Following Jesus to His Funeral

Mark 15:40–47 ESV

40 There were also women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. 41 When he was in Galilee, they followed him and ministered to him, and there were also many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem. 42 And when evening had come, since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, 43 Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. 44 Pilate was surprised to hear that he should have already died. And summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he was already dead. 45 And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph. 46 And Joseph bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. 47 Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was laid.

Prayer

Is there hope in death?

If you are like me, you have been to a lot of funerals. And funerals can go one of two way. They are either very joyous and hopeful, or they are depressing. Now, we can all agree that all funerals have a level of sadness to them. We are ceremoniously saying our farewell to someone that we loved and cared for. But sadness doesn’t dictate whether you are joyful or depressed.

There are factors in the way we view funerals. One factor is how the funeral is preached. A preacher can make us feel either hopeful or depressed depending on his focus in the sermon. If the focus of the message is on the person who died and not the person who rose, then our hope is only in death and not in resurrection.

So, to answer the question of whether or not there is hope in death, we must follow Jesus to his funeral.

The Death of Jesus Brings Hope

This is the only death that has ever brought hope. We can say that it ultimately brings hope because of the coming resurrection that we will look at in next weeks sermon. But hope is not delayed because of the tomb. If it were delayed, we would not see the people that we see in our passage today both start and continue to follow him.

The Established Followers

Up until this point, Jesus had done a lot of ministry. He had went from town to town for nearly 3 years. He preformed miracles from making the blind see to removing demons from people to bringing dead people back to life. He had acquired a following. Not just of the 12 men who were following but of others.

Mark 15:40–41 ESV

40 There were also women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. 41 When he was in Galilee, they followed him and ministered to him, and there were also many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem.

Mark names us 3 women here. The first was Mary of Magdala. We know her from Luke chapter 8 where it says that Jesus healed her from having 7 demons in her. She was not a blind follower. She was an actually walking testimony of the healing power of Jesus. We also have another Mary. Mark tells us that this one is the mother of James and Joses(Joseph). I am sure you have heard people make assumptions about who she was. But we cannot say for certain because of the little details we have here. The names Mary and James and Joseph were some of the most common names during the time period in this part of the world that it would be difficult to narrow down who she was. What we do know is that you had been following him for some time. And then we have Salome. When we take what Mark says and compare it to what John says about these women, we know that she is the mother of James and John(the sons of Zebedee).

Salome is uniquely interesting to be listed here. She had been following Jesus with her sons. And in Matthew 20, she makes a unique request to Jesus on behalf of her sons.

Matthew 20:20–21 ESV

20 Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him with her sons, and kneeling before him she asked him for something. 21 And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Say that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.”

My two sons, I want them to sit, one on each side of you, in your kingdom. The request was not of her being able to do this, but her sons. We fast forward to Jesus hanging on his cross with 2 men beside him, one on each side. Neither of them being his disciples. Why? Because they ran. She wanted her sons to be the ones beside Jesus in his glory and she was a witness to 2 criminals being beside him in his torment. Yet, though her sons were gone, she knew where she needed to be. She knew that she needed to follow Jesus although her sons were choosing a different path in the moment.

But these women continued to follow Jesus. They were with him on his journey to Jerusalem. They were with him for the days leading up to his execution. And they made sure that they were there even when he took his last breath. In his writing to a Roman audience, Mark wanted to make sure that they understood that the women were the ones who did not abandon Jesus. Unlike his disciples who fled and cowered, these 3 women followed Jesus to the cross and were there for 6 hours as he hung till he died.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus time and again taught and showed the 12 disciples how to live their lives in honor and worship to God through following him. And time and again they continue to fail. They don’t understand teaching and parables. They question miracles. And when it came time for them follow Jesus to his funeral, Mark points out to his audience that those men are not here. They have abandoned Jesus. But, these 3 women, they stuck with Jesus. All the way to his death.

This comes into play with them not just being followers of Jesus, but being witnesses of the death of Jesus. For something to be taken as true, to make a legal testimony about something, there needed to be 2 or 3 witnesses to agree on something. Deuteronomy 19:15 “15 “A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established.” These women were witnesses.

And this, in itself, as Mark writes it, is an attack on Roman culture. He is taking what they believe and flipping it upside down. In this Roman culture, much like ours, prominence brought power. But, by saying that it is 3 women who were there as witnesses of this, he is pointing out that being a witness is not something to be viewed at as powerful, but as something that is humbling. We should be humbled that God has chosen us to be his witnesses in the world. It is not because we are special or because we deserve this gift. But it is only because he has seen fit to choose us to do that.

Let us be thankful for the example of the established followers. But they are not the only ones we should see in this passage. We also have the new followers.

The New Followers

It is such a wonderful thing when we get to celebrate people coming to faith in Jesus. For us, as a church, this is why baptism is such a wonderful celebration. To see someone make it public that they are now trusting in Jesus for their salvation. As Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 5:17 “17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” And when we go through the baptismal waters, we declare what Paul says in Galatians 2:20 “20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

I don’t want to get too far from our text today, but I have been burdened deeply about how dry our baptismal has been. This month makes 2 years since we last saw someone in our congregation come forward to be baptized. I believe there are 2 reasons this is happening. 1) we should be sharing the gospel more. This truth right here is for you and more especially for me. I need to be better about taking those conversations that are leading to people hearing the truth of Jesus and coming to faith. 2) we have people here who need to be baptized and are being disobedient. Maybe I am looking too far into this, but I believe there are people who claim that this is their home church who need to be obedient with the mandate given by Peter in Acts 2:38 when he told the people to repent and be baptized. If you have come to a saving faith in Jesus and you have not been baptized as a believer by immersion, I want you to let me know and we need to baptize you.

But coming back to our text. We see someone new step into the picture.

Mark 15:42–43 ESV

42 And when evening had come, since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, 43 Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.

This is so important in the timeline of Jesus’s death and resurrection. In the verses before, Mark has told us when the crucifixion began and when Jesus died. It began around 9 am and Jesus took his last breath and cried out at around 3 pm. This day was important. This is what Mark calls the day of preparation. This means that the people took this day to get ready for the Sabbath so that they did not break the law as to what they could do. There were things they could not do on a Sabbath. Clearly, working a job was out of the question. But they could not harvest any food, they could only travel so far before it broke the Sabbath law. And they could not cook, clean, or do laundry on the Sabbath. Amen, right!!!

This is why the day of preparation was so important. They took this day to get everything ready for the Sabbath. It was 3 in the afternoon. The Sabbath begins at sundown, so they only had around 3 hours. Joseph, a man from a place called Arimathea, sees what has happened to Jesus and wants to step in and help.

Mark, though, does not only give us details about Joseph’s place of origin, but he tells us that he was a respected member of the council. What council you may ask? The Sanhedrin. Yes, he was a member of the council who condemned Jesus to death on that very cross that Jesus was hanging on. He gets courage to go to Pilate and asks for this body that is hanging on the cross.

Mark 15:44–45 ESV

44 Pilate was surprised to hear that he should have already died. And summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he was already dead. 45 And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph.

Pilate was surprised that Jesus was dead. You may think that this is absurd. All of the torture and beatings that Jesus took and he was nailed to a cross where his body would droop in such a way to cause asphyxiation, and Pilate is surprised that he was dead? This takes us back to the things that Jesus was offered while hanging on the cross. The wine that had narcotics mixed in with it would dull the pain. The idea was that the person on the cross was suffering so bad that they would want a sort of respite from the pain. But in partaking of the drugs, it delayed the inevitable. So there would be times where people would hang on the cross for days before they died because they would be given boosts to keep them alive.

So to make sure what Joseph was saying was true, he called over the centurion. Now, if you were here last week, you probably remember the centurion. He was the one who was there witnessing Jesus dying. And when Jesus took his last breath, he declared, “surely this man was the Son of God”. Now, Pilate has summoned him. He is the one who now declares that Jesus is dead.

Pilate would have been shocked by the quickness of the death of Jesus. But, if you notice, something must have been going on with Pilate. He was not in attendance at the crucifixion. He had to ask someone if Jesus was really dead. Was this disinterest? Was it guilt? I don’t think that we can really figure that out on our own. But, just as he had washed his hands after giving the verdict, he exercised his discretion and washed his hands of having Jesus hang on display for days for all to see his corpse rotting on the cross.

Mark 15:46 ESV

46 And Joseph bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb.

I am not sure about you, but I have been to some funerals that were quite unique. Some of you may have heard me tell the story, but around a year ago, I was contacted by the funeral home here to do a ceremony. That is not unusual for a pastor. But then, they told me that the husband of the lady who had passed was Catholic but they could not find a priest who was available to do it. The lady who passed was not catholic, she was Buddhist. But, to make it even more interesting, she was Laotian. Talk about sticking out like a sore thumb. I agreed to do it. I was the only part in the whole service that was in English and I am not sure how many people understood much of what I said. But, as I tell all the families that I do funerals for, it was my duty to honor her and the family, but most of all to honor Christ.

The burial of Jesus was one that was unusual for his time.

In John’s account, he tells us that Nicodemus helped Joseph by getting the spices to wrap around the body. It was typical to take a body and wrap them with spices in a linen cloth to bury them. This is the extent of this being a normal burial. John tells us that Nicodemus got 75 lbs of spices. John 19:39

John 19:39 ESV

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.

I have worked with grown men that couldn’t pick up 75 lbs. And Nicodemus, a wee little man was he, got 75 lbs of myrrh and aloe, and brought it to bury Jesus with. Now, it was not uncommon to bury someone with this. There was a purpose. This was not to embalm them with like the Egyptians would do. They would wrap this around the body to fend off the smell of decay. But, 75 lbs was not a normal amount.

Joseph and Nicodemus saw Jesus as who he truly was. They didn’t just see him as a king, they knew that this Jesus was the king. And they were going to give him the burial that a king deserved. They took this amount of spices to honor Jesus. They took him to a place of honor.

He may have died on the cross being sentenced as a criminal, but he was not going to be buried like one. They did not bury criminals in tombs. They would take them to what is called a common grave. This would have been just a generic burial place. But that was only if they were feeling good. They would often take them to a pit and just throw their bodies in it to rot and decay.

Joseph and Nicodemus knew that the king of the universe deserved a prestigious grave. So they take him to a tomb that had not been used. They take his wrapped body, place it in the tomb, and seal it shut.

Mark 15:47 ESV

47 Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was laid.

So Joseph, Nicodemus, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of Joseph were there at the funeral of Jesus. Mark gives us this detail for a reason. 2 Pharisees and 2 women. Those who would have been at the outskirts of being noticed by the important people are the ones who were there. Not his closest followers, but the dedicated followers.

Application Points: 1. Follow Jesus even when others are watching 2. Follow Jesus even when others oppose 3. Follow Jesus even when things seem hopeless

I want us to take what we see here and apply it to our every day lives. In the world we live in, it is not easy to be sold out for Jesus. People look at us weird, people speak out against us at times, and we continue to see the world get more and more sinful it seems. But our hope is not in man or the political world, or even in ourselves. Our only hope is in Jesus and in him alone.

So when we get up tomorrow morning and we go about our normal lives, and people are watching us, we follow Jesus. When we are confronted by others about what we stand for and what we believe, we follow Jesus. When we get home and we turn on the tv and all we see is bad news and sinfulness in our world, we follow Jesus.

Yesterday, a few of us from here went to Charlotte to the love life prayer walk. If you have never been, we will be taking more trips in 2026. But, this is a place where you will be made very uncomfortable for your faith. As it is often described, it is the gates of Hell. The abortion clinic there has volunteers who are on the sidewalk and they are begging mothers to pull in so that they can murder their children. As you are walking and praying, there are people on the other side of the street mocking you and trying to provoke you to step out of line so that they can get the cops to come and get involved. This is one of the darkest places you can imagine. But yesterday, nearly 900 believers came and walked around the block begging God in prayer to save these children who are being sacrificed on an altar.

When you look at the numbers, things may seem hopeless. But, we still follow Christ. God is still working and still moving. While we were in Charlotte praying for babies to be saved and for the closure of the busiest abortion mill in the Southeast US, there were 100 people outside of the planned parenthood in NYC worshiping. You may wonder why they were worshiping. It is because they have closed down NYC largest planned parenthood now. God is still on the throne brothers and sisters.

In our text, Jesus has been taken off of the cross and laid in a tomb. It is Friday. All hope may seem lost. Even for those who have declared Jesus to be King. But, Sunday is coming.

S.M. Lockridge, an African-american preacher from the 20th century preached a somewhat famous sermon on this.

Exalting Jesus in Mark Conclusion

It’s Friday. Jesus is praying. Peter’s a-sleeping. Judas is betraying. But Sunday’s comin’.

It’s Friday. Pilate’s struggling. The Council is conspiring. The crowd is vilifying. They don’t even know that Sunday’s comin’.

It’s Friday. The Disciples are running like sheep without a shepherd. Mary’s crying. Peter is denying. But they don’t know that Sunday’s a-comin’.

It’s Friday. The Romans beat my Jesus. They robe Him in scarlet. They crown Him with thorns. But they don’t know that Sunday’s comin’.

It’s Friday. See Jesus walking to Calvary. His blood dripping. His body stumbling. And His spirit’s burdened. But you see, it’s only Friday. Sunday’s comin’.

It’s Friday. The world’s winning. People are sinning. And evil’s grinning.

It’s Friday. The soldiers nail my Savior’s hands to the cross. They nail my Savior’s feet to the cross. And then they raise Him up next to criminals.

It’s Friday. But let me tell you something: Sunday’s comin’.

It’s Friday. The disciples are questioning, what has happened to their King. And the Pharisees are celebrating that their scheming has been achieved. But they don’t know it’s only Friday. Sunday’s comin’.

It’s Friday. He’s hanging on the cross. Feeling forsaken by His Father. Left alone and dying. Can nobody save Him? Ooooh, it’s Friday. But Sunday’s comin’.

It’s Friday. The earth trembles. The sky grows dark. My King yields His spirit.

It’s Friday. Hope is lost. Death has won. Sin has conquered. And Satan’s just a-laughin’.

It’s Friday. Jesus is buried. A soldier stands guard. And a rock is rolled into place. But It’s Friday. It is only Friday. Sunday is a-comin’! (Lockridge, “It’s Friday”)

Let us look to the resurrection and let our hope in Jesus continue to grow brothers and sisters.

Prayer.