Rest

Our road this morning before the plow came.  A beautiful morning to walk.  About a foot of light, fluffy snow.
I finished my reflection on Luke's Passion account with what follows the death of Jesus (23:46-56).  Luke describes his death in as peaceful acceptance of his Father's will.  The phrasing seems to emphasize Jesus' self-control.  He says his prayer; then he dies.
The very last sentence is "And on the Sabbath the women rested according to the commandment.  Given Luke's stressing peace, the word "rested" caught my attention.  The sentence is there to stress that people associated with Jesus were respectful of the Jewish law and to set up the resurrection sequence, but I thought "rest" added to the peacefulness of Luke's scene.
Something that I had never noted before is that he doesn't put the mother of Jesus at the foot of the cross.  Luke says simply, "All of his acquaintances stood a long way off."  So I checked Mark and Matthew.  While they do mention some of the women by name, they don't have Jesus' mother present either.  Only in John do we hear that his mother was "standing near the cross of Jesus."  I had just read a piece of fiction recently in which Mary is deeply regretful that she, along with the other followers of Jesus, was afraid to be seen at the crucifixion.  That's probably why this caught my attention.  Only Joseph of Arimathea is mentioned wrapping the body in a cloth and placing it in a tomb.