparing the site of the resurrection. They just did the next faithful thing with what they had. That’s all He asks. - This is The Way
Prayer Prompt
Jesus,
I confess that I have kept more distance than I should. That I’ve followed You genuinely but quietly — in the rooms where it costs me nothing, less openly in the rooms where it might. I’ve called it wisdom. Sometimes it’s fear.
But I also confess that I’ve underestimated what You’ve been building in me. I’ve looked at my background, my position, my resources — the things I’ve accumulated and the world I move in — and wondered if any of it counts for anything in Your Kingdom. I’ve assumed that the most useful people are the ones who look nothing like me.
Joseph and Nicodemus undo that assumption. You didn’t send Peter to bury a King. You sent two men whose whole lives had prepared them for exactly that moment — and they almost missed it by playing it safe for too long.
Don’t let me miss mine. Show me what You’ve been preparing in me for a moment only I can fill. Give me the courage to stop protecting it and start offering it. And where I’ve kept faith private out of fear, give me the boldness Joseph found when he walked through Pilate’s door. Amen.
Response
1. Inventory What You’ve Been Given: Joseph and Nicodemus brought their position, their resources, and their specific knowledge to their moment of faithfulness. Take stock of what you’ve been given — your professional access, your social connections, your financial resources, your cultural fluency, your hard-earned expertise. Ask honestly: have I ever considered that these things might be for the Kingdom, not just alongside it?
2. Name the Room Where You Go Quiet: In what context do you consistently pull back from identifying with Jesus — at work, with certain friends or family, in a specific conversation you’ve been avoiding? Name it. Joseph and Nicodemus both had a name for their room: the council chamber. What’s yours? And what would it look like to walk into it with the same boldness Joseph found at Pilate’s door?
3. Prepare Something for the Resurrection: They prepared a tomb without knowing it would be empty by Sunday. Ask Jesus today: What have You been preparing me for that I can’t yet see? Then take one step of faithfulness in that direction — not because you understand where it leads, but because you trust the One who shaped you for it. The works were prepared in advance. You just have to show up for them.
To read all the posts in this devotional series, visit: That First Easter... I Was There
© Steve Peschke / This Is The Way