3rd Sunday of Pascha

For such a high priest was fitting for us: holy, guiltless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; ²⁷who doesn’t need, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices daily, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. For he did this once for all, when he offered up himself. ²⁸For the law appoints men as high priests who have weakness, but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appoints a Son forever who has been perfected.

¹Now in the things which we are saying, the main point is this: we have such a high priest, who sat down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, ²a servant of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, not man.

Joseph of Arimathaea, a prominent council member who also himself was looking for God’s Kingdom, came. He boldly went in to Pilate, and asked for Jesus’ body. ⁴⁴Pilate was surprised to hear that he was already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he had been dead long. ⁴⁵When he found out from the centurion, he granted the body to Joseph. ⁴⁶He bought a linen cloth, and taking him down, wound him in the linen cloth and laid him in a tomb which had been cut out of a rock. He rolled a stone against the door of the tomb. ⁴⁷Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses, saw where he was laid.

¹When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, that they might come and anoint him. ²Very early on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. ³They were saying among themselves, “Who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us?” ⁴for it was very big. Looking up, they saw that the stone was rolled back.

⁵Entering into the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe; and they were amazed. ⁶He said to them, “Don’t be amazed. You seek Jesus, the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him! ⁷But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He goes before you into Galilee. There you will see him, as he said to you.’”

⁸They went out, and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had come on them. They said nothing to anyone; for they were afraid.