12.07.25 Buried

PCC 2025: The Last Day of Jesus’ Life

Introduction: The gospel accounts indicate that around the third hour on the day of His crucifixion, Jesus was dead.

You can imagine how the Hill of Calvary had grown relatively quiet, although there still would have been the hustle and bustle of people entering and leaving Jerusalem for Passover. The earthquakes had stopped. The jeering crowds and their Jewish leaders had dispersed. The Romans, having completed their awful task, have likely gone on to some other duty. The two other men crucified with Jesus likely expired soon after Him, being unable to continue breathing after having their legs broken. The hill of sacrifice, like an altar with its ashes still smoldering, had been abandoned yet it still bore the signs of the awful price paid that day. If Jerusalem would have realized what she had done, the entire city would have been overwhelmed by mourning. But, being ignorant of her crime, she carried on as she had for centuries prior.

During the last 24 hours Jesus had been Bound, Tried, Denied, Framed, Acquitted, Scorned, Condemned, Tortured, Exhausted, Crucified, and Heard.

It was now time for Jesus of Nazareth to be “Buried”. (Show Title to sermon)

There was a small group of women who had followed Jesus from Galilee (or, from the beginning), including Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and Salome, along with several others. These watched from a distance, according to the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), and this morning I would like simply to tell the story of what they saw and what they did during the last three or so hours of the last day of Jesus’ life.

Joseph of Arimathea

All four gospels tell roughly the same story regarding a respected member of the Jewish Sanhedrin, or “high council”, a man named Joseph, from the Jewish town of Arimathea.

Though Joseph was a member of the same Jewish ruling body that had condemned Jesus to die, Joseph had “not consented to their decision & action” (Luke 23.51), showing that the decision of the Sanhedrin was not unanimous.

Joseph was a disciple of Jesus (Mt. 27.57; John 19.38), although secretly for fear of the Jews (Jn. 19.38), a man who was “looking for the kingdom of God” (Mk. 15.43; Luke 23.51).

This individual was wealthy (Matt. 27.57), and one key evidence of this was that he owned a brand-new tomb carved from stone in which no one had ever laid, located in a garden not far from the site of Jesus’ crucifixion.

All four gospels say that he went to Pilate and requested that the body of Jesus be given to him. As a criminal condemned to capital punishment, the body of Jesus belonged to the Roman government, who would dispense with the bones after the flesh had been consumed by natural forces, whether by predators or by decomposition. Once Pilate verified that Jesus had died (an unusual occurence: Rarely did crucified individuals die within hours), Pilate gave Joseph permission to take Jesus’ body from the cross.

McGarvey noted: “It is strange that those who were not afraid to be disciples were afraid to ask for our Lord's body, yet he who was afraid to be a disciple feared not to do this thing.” (McGarvey, Four-fold Gospel, pg. 735)

Joseph returned to Calvary, and (likely with help from his own servants) removes Jesus’ body from the cross.

Can you see in your minds eye what that would have looked like? They either had to raise the entire cross assembly and lay it on the ground, or remove the crosspiece and lower it along with Jesus, or use a ladder of some sort to climb up and remove the nails and support Jesus’ body so it didn’t fall to the ground. To do so they would have had to remove the large nails from His wrists and feet. Someone had to handle and lift and carry the mangled corpse of Jesus, or at least put it on an animal like a donkey to carry it to His tomb.

Joseph, or one of his servants, had to go home that night and wash the blood of Jesus out of their clothes and off their hands.

Once Jesus’ body is removed, Joseph wraps the body in a “clean linen shroud” (Mt. 27.59; Mk. 15.46), likely for temporary transport to the nearby tomb.

Luke 23:55 says that “The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid.”

These women would have either supervised or carried out the next stage, which was to prepare Jesus’ body for burial.

Treatment and Burial of Jesus’ Body

At some point following or aligning with the moment Jesus was first laid in the tomb, Nicodemus arrived.

Nicodemus, the same Pharisee referred to by Jesus as “the teacher of Israel” who had visited Jesus by night (John 3) and stood up in Jesus’ defense in John 7.50ff; arrives with supplies to prepare the body of Jesus for burial.

Nicodemus brings 75 lbs. of a fragrant spice mixture made from myrrh (Mir) and aloes. Some argue that this is 75 lbs. of dry spices, while others (I think more convincingly) highlight the word “anoint” in Mark 16.1 and in John 12 as evidence that this is an olive oil mixture fragranced with myrrh and aloes.

Consider this: Remember in John 12.1-8, when Mary brings “a pound of expensive ointment” and “anointed” the feet of Jesus with the expensive oil?

A pound of that particular oil, according to Judas, could fetch 300 days wages.

If what was brought by Nicodemus was similar to this in quality, he brought the equivalent 22,500 denarii, or 61 YEARS worth of work as a day laborer.

Now, none of this requires us to believe that Nicodemus used ALL of this that afternoon (something like 10 gallons of oil would have been excessive, to say the least), but to have acquired and arrived at Jesus’ tomb with such an extravagant amount of precious oil is remarkable, and certainly a statement as to Nicodemus’ assessment of Jesus.

In short, Jesus was buried as royalty! Though He had died among the wicked, Jesus was buried in accordance with Isaiah’s prophecy: “with a rich man in his death” (Isa. 53.9)

John 19.40 tells us that the body of Jesus was bound with linen cloths with the spices, “as is the burial custom of the Jews.”

This is the same language used of Lazarus in John 11.44, who was wrapped so tightly that even though he was alive as he walked from his tomb, Jesus instructed those nearby to “Unbind him, and let him go.” We have every reason to believe that Jesus would have been buried much the same way.

This wrapping and anointing with spices would have largely been done, it seems, to ward off the smell of decomposition, for the sake of family members who would visit the tomb over the course of the next few days in mourning.

Finally, after these women, Joseph, and Nicodemus had done what they could for Jesus’ body, Joseph (again, likely with help) “rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb” (Matt. 27.60) and they all departed.

All this had to be done over the course of at most 2-3 hours: Jesus died about the 9th hour (Luke 23.44), and the Sabbath began at Sundown (or around 6-7 PM), so being faithful Jews they knew they were forbidden from working on the Sabbath. So, Luke 23.56 says “On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.”

Sitting In Front of Jesus’ Tomb

For the next few moments I want you to sit with these women as they sat in front of Jesus’ tomb.

It is interesting how often the Gospels reference the fact that the women who followed Jesus SAW where Jesus was buried.

Matthew tells us the women were “sitting opposite the tomb” (27.61) Mark 15:47 “Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was laid.” Luke 23:55 “The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid.”

There was no way Jesus’ tomb could have been misidentified or mistaken for another. There was no shadow of doubt about that moment, that place, or the reality of what had just happened.

Jesus was dead. They had placed Him onto the stone inside the tomb and prepared His body. They had exited that tomb. Joseph had rolled that stone. And now they sat, no doubt trying to process all that they had seen.

Jesus was dead. All they had left were promises. The promises of a dead man, one who had departed this world down an infamously one-way street.

Jesus had shown them that resurrection was possible, but now there’s a problem: Prophets could raise the dead. But a dead prophet has no one to raise them back to life. Who would raise Jesus from the dead?

What about all His promises about a kingdom, and eternal life? Are those dead too?

The reality of RIGHT NOW, sitting in a garden with the Friday afternoon setting in the background, is that Jesus is gone, and their faith in Him is all they have left.

This brings the study of Jesus’ final day to a close. Jesus would spend the rest of this Friday, and all of the following Saturday, behind that stone door inside that tomb.

And those women, and the 11 remaining disciples, and all the other followers of Jesus, like the two men on the road to Emmaus, all were left wondering: Would Jesus’ words hold true?

“Behold, I am coming soon.”

When you really think about it, all of us are having our moment in front of Jesus’ tomb, so to speak.

Now, I'll admit that our situation is a little different. We know that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead. Starting the Sunday morning following the Sabbath, He showed Himself to be very alive to the women and the apostles and to hundreds and to Paul.

But Jesus didn’t stay here on earth. Jesus, according to Mark 16, Luke 24, and Acts 1, ascended bodily into Heaven, and the apostles were left much like these women outside Jesus’ tomb.

Luke 24:50–52 “And he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven.”

Acts 1:9–11 “And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.””

Jesus taught His disciples that He would return one day to judge and deliver, the angels of Acts 1 confirm that Jesus will return, and the last words of Jesus written in scripture are a repetition of this promise: Revelation 22:20 “He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”

All that being said, the simple fact is Jesus isn’t HERE. Everyone else in scripture who has left this world in that same fashion (Enoch, Elijah, and Jesus) did so on an one-way road. He has left this world.

Jesus is Gone. And all we have left are promises.

Peter wrote that many scoff at our patient waiting with a question and its terrifying (though flawed) logic: “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the father’s fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” (2 Peter 3.4)

We could respond as Peter did, by reminding the scoffers of the promised Flood, which did come to pass and judge the whole earth and the executor of that Judgment has promised to do so once again.

But what about you and I. We’re not challenging the faith: We’re keeping it, living it, holding on to it for dear life.

In a sense, we’re just like the women, and the apostles, here and now.

While We Wait

You and I are like the women sitting in front of Jesus tomb, and the disciples left staring into Heaven. We live our lives awaiting a resurrection (like the women), and we too await the return of Jesus in the same way in which He left (like the disciples).

We know His promises, but Jesus has gone, and He hasn’t come back yet. What should we do now?

Honor God’s Law

“On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.” (Luke 23.56b)

No doubt these women (and the disciples, for that matter) were shell-shocked. Devastated. Numb. How could you go through something like this and NOT be?

However, in spite of all that was going through their heads about Jesus, they remembered God’s law. They didn’t sit before the tomb on the Sabbath. They went home and “rested”, just as God had instructed them to do many hundreds of years before in the wilderness.

As we await the final resurrection from the dead, even if it will occur after our lifetimes, as was true for the Christians who had already “fallen asleep” in 1 Th. 4.13, what we must do in the meantime is continue to follow God’s word and keep His commandments.

We can and should do as Paul instructed the Thessalonians to do: “...encourage one another with these words.” (1 Th. 4.18). Remind one another about the promises. Tell the stories of Jesus and His apostles again and again. Read God’s word. Honor God’s law with faithful obedience.

If we truly believe Jesus to be who He said He was, then we need no convincing to do as He has asked to do!

Worship & Rejoice in Jesus

Following the ascension of Jesus, the apostles did something most interesting:

Luke 24:52–53 “And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God.”

These men, again deprived of Jesus’ bodily presence, did not seem to be phased by that anymore.

Jesus had instructed them to wait in Jerusalem until they were bestowed with power from on High, by way of the Father’s sending of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1), and they did so not with bowed head and heavy hearts, but with boldness and energy.

These men worshipped Jesus on His heavenly throne for the first time in human history, and then went back to the “belly of the beast”, Jerusalem, with “great joy”, and spent considerable amounts of time in the Temple, blessing God.

These men lived lives that were utterly transformed. None of these 11 men, nor the 12th they shortly chose to replace Judas, nor Paul later on could ever be convinced to do anything other than serve Jesus Christ, even when their lives were threatened, or extinguished, because of it.

These men, finally, embodied what it meant to follow Jesus!

It makes me think about the way Paul told the Christians to live going forward in I Th. 5.12-24!

Friends and brethren, THIS is the life we’ve been called to live, in just the same fashion as these apostles lived from that day forward: Eagerly celebrating the reign and anticipating the return of Jesus!

Conclusion:

These two groups, the women at Jesus’ tomb and those men left staring into Heaven are brought together once more in Acts 1.12-14.

Makes you wonder: How’d they do it?

What drew these 120-some-odd people together, and kept them together?

Why did they sacrifice so much?

Simple. So simple, in fact, Peter says it in a single sentence during his first sermon in Acts 2.

You see, these men and women, along with every Jew & Gentile in Jerusalem, knew that Jesus of Nazareth had been crucified, and everyone knew that Jesus was buried.

But you see, that’s just it. Jesus WAS buried.

“This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses.” (Acts 2.32 ESV)

If you believe that Jesus WAS buried, and you understand the reason WHY he was crucified, and you are ready to repent of your sins and confess Him as SAVIOR AND LORD, you can be baptized TODAY for the forgiveness of your sins, and then live your life just as these men and women did: Eagerly celebrating the reign and anticipating the return of Christ.

He left once before, and just as He promised, He came back to us.

He’ll do it again one day. Do you believe it? Do you believe HIM?