Jesus is Buried | Mt 27:57–66
Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 25:32
0 ratings
· 17 viewsSeries: The Passion of Christ
Files
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Open your Bibles to Matthew 27
If you don’t have a bible of your own, please take the bible in front of you in the pews home. It’s our gift to you because we want the powerful, life changing word of God in your life.
Last week, we witness the death of Jesus on the cross. As He paid the price for humanity’s sin, suffered our punishment, and freed us from it’s curse. Today, we will experience the often glanced over account of what happened between His death and His resurrection. And so we begin in Matthew chapter 27, verse 57:
Text
Text
When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him.
So, just a few hours after Jesus dies on the cross, one of His disciples asks for His body.
His name is Joseph, but He’s not Mary’s husband. It’s just a common name back then.
There are very few things we know about this man.
He is rich.
He’s from Arimathea. He was in Jerusalem for the passover feast. But He lived in Arimathea, which was a town in ancient Israel.
He was a disciple, a follower, a student of Jesus.
But Luke tells us a few more interesting details in His Gospel account
Now there was a man named Joseph, from the Jewish town of Arimathea. He was a member of the council, a good and righteous man,
who had not consented to their decision and action; and he was looking for the kingdom of God.
Joseph was part of the Sanhedrin, the council of Jewish leaders that acted as a kind of supreme court for God’s people.
these are the ones who accused and condemned Jesus.
As you can see, this council is made up of the Pharisees, the sadducees, the chief priests, the scribes and the elders of Israel.
And my point in going into all this detail is to remind us of the fact that not all of he religious leaders hated Jesus. Some believed!
This Joseph is one example. Nicodemus, is another example in John’s Gospel. We see multiple times that the pharisees argue amongst themselves after Jesus does or teaches something.
So this helps us understand that not all pharisees hate Jesus, not all leaders wanted Him gone. Some believed Jesus, worshipped Him, and had the greatest love and respect. And Joseph is one of these.
Proper burial is one of the most important, most holy aspect of Jewish culture. The body is treated with immense respect as God’s creation.
So it was understood and accepted by all, no matter who you were, you need to be buried.
That’s why Goliath’s threat to kill David in the Old Testament is so offensive. Because He said He’d leave David’s body to be eaten by the birds.
So, after all of the twelve disciples have fled and abandoned Jesus, Joseph is left. And he honorably requests Jesus body to be taken down from the cross and given to him.
Which is very brave. Joseph was one of the leaders. He understood the hate towards Jesus. He understood the risks of associating with Him. And He asked Pilate anyway.
Pilate doesn’t care either way, so He grants the request. Then Joseph goes on to bury Jesus.
And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb.
Remember, this is all happening on Friday evening. The Sabbath is tomorrow, which means no one is allowed to work, including preparing a body for burial.
So rather than preparing His body with oils and spices, Joseph had to work quickly and only wrap Jesus’ body in linen.
Then He left the Body of Jesus in the tomb and rolled a stone in front of the entrance.
Joseph very generously gives Jesus the tomb that he had just bought for Himself.
Because He was a rich man, it was likely very large.
Remember, Tombs are carved into the side of a hill and have a large stone covering the entrance to prevent animals and grave robbers from getting in.
And as this takes place, Matthew records two witnesses.
But in the meantime, Jesus’s enemies, the religious leaders, are still going against Him, even after He dies:
The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, “Sir, we remember how that impostor said, while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise.’ Therefore order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last fraud will be worse than the first.” Pilate said to them, “You have a guard of soldiers. Go, make it as secure as you can.” So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard.
They are worried that Jesus’ followers will come at night, steal His body, and claim He resurrected from the dead. But there are two problems with this:
The disciples are cowards who fled as soon as Jesus got arrested. They are not going anywhere near that tomb.
The other is that they think they could stop stop that stone from being rolled away. Since it will not be someone from the outside going in. But it will be the living Son of God who will b rolling away from the inside.
Again, pilate doesn’t care, but just to make these guys leave him alone, he gives them some guards to secure the tomb day and night.
Application
Application
We usually don’t think about Jesus’ burial very often.
We always talk about His death and resurrection, but not His burial.
But even though it is not as significant as the other two, it is important
The first reason is this. People who are buried are dead. I know this sounds stupid to say, but it’s important.
If Jesus has been raised from the dead two hours after his death, what would you think happened?
He was never really dead. He must have fallen asleep, or He passed out, or his breathing and heart rate just slowed abnormally for a while.
Do you remember the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead?
Jesus knew Lazarus was sick, but waited a few days until He died to travel to Him. and by the time Jesus arrived, Lazarus had been dead for four days.
And what seemed cruel and careless by Jesus at first, turned out to be a very deliberate plan to showcase the power of God through Lazarus.
Lazarus was in His tomb, dead. So dead that his body began to smell very badly.
Yet when Jesus commands Him to come out, Lazarus walks right out of His own tomb.
In the same way, Jesus being buried means He actually died. He was in the tomb for three days. Not only that, but there were witnesses, Jewish, Christian, and Roman. Who can attest to the fact that Jesus had died and was buried.
This is all really important because if Jesus died not die, He did not pay the price for sin. He did not suffer on our behalf. He did not take God’s wrath from us. And if Jesus never died, we’d never have forgiveness.
more importantly, if Christ did not die, He was not raised again.
And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.
Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
If Christ was not raised again, there is no victory over sin, we are still slaves, Death still has final say over us, and we are enemies of God. We have no love, no hope, no victory, no salvation.
But as the scripture says, Christ did die, he was buried, and He was raised again! That is why we proclaim Christ’s burial in the creeds.
The burial of Christ is not only factual, and not only necessary, but the Bible also tells us that we are connected to Christ’s burial in a very special way.
In our scripture reading from Romans 6, The Apostle Paul writes:
We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Baptism binds us to the death of Jesus and buries our old, sinful self with Him.
When Martin Luther describes baptism, He doesn’t just talk about the event in church. But he talks about the life after. That why we don’t say “ I was baptized”, we say “I am Baptized”.
The Christian life consists of a daily drowning of our old, sinful self and that each day, Christ creates new life in us in Him.
Because as surely as we are bound t the death of Jesus, we are in baptism also bound to His resurrection.
And yes, Paul is talking about daily life, and dying and rising each day
But he is also talking about the end. That when our time comes and we all asleep, our death will be bound to Christ, and we, like Him, will also be raised from the dead to live forever in God’s Kingdom.
And as short as the mention is in Matthew, that’s why the burial of Jesus matters so much.
So we place our eternal hope in the death and resurrection of Jesus and trust that even though we die, just like Him, death will not hold us, because it could not hold Him.
And until that final day comes, we remember to live in our baptism by daily putting the old sinful self to death, by repenting of our sin and turning towards God, by receiving forgiveness and life each day.
And to encourage us in this, I would like to finish by reading a quote from Dietrich Bonnhoefer. He was a Lutheran pastor in nazi Germany, who was a spy for the allies, part of an assassination attempt on Hitler, and was tragically captured and killed by the Nazis. And He was a phenomenal theologian. If that sounds interesting. He has many books and a movie about Him came out last year. Check them all out.
But in His book “the cost of discipleship” He writes this:
The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death—we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow him, or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time—death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at his call.
Title
Reading
Reading
When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb. The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, “Sir, we remember how that impostor said, while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise.’ Therefore order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last fraud will be worse than the first.” Pilate said to them, “You have a guard of soldiers. Go, make it as secure as you can.” So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard.
Transition Slowly for the camera
Confession
Confession
