Jesus Is Buried

John 19:31-42

Before we start to finish chapter 19 up......to review Jesus has willingly died, He pillowed His head between the locks of His soldiers and He gave His life for this.

The immense suffering that He endured both physically and spiritually was more than any human has ever faced. The humans that suffers in this way for their own sins, would be rightly judged, well, Jesus tok our judgement and faced eternal judgement for 6 hours.

Jesus died sooner than most......Crucifixion of someone could last as long as 3 days. Seems unreal to think about but from some historical writings 3 day crucifixions were not as uncommon as one would think.

Jesus didn’t allow it to linger, He gave Himself to this intense punishment for sin!

Also, let’s remember that Jesus knew that all was fulfilled and then that is when He gave His life.

This does not mean that Jesus is weaker, one preacher wrote: “And Jesus was stronger than any human who has ever lived, because sin had not touched His body. He didn’t die because He was weak, He died because it was time to die. And He came to bear our sins in His own body on the cross; He came to suffer in our place; and when the suffering ended and the darkness disappeared at 3:00 it was time for Him to die. You have to understand that the judgment that Jesus received was not God killing Him, it was God pouring wrath on Him for three hours, conscious wrath. He felt all of that. God did not kill Him as a judgment, God poured wrath on Him, and when the wrath was spent He gave up His own life. So at 3:00 He was ready to die.”

Verse 31....... “The preparation”........Preparation day was when the children of Israel would prepare for Sabbath day, get everything done to rest on the Sabbath.

The Sabbath was so restrictive, that the people had a lot to do.

It was not just any Sabbath it was “high day”, which would mean this Sabbath was during the Passover.

The Jews was now going to obey the law.........Deut. 21:22-23 “And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree: His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God;) that thy land be not defiled, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.”

So, they went to Pilate and begged of him to break the legs of the 3 crucified, so that they would go ahead and die.

This reeks of hypocrisy.......They diligently try to observe the law to maintain their self-perceived undefiled condition while having the Son of God killed.

They had a heart for what the law did for them, but they knew not God personally.

I do not want to get folks crossed up on days here, but I will say that some theologians believe this was done for Jesus to be buried in 3 calendar days and rise on Sunday.

The Sabbath would of started somewhere around 5 on Friday afternoon and went to Saturday afternoon.

I am not sure that is the way it was, but it is interesting.

Verse 32....John details this scene......

The soldiers break the legs of the first thief.....

Then the other........

Most men, as I say, might live two or three days. They’re still alive; Jesus is dead. He’s dead because He willed His own death once His atoning suffering had ended. When the femurs were smashed, the victim on the cross could no longer push himself up or move himself up in order to catch a breath, and soon would die not only from the trauma and the pain and bleeding, but from suffocation, asphyxiation. This was a fast death, as the body slumped and the lungs could no longer draw in air.

Verse 33.......But Jesus had already given up the ghost, His breath! He was dead........so they didn’t break His legs.....

Psalm 34:20 “He keepeth all his bones: Not one of them is broken.”

That is a prophecy but let’s go a step further, which really brings us to what Jesus is doing here:

It was stated in the Old Testament, by the way, in Exodus 12:46 and Numbers 9:12 that when you brought a lamb for Passover that lamb had to be without blemish and without spot. It had to be a perfect lamb, and it explicitly says “a lamb without a broken bone.”

This is an awesome, powerful......Not a bone of the Passover Lamb will be broken........ 1 Corinthians 5:7 “Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:”

Jesus the Christ the Son of the living God is the perfect fulfillment of the Passover lamb!

This is why the timing of Jesus’ death during the Passover is so important, remember God does not change........He instituted the Passover feast to remember His deliverance of the Jews........now, He has given us the true Passover lamb that can take away the sins of the world and deliver us out of this fallen world.

Verse 34.........Now what happens next, some say was a spontaneous act because this would not likely happen.

This soldier pierced Jesus’ side.......It was amazing that Jesus had already died........Mark 15:44 “And Pilate marvelled if he were already dead: and calling unto him the centurion, he asked him whether he had been any while dead.”

Pilate marvelled that Jesus was already dead.....The soldiers were executioners for a living and they knew dead and Jesus was dead........

Because of Jesus’ early death being so unique, they thrust the spear into His side to do a “on the fly” autopsy.

Blood and water came out. This has been much speculated and everything I say is speculation, it is however you want to see it.

How did Jesus die? It certainly was on His timing but how did His earthly body die?

There were several things that Jesus was experiencing in His body, severe trauma to His head, severe bleeding and ruptures from the scourging, the agony of being nailed to a cross, the struggle to breath, not to mention dehydration, no sleep, no food, nothing of sustenance.

But this “on the fly” autopsy seems to say something of Jesus’ death.....

The best exclamation that I’ve read is that His heart ruptured. Now you say a heart rupturing is rare; this is true. But it’s not just rare, it’s only happened one time that a human heart has been asked, even a sinless human heart, to bear divine punishment for all the sins of all the people who have ever been redeemed in human history. Anxiety affects your heart. Fear affects your heart. Dread affects your heart. Your heart races. Your blood pressure goes up at far less than this.

It is a commentary by Dr. Stuart Bergsma who said, “I lean toward this view, though it is extremely rare for a normal heart muscle to rupture. Christ suffered as no man has ever before or since suffered.”

The water reveals what I read about was the limpid serum that would flow out of a ruptured or broken heart.

There is a connection to OT prophecy of this, that could lead us into this direction Psalm 69:20 “Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: And I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; And for comforters, but I found none.”

This verse is connect to another OT prophecy in the same chapter and the next verse: Psalm 69:21 “They gave me also gall for my meat; And in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.”

I could be totally off base here, but there is a lot of connection there......there is no way to be sure and most importantly, we must to Jesus Christ and Him crucified.....His perfect life and His sacrifice for our sins to be saved! So, the how and why of His death is not something to get all out of whack about. Just that Jesus did give His life for us.

Before we leave this..........More prophecy fulfilled Zechariah 12:10 “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, The spirit of grace and of supplications: And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, And they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, And shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.”

Verse 35-37.........There was only one disciple at the cross, right, only one. There were four women, there was one man and it was John, and he says, “He who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true. I’m telling you the truth,” – he knows that he’s telling the truth – “so that you also may believe.”

“I want you to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and believing have life in His name. I want you to believe it because not only of the life He lived and the message He preached, but even the death He died, and even the prophecies that were fulfilled when He was dead.”

This is further testimony that He was dead, and that sounds like John, because in 1 John, as he begins to write his epistle, he says, “What was from the beginning,” – referring to Christ – “what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, looked at, touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life – the life was manifested. We have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and manifested to us.”

No bones were broken and His side was pierced.......fulfillment of Scripture telling us, Who it was that was doing this........

Verse 38.......Joseph of Arimathaea in Luke’s account seems to be a member a of the Sanhedrin (Jewish Supreme Court).....

Luke 23:50-51 “And, behold, there was a man named Joseph, a counseller; and he was a good man, and a just: (The same had not consented to the counsel and deed of them;) he was of Arimathaea, a city of the Jews: who also himself waited for the kingdom of God.”

This suggests that Joseph did not agree with the guilty verdict of Jesus.....He was a follower that believed that Jesus was the Son of God.

But he did so secretly.....some have referred to him as a coward........

Ordinarily, the Romans would not bury anybody that was crucified they were just left for the birds or varmints to eat or they would throw them in Gehenna which was the always burning trash heap outside of Jerusalem.

But, Pilate allowed Joseph to do this....

Joseph was a rich man, by Matthew’s acct and by also having a new tomb and the amount of smell-good that was used would suggest that he was rich.

Verse 39-40.......Enter Nicodemus....back in John 3.....Jesus and Nicodemus had a talk and it seems down the road Nicodemus became “born-again”

The way they handle Jesus’ body was the way folks done Kings back in that time.

Both Joseph and Nicodemus would both lose their positions for this move......most likely their riches.

There is some historical evidence that Nicodemus did, but no way to verify it. It was said that he was not allowed back into Jerusalem because of his faith in Jesus!

Verse 41-42............Adam and Eve sinned in a garden and that sin was paid for in a garden or near a garden....this is where Joseph’s new tomb was. No one has been buried there yet.

Isaiah 53:9 “And he made his grave with the wicked, And with the rich in his death; Because he had done no violence, Neither was any deceit in his mouth.”

NKJV reads like this: “And they made His grave with the wicked— But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth.