Even in Burial
Notes
Transcript
I don’t know how many Good Friday sermons I have preached, but I am fairly certain that of all the biblical texts I have preached from, the ones that describe the burial of Jesus have not been among them. That may be surprising to some, but when I think of Good Friday, I immediately go to texts like the one we heard preached this past Sunday. A text connected to the crucifixion of Jesus. A text that focuses on Christ’s sacrifice. A text whose “center stage” is occupied by the penal substitutionary atonement of Christ. One that highlights the anguish that our Savior endured so that the sin of sinners could be forgiven. If my meditation this evening was based on Isaiah’s description of the Suffering Servant, that would not be surprising to anyone.
English Standard Version Chapter 53
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
We expect to meditate on the atonement of our Savior on Good Friday, and while the text we will consider tonight is not disconnected from the death of Christ, it may appear at first to fall short in facilitating our sober consideration of the price that has been paid for the salvation of sinners. But, I think we will see that this text, regarding the burial of Jesus, points to the glory of Christ, and what He has accomplished through His death.
50 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, 51 who had not consented to their decision and action; and he was looking for the kingdom of God. 52 This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. 53 Then he took it down and wrapped it in a linen shroud and laid him in a tomb cut in stone, where no one had ever yet been laid. 54 It was the day of Preparation, and the Sabbath was beginning. 55 The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid. 56 Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments.
On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.
Burial is often thought of as the final goodbye. It’s a meaningful event for those who gather to observe it… to witness it, but it’s the final step of the end of a person’s life. Meaningful. Sobering. These are the kinds of words we use to describe a burial of someone. How about miraculous? Supernatural? If anything, those words may seem to be antithetical to burial. The death of Jesus was miraculous in light of what happened when He died, and what His death accomplished. But His burial? We should note that all four gospels describe the burial of Jesus, and all four accounts are given fairly significant attention. Often the value that is given to the burial accounts is apologetic. No sooner did Jesus die on the cross, that measures were taken to guard against any appearance of His resurrection, and ever since His actual resurrection arguments have been crafted to refute that Jesus rose from the dead. We know some of these arguments well:
The swoon argument: This argues that Jesus did not die on the cross, but swooned or passed out. In addition to the fact that Roman soldiers oversaw His crucifixion, the fact that Jesus was buried in a tomb argues against this idea.
The stolen body argument: Some have argued that the dead body of Jesus did not rise from the dead, but was instead stolen. Again, Jesus was paced in a tomb, and Roman soldiers were posted to guard the tomb to prevent this very thing from happening.
Mistaken tomb argument: It is sometimes argued that the women who were the first to witness the empty tomb, went to the wrong tomb. They were confused, and did not know where Jesus was actually buried, so the empty tomb they saw on Easter morning was not actually the tomb in which Jesus was buried. But these women witnessed the body of Jesus placed in the tomb. They followed the person who brought Jesus’ body to the tomb, and saw the body laid in it.
So again, the value of the burial accounts is often thought of as an apologetic value. Certainly, there is an apologetic value, but there is so much more. The burial of Christ is part of the fabric of the plan of redemption. It proclaims glorious truths of God and His supremacy over all creation. But in addition, as you and I consider all those mentioned in this account, we are challenged to think about how we are responding to Jesus. How are responding to Jesus who died for sinners? What is your posture towards Him? On what basis do you expect and find joy in Him?
To get at this, we need to be sure that we don’t see the burial of Jesus as lack-luster. There are truths proclaimed through His burial, and it is my aim to point our attention to some of them tonight.
The first truth is this:
God deploys natural means to achieve His purposes
God deploys natural means to achieve His purposes
The natural means are people and everyday events and situations. What we may assume to be secondary… like burial. But let’s get some background to what’s going on in our text in Luke.
Notice in verse 52, Joseph of Arimathea goes to Pilate to request the body of Jesus. As I mentioned before, all four gospels have the account of Jesus’ burial, and each one has some details that the others do not. Consider what John says:
31 Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away.
When John sys, the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, this is a reference to members of the Sanhedrin. These were the ones who wanted Jesus dead. The ones who conducted the bogus trials, who demanded that an insurrectionist and murderer be freed instead of an innocent man, the ones who stirred up the crowd to call for Jesus to be crucified. They went to Pilate to ask that those who had been crucified that day to be taken down from the crosses to not violate the Sabbath. This is what they chose to care about. The hypocrisy is hard to take here.
Now, in this moment it would not have been expected that Jesus nor the two criminals would have been dead. Mark’s account lets us know that Pilate has a hard time believing that Jesus was already dead. Jesus was put on the cross at 9 AM and died at 3 PM the same day. The normal time a crucified person to die was two to three days. Jesus died in six hours. John tells us in verse 30 that after Jesus said, it is finished, He gave up His spirit.
So we’re told next (verses 32-34):
32 So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him. 33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. 34 But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.
The soldiers came prepared to break the legs of the men crucified to expedite the death. When they came to Jesus, they found He was already dead, and that’s because He gave up His spirit. In addition to this, Jesus’ bones were not broken. This is significant. Passover was approaching. What do we know about the requirements for the Passover lamb?
46 It shall be eaten in one house; you shall not take any of the flesh outside the house, and you shall not break any of its bones.
Jesus was the Passover lamb. He was without blemish, without spot. No bone in His body was broken.
The same is true in verse 37. Scripture is being fulfilled in the death of Jesus.
10 “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.
These traumatic, graphic, upsetting actions were the actions of mere men (the soldiers). These actions were the carrying our the orders of a mere man (Pilate, who gave these orders in the first place in response of the requests of mere men (Jewish leaders). But these actions were also according to the sovereign design of God. Everything down to the handling of His dead body was under the control of Christ.
Natural means deployed to achieve God’s purposes
God displays His power through the peculiar (50-51)
God displays His power through the peculiar (50-51)
I say peculiar to suggest that Joseph of Arimathea does not fit the profile for who we would expect to do what he did in our text.
What do we know about him?
He was a member of the council (v. 50). In other words, he was a member of the Sanhedrin. One of 70 + the High Priest.
He was a respected member of the council (Mark)
Matthew lets us know he was rich
He is referred to as a disciple of Jesus by Matthew and John
He was looking for the kingdom of God (Mark and Luke)
While he is described as a disciple of Jesus, he is also described as being fearful. In fact, John tells us that he was a disciple of Jesus but secretly for fear of the Jews.
Mark tells us that he took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.
Peculiar because he’s a member of the group that called for the death of Jesus, and displayed a complete disregard for justice to get it. But Luke tells us in verse 51 that he had not consented to this decision and action. Does that mean he stayed silent when these proposals were put forth? Was he there when this decision was made? We don’t know.
No one would have expected a member of the Sanhedrin to display a concern for the body of Jesus. To bury him, not among the executed criminals, but in a tomb fit for a king.
People may have regarded him as a good and righteous man, but not in the way Luke means in verse 50. He was considered religiously elite and obviously deserving of God’s favor because of who the Sanhedrin was portrayed to be. But Luke connects his description of him as being good and righteous to his desire for the kingdom of God to be realized. He thought He found the kingdom of God in Christ.
But now he’s there to bury the body of the one whom he thought could be the one to bring in the kingdom. If there was anyone who would give up hope in Jesus, it would have been someone who had the religious experience he did to fall back into. Fall back into the ways he was taught and perhaps taught himself at one point. Have you given up on Jesus. Sometimes our expectations of Jesus are misplaced… out of place. All those involved in this moment, perhaps especially Joseph of Arimathea who was handling the dead body of Jesus, would have to keep in mind what Jesus said about Himself and His mission to persevere in hope this side of the resurrection. You and I must yield our expectations and desires and hopes about Jesus to the truth of Jesus to endure in hope.
But more than his background, God was at work in him. He was an object of God’s grace. A peculiar one. An unexpected one. Jesus died for a member of the Sanhedrin. A member of the group that called for his unjust execution. And here he is handling the dead body of the Savior, and he is preserved in his faith. What a display of power… God’s power.
It appears he went from being a coward to being a courageous disciple of Christ and this by God’s grace.
If you think about it, anyone who is an object of God’s grace is peculiar. We don’t fit the bill. We are not worthy. We are in no less need of forgiveness… no less need of a Savior than the rest of the Sanhedrin, than the Roman soldiers, than the crowds that yelled, crucify, crucify Him!, no less than Pilate.
But such people become disciples of Jesus. Perhaps timid disciples, angry disciples, discouraged disciples, doubtful disciples, lazy disciples…. but disciples because they are recipients of God’s grace.
Another truth declared by the burial of Jesus: God displays His power through the peculiar. Another truth…
God demonstrates His sovereignty through fulfilled Messianic prophecy (52-53)
God demonstrates His sovereignty through fulfilled Messianic prophecy (52-53)
The burial of Jesus fulfills prophecy about Messiah.
Remember what we noted about Joseph earlier: He was rich.
9 And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.
He was with a rich man in his death. Joseph of Arimathea was this rich man. Fulfilled prophecy.
OK, but let’s backtrack a bit
We know from Mark’s account that Pilate is surprised to hear that Jesus died so quickly. He sends a centurion to confirm He’s dead. He does. Joseph is given the body of Jesus. Then we get to verse 53 where we see that Joseph takes down the body from the cross. Mark tells us he did this with his own hands.
Then Joseph wraps the body in a linen shroud (strips of cloth).
But then someone else shows up. Nicodemus. Remember him from John 3? He’s the one whom Jesus told that if he desired to enter the kingdom of God, he must be born again. We read this in John:
39 Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds in weight.
Apparently Nicodemus became a disciple of Christ as well. Remarkable transformation. What Nicodemus brings, the seventy five pounds of myrrh and aloes, would have been fit for a king. This imagery fulfills prophecy in that it shows Jesus as King even in burial. Consider what was prophesied about Messiah in Jeremiah.
5 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.
Jesus is the righteous branch from David’s royal line. He has and does and will reign as king and deal wisely and execute justice and righteousness, and His burial in no way challenged or compromised this truth.
Back to verse 53: Joseph puts the body of Jesus in a tomb, cut in stone, where no one ever yet had been laid. Apparently, it was common to put shelves in these kind of tombs. The bodies would be put in, they would decompose until all that was left were the bones and then the bones were removed so the tomb could be reused. This tomb was never used before Jesus was laid in their, and His body would never decompose. It was not going to stay dead.
The burial of Jesus is not a parenthetical consideration between his death and resurrection. His Messiahship is seen through it. We are meant to see Jesus as King here.
So we have
God deploying natural means to accomplish his purposes
God displaying His power through the peculiar
God demonstrating His sovereignty through fulfilled messianic prophecy
And finally
God declared all things new through promise (54-56)
God declared all things new through promise (54-56)
Luke makes a chronological note, which the other synoptics discuss before discussing Joseph. Matthew says when it was evening. Mark says, when evening had come and also notes that it was the day before the sabbath. The day of preparation is so called because it was the day before a feast or the sabbath when everything had to be be made ready so that one could rest. In this case, both the feast day (Passover) and the sabbath come together, but Luke relates the day of preparation to the sabbath. In addition, Luke notes that the women rested on the sabbath in verse 56. After noting the time, Luke turns to the activity of the women who watched where Jesus was laid.
Now the women mentioned are the ones mentioned in verse 49:
49 And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things.
And they are named in chapter 8:2-3:
2 and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, 3 and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s household manager, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means.
So, there may be some ambiguity as to the identity of all the women present in this moment, but I want to focus us on what they did.
Verse 55 tells us that they followed Joseph to the tomb, and they observed how he laid the body of Jesus in it.
We get to verse 56, after seeing the tomb, the women returned to the city to prepare spices and ointments. The women wanted to get this in before the sabbath began.
The second half of verse 56, we see that the ladies rested according to the commandment. They were good Jewish women, who were concerned to obey the law.
The women didn’t understand it in this moment, but they were witnessing the fulfillment of God’s promises. They rested on the last sabbath of the old order. They were about to be the first witnesses of something new on the first day of the week, as 24:1 tells us, and it began with the placing of the body of Jesus in this tomb.
Again, Jesus made the promise clear:
22 saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”
It all happened according to plan. Everything was going to change. The new creation was dawning, and these women were the last to see the old pass away and the new begin.
Conclusion
Conclusion
While the burial of Jesus may have marked the burial of hope for those who knew Jesus, who loved Jesus, we know it was part of the glorious plan redemption.
The question the Apostle Paul raised to help the church in Corinth see the hope in light of the resurrection could have been asked in this graveyard in light of the promise of the gospel:
55 “O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
Even in burial, Jesus defeated death.
