As has been mentioned already, we're so thankful for everybody
who is here this morning. If you're a visitor, please be.
We want you to feel welcome each and every time you're able to
make it here. And as we said on your way
passing through, we pray that you make it to your destination
safely as well. Of course, we want to make sure
that we are in line with the Bible, with what we're teaching
this morning and pray that that's what I have done.
I'd like to, we're going to, we're going to be talking about
Luke 23, verses 50 through 56 with a lesson called Silent No
more. So if you want to open your
Bibles, please, I'll have it up here on the board as well.
If you don't, it says they're beginning in verse 50.
Now, there was a man named Joseph from the Jewish town of
Arimathea. He was a member of the council,
righteous, a good and righteous man who had not consented to
their decision in action, and he was looking for the Kingdom of
God. This man went to Pilate and
asked for the body of Jesus. 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.
It was the day of preparation, and the Sabbath was beginning.
The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw
the tomb and how his body was laid.
They returned and prepared spices and ointments.
On the Sabbath, they rested according to the commandment.
This description provided by Luke of the burial of Jesus is
what we read about here. And this is one of the little
paragraphs in the Bible that, you know, I tend to just kind of
read through and skip over and, and not pay much attention to.
But we may think to ourselves, well, you know, all the dramatic
moments of the crucifixion and all the implications and all the
major events have already occurred.
And it's just sort of a little footnote concerning what has
happened regarding his burial. And so when we come to a little
portion like this, we may think to ourselves, you know, well,
there's not much there to. There's not much there to see.
There's not much there to dive into.
There's not much, there's not much here.
Well, I like to try to find the small obscure stories or phrases
in a Bible that sometimes we tend to overlook.
And I hope that I can just give some insight of what the
inspired work, inspired Word of God is trying to teach us.
So I hope to have one or two things that will be worthy of
our attention this morning. First of all, we should notice
that the burial Jesus, the actual burial of the body of
Jesus was by no means an obvious conclusion.
And that's for two reasons. Because the Roman law, the
crucifixion of a criminal, was not the end of the humiliation
on the cross or not the humiliation of the criminal.
The humiliation actually followed the person of their
death. They were barred from honor,
from the proper burial. If you want to say they were
barred from any kind of proper burial, and the release of a
corpse from the cross was only granted by a Roman magistrate.
That's the only person who would release the body of a criminal
of Rome. And so it's solely depended on
Rome. So unless somebody went and
asked, then the chances of the body would be simply left there,
maybe for days, they say sometimes even to where birds of
the air would would devour on the on the corpse of the body is
some of what the historians have said.
And consequently the place would not only become only a sorry
side, but it would become an ugly place as well.
It was not an obvious conclusion because the burial was not the
right. A proper burial was not the
right of the condemned under Roman law.
And secondly, it was not an obvious conclusion because when
we look at the passage closely, we realize that nobody was
around to make the request on Jesus's behalf.
You know, for remember, you know who was really going to ask for
the body of Jesus? His friends were gone.
The women were clearly unprepared and probably in the
constant context of the day, they would not have been
listened to even if they had gone and requested the body of
Christ. There is no obvious leader who
is about to step up and request the body of Christ and and take
charge in those circumstances. I found this quote from Norvel
Gelden Heiss. In one of his characteristic
notes it says, isn't it a shame that in the hour of crisis it is
often to the, sadly too often the Peters who have sworn
loyalty to Jesus with big gestures and fullness of
self-confidence, who disappoint us?
Even if they all leave you, Jesus, I will be there with you
to the end. Even if they all fall away,
Jesus, I'll be there at the end. And so he made these bold
assertions and now it is the end.
But there is no Peter, no friend, a sign, a place with the
wicked in his death. And then suddenly and silently,
out of the shadows emerges one like Esther we see here, whom
you will remember came into the Kingdom for just a moment like
this, or just a time like this. And so it is here that he
arrives on the stage, this individual who whose secrecy had
up to this point been destroying his discipleship, if you want to
say. But now he is determined that he
is going to step forward generously and boldly.
And here we find him. And it says 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.
Now there's a sense of, you know, when you read this, you
can kind of get excited about, you know what, what we're going
to see. And now there's steps forward of
man's what we read. Well, we want to find out as
much as we can about Joseph of Arimathea in our study.
Why is he even in the Bible? Why is he pop up now?
Have we read about him before? You know, I don't think we have.
Do we read about him afterwards? Probably not.
This is surely a time for Joseph to be showing up in the Kingdom
for just a moment like this. So a quick biography including
all the details. We can find them pretty easily
if we if we read the the scripture and cross preference
the other passages of the Gospels that we can find the
same story in. What we do know is we know that
he is from Arimathea, the town in Judea.
We also know that Matthew in Matthew's record that he is
rich. He Matthew says he is a rich man
in in chapter 2757. And we know here that he is a
member of the council. That is the Sanhedrin.
The people had The Who had been responsible for going to pilot
and and pressing for the death of Jesus.
Actually, Mark tells us in Mark 15 that he was not simply just a
member of the council, but he was a prominent member of the
council. We also know that he was a good
and that he was good and upright.
That's what verse 50 says. We also know that he was also a
secret disciple. John tells us that his record
tells us that he was a secret disciple and that he'd become a
disciple because of of of what Jesus was teaching, but he was
afraid of the Jews because of it.
So he's a secret disciple. We also know that he was waiting
here in verse 51. He was waiting for the Kingdom
of God. And we also know from verse 51
that although he was a member of the council, he did not consent
to the decision that the Sanhedrin meet made in regards
to the death of Jesus. The matter of fact is that he
was. My guess is maybe he was missing
from one of the meetings if he wasn't conceited.
You know, we're told that the Sanhedrin acted unanimously
together in the decision to crucify Jesus.
So maybe, maybe he wasn't there for the final vote.
We don't know all that, but just my assumption.
So that all kind of falls under the biography sketch that we
have of Joseph of Arimathea. The second point I want to make
here is a courageous move because that's what we actually
see here in verse 52, a courageous move.
This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus is
what it says there. Mark actually uses the word
courageous. He said that he took courage and
went to pilot in Mark 1543. And of course, because the fear
had previously silenced him. Fear had previously controlled
him and now he casts his fear to the wind and he steps up.
Somehow or another, the cross had brought him out into the
open. What the life of Jesus had done,
what the teaching and the miracles of Jesus had done, was
to attract him and bring him to the point of belief.
Somehow or another, he was still being covert in his actions.
While he still believed in Jesus prior to this point, he was
still going about his business in a secretive way.
He was still moving amongst his colleagues and believing in
Jesus and yet somehow able to fly under the radar, if you
will, may find a point of identification with that this
morning, that we may be actually describing ourselves to this
point of our life, a secret disciple believing.
But yet we're afraid really of letting anybody know what our
belief is, what we stand for, even those who are closest to
us. We tend to shy away from that
courage to to let people know who Jesus is.
But something had happened. Jesus had said here in John
1232. And I, when I am lifted up from
the earth, will draw all people to myself.
And if you go back a few verses in Luke 23, you know the
centuries that centurion found that same distinctive point that
Jesus was somebody who was important.
Something had happened to him at that cross and now that same
thing is happening to Joseph. And so Joseph makes a daring
request asking for the body of Jesus.
And you know, why are we, why is he asking for the body would
have been the obvious question. The obvious answer is because
Joseph was committed to this condemned and crucified man.
You may have thought, you know, I failed to follow this guy.
I failed to serve Jesus during his life while he was alive, but
I'm sure not going to miss the chance to do it now that he is
dead. And Mark alone tells us that
Pilate was surprised. We can read that in Mark 15
verse 44 through 45. Joseph goes and says, can I have
the body? And Pilate says what the body?
You mean to tell me that the body's already dead, that Jesus
is already dead? Oh yes, says Joseph.
And then Pilate says I need to verify this.
So Joseph takes census centurion to go verify that Jesus is dead.
He comes back and yeah, it's verified Jesus is already dead.
Sometimes the crucifixion, as we have studied here before, often
sometimes lasted up to three days or so, a very horrible way
to die. And so it was remarkable in
which Jesus had passed away or died so quickly as his life had
come so quickly to an end on the props.
So the body was released and that gives way to urgent
activity. And the pace of this is quite
remarkable if you think about it.
Verse 52, it says this man went to Pilate and asked for the body
of Jesus in the verse 53, then he took it down.
There's a timeline here that I want to kind of have us the
picture in our head what's going to be happening here very
quickly. So we need to remember that is,
but by now it is the middle of the afternoon on the day of the
crucifixion on the Friday of the Passover week, the middle of the
afternoon Jesus died around 3:00.
Remember that the darkness came over at noon day lasted for
three hours and at the end of the darkness Jesus said Father
into your hands I commit my spirit and he breathed his last
breath. So that was about 3:00.
And if we allow a little bit of time, then the commencement of
the Jewish Sabbath was at 6:00 PM the same day.
Therefore, this individual, Joseph, if he was going to abide
by the Jewish law, now had a window of opportunity that is
less than three hours to get a lot of work done.
So he has less than three hours to accomplish everything that
needs to be done. If the burial is going to take
place, it's going to have to take place very quickly.
Now this guy moves into action again, what we need to take all
the gospel records and write them down.
And if you put almost in this kind of a, a, a list of
everything that happened, we come up with a great picture of
urgency. So the things that need to be
done within three hours was to take the body down.
Mark tells us that he went and bought the linen cloth and Mark
15, verse 46 and the body we did have been washed because Jewish
law required that you had to wash the body before it was
buried. So there was no way that Joseph
affair Messiah was not going to follow the Jewish law at that
point. So the body has to be washed.
And then we're told in John that it was wrapped in linen.
Claws were wrapped together with some 75 lbs of spices in John
1939 through 40 and the body was placed in a newly cut tomb and
the big stone was rolled in front of the entrance.
Matthew 27, verse 60. All in an afternoon's work,
right? That's a lot of stuff to get
done before 6:00 PM in three hours.
So he goes to Pilate and boldly he says, may I have the body,
And he is granted the body of Jesus.
And if we think about it, it's remarkable, You know, who is
this guy? Joseph Arimathea.
Look at what Joseph of Arimathea was able to do in such a short
period of time. And when we think about it, you
know, I don't think well, we know that Joseph didn't act
alone during this time. Clearly he didn't act alone.
We know that there was at least one person with him and we'll
get to him in a moment and maybe others about.
But Joseph was a Mitch man. He was prominent member of the
council. He was the kind of guy that
would have influence. And and we can imagine that
maybe he is getting his servants together and giving up the
tasks. You know, just picture that in
our mind. We're not told those things in
the Bible, but but you know, he had some clout about him and he
had some authority where he could divvy up those tasks,
taking the body from the cross. We can't imagine that he did
that alone. He had to have help in that.
It doesn't make sense for him to pull that body down off the
cross by himself. He would have probably had help
there. The purchase of linen, the
location of the tomb, making sure that the entry was
accessible and possible. All these all these different
things that had to be done. But the one help where we are
Noah, that is a sure friend that we that we've read about before
is Nicodemus. And this is really, really
pretty neat in the Bible, you know, John 1938 through 40, the
way just kind of comes into the text.
It says there Pilate gave him who was Joseph permission.
So he came and took away his body.
Nicodemus also who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came
bringing a mixture of murder and aloes and about 75 lbs in
weight. So they took the body of Jesus.
Oh, Nicodemus, Remember Nicodemus, you know, we haven't
heard of Nicodemus. I think it's been, it was 17
chapters before that when Nicodemus was introduced to us,
he had visited Jesus at night. And just in case anyone had
forgotten who Nicodemus was, that we were reminded.
Well, one thing I thought about was, you know, birds of a
feather flock together, right? These two guys, you know, a man
called Nicodemus who went to Jesus by night, undercover of
darkness, secretly, quietly asking his questions,
discovering the glorious answer of the Gospel.
The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear it sound, but you
do not know where it comes from or where it goes.
So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.
John 3/8. It's a unique and wonderful
thing that Nicodemus had found. So we see him in John 3, and
that's all we read of him until here in John 19.
And he stepped back into the text and we can understand why
these two guys would hang out together.
Maybe, you know, maybe they, they just knew one another, both
of them. OK, we're scaredy cats.
Both of them were a little frayed, both of them influential
in their own way, both of them believing in Jesus, both of them
somehow or another just not managing to muster up the
courage to let everybody know that they were believers.
And I imagine them, you know, I pictured them kind of getting
together and saying, well, we can definitely honor him and his
death, can't we? And yeah, I think they both
agreed upon that. And then when we read the
Gospels, it's it's intriguing because Joseph is the only one
mentioned with the linen clause. Nicodemus is the only one
mentioned with spices. And we can kind of see here and,
and, and, and picture how maybe potentially the tasks were
divided between different individuals to get all this work
done in this short amount of time.
Luke, along with Matthew and Mark mentions also the presence
of the women. In fact, he's very careful to
make sure that we know that these ladies were present.
We see in Mark's Gospels, very brief, it says Mary Magdalene
and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was late.
And Luke, there's a little more information.
And the woman who had come with Jesus from Galilee, he's already
said that in in verse 49, it says they followed Joseph.
They saw the tomb, they saw how his body was laid in it, and
they went home and prepared spices and perfumes.
Well, John's Gospel says that they took approximately 75 lbs
of spices mixed with them and linen claws to take care of the
burial process. And then Luke tells us that they
saw the tomb and they saw how the body was placed in it, and
then they went home and prepared the spices and perfumes.
But there's commentators that I read that that that try to say
that the women actually did not see inside the tomb how the body
was laid and how it was, how it was prepared.
And, you know, I started thinking about it and, and I
kind of don't think that is true.
I really think these women knew exactly what was going on.
I really do. It is more probable that these
women saw exactly what took place in the tomb.
And they saw that Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of
the council, and Nicodemus, you know, a guy of good stature.
That's too maybe fiddling around trying to get this in, this
stuff taken care of. And these women, you know, look
at one another and said, yeah, these guys are going to really
foul this up. You know, isn't that what women
kind of see us men doing sometimes?
You know, we think we can do it all on our own.
I'm going to go ahead and take care of it.
And these women standing back going, these guys are just going
to really mess this thing up. Isn't that just like women?
That's what you guys do. I mean, that's what supports us
as men. That's what helps us out.
That's what's so great about it. Wouldn't it just be like Lizzie,
GAIL, Judy, Betty, Kaye, Charlotte, Diana, Janet, my
mother, Penny, Tina, Sue, Sandra, Kendra, Taylor, Cindy,
Dreamer, Evelyn? I know there's some of mist in
there, but you women would come in and run in and support men in
a way that we wouldn't know how to react sometimes.
That's truly a blessing. And US men do a really good job
making a mess of some things. At some point, of course, we'll
have to wait to see if that was all fact or fiction when we get
to heaven to figure it out all out.
Well, that's really all the evidence the, the, the biblical
evidence that we have of these few verses.
So I wanted to try to just take a few things from these verses
to learn. So what do we learn?
Number one, I'm reminded that the good news, the good news
touches both the rich and the poor.
The good news touches both the rich and the poor.
And certainly the the emphasis of the Gospel of Luke has been
that Jesus comes for at least and the last and left out and
that he he has a unique concern for the poor and that he would
be a mark for those who would bear the good news.
But sometimes people get hung out or get stuck on the notion
that it becomes almost a crusade for people to pursue people only
that fit the mold of what they think of Christianism look like.
And it's it's needed for a rich man and it's needed for a poor
man. And the good news is the gospel
is no respecter of persons. Jesus died for the poor man,
just as he died for the rich man and also for the woman at the
well too, that we can read. We just find all that really
quite beautiful in these passages.
It also teach me too that God's Providence is at work all the
time and everywhere. He was preparing Joseph for this
very moment. In fact, Joseph's.
I'm convinced that Joseph's secrecy, which was all really
his own secrecy, it wasn't the will of God's secrecy, but it
was only it was Joseph's own secrecy.
It wasn't that God made Joseph fearful.
Joseph was fearful in his own right.
Joseph was secretive in his own right by his personality.
That's how he was. And if he had been anything
other than that, then we would have read of something else or
maybe somebody else that would have taken care of what God
wants taken care of. So the Providence, Providence of
God is at work all the time and everywhere.
It is a mystery, but it is at work.
And it was God's express purpose that this, this special servant,
Joseph, having missed so many opportunities previously, would
be present on this day for this opportunity.
God's works are wonderful. Thirdly, prophecy was still,
even after Jesus's death, continuing to be fulfilled.
We've learned here that also these proceedings continue to
fill the words of prophecy. We see in Isaiah 53 and 9 it
says and and they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich
man in his death. That is a fulfillment of
prophecy because Joseph in the Arab Matthea was rich.
These tombs, these carved out areas where they were often
reused. Once the body we had been
decomposed, they would have taken the body away in about a
year. They would gather it up and they
would put it basically into a, well, cremation.
It would take these bodies and they would they would reuse the
tombs. From what some of the Jewish
historians were saying, the form of cremation would take place
and so the tomb could be reused and it may be reused multiple
times, but the rich would not reuse the tombs.
And Christ who had nothing but nothing and nobody, didn't have
much of a chance of any kind of a decent burial.
But his father saw that he was put in this lovely place, albeit
briefly, but nevertheless he was properly buried.
Couple other things I want to mention that I tried to learn
from this passage is not everyone arrives as quickly as
others do to the place of bold discipleship.
Not everyone arrives as others do to a placeable discipleship.
Some of us who by our own personality are more extrovert
than others have a little have little patience maybe with those
who take a little longer to do things.
If you have that type a personality, you know, you're
kind of OK. Are you going to get this task
done? Are you going to when are you
going to come to when are you going to get this done?
You know, we've been studying for how long?
Isn't it time for you to make a decision?
Yeah, I yes, I believe that there is a time where somebody
needs to to draw a line in the sand.
But not everyone comes as quickly to that decision as some
others do. And so we need to remember that
while we're studying with somebody or maybe maybe family
members that we pray for all the time, maybe our kids, maybe
cousins or uncles. Be patient.
The Lord is working. Whether we thank you she's
working on our time frame or not, the Lord is working and I
think it's a lesson that here in Scripture in part to remind us
we're too quick sometimes to press others into a into a
decision. So we just need to remember
that, be prudent about that. The period between coming to a
convinced belief in the saviorship of Jesus and the
preparedness to, to, to nail it. Our colors to nail their colors
to the mass, the nautical terms, if you want to say, or letting
his world letting, letting the world know that we're going to
fight for Jesus. That's, that's a time period
that we don't know how the spirit works, how God works.
But let that be a thought for everybody.
And finally, surely this passage is a reminder for us that no one
can remain a secret disciple indefinitely.
Eventually circumstances will demand that we stand up for what
we believe in and we'll take our stand with whom we've determined
to follow. And Joseph is in the company
with one other individual on the pages in respect to this.
There's another individual that we see here.
There are two people here who in within a 24 hour period of the
time of the burial and death of Jesus are immortalized in
history forever. One is Joseph and the other is
Pilot. You know, and the reason that
they're both known in the pages of of of Scripture and history
and certainly in the biblical record is simply because of
their reactions to Jesus. Both of them apparently thought
that they could delay their response to Jesus.
Pilate was a pontificator. He was pro a procrastinator.
Pilot was trying to to put it off, trying to send, send it off
to Herod to have somebody else make the decision.
He said go to Harry, come back later.
I don't, I don't want to know about this.
I don't, I don't know about that.
I, I want to wash my hands of this is what Pilot was saying.
And Joseph from another perspective, perspective
operated much in the same way. You know, there Joseph was
thinking, there's going to be a time when I get when I'll get to
it. I'll go, I'll get to it later.
I'll let somebody someday, you know, we know how our mind
works. We'll get to it later on.
And apparently they thought they could delay the response
indefinitely, but the events of life of course overtook them
both and the question which was the utmost on Pilots mind on his
lips and Mark 15 that we can read What shall I do with Jesus
who is called the Christ and that was the question question
they both had to face. That was the question they both
they had to make their choice on that question and eternally
eternity real will reveal the choice that they made.
So there's no other place to kind of wrap this up other than
to say perhaps today is the day when the secrets of our hearts
will be revealed. Way back in Luke chapter 2, when
Simeon takes Christ as as the baby child in his arms and he
speaks over him and says, you know, let your let your servant
depart in peace because my eyes have seen the salvation.
And he says this child will be for the rising and falling of
many in Israel. He will cause a division between
people. And then he essentially says so
that the thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.
And that's exactly what happened here with Joseph of Arimathea.
Suddenly he saw the cross and he said that's it.
It all makes sense. I can't, I can't be in secret
for Jesus anymore. I can't, I didn't honor him in
his life while he was living, but I'm going to definitely
honor him in his death. I'll do whatever it takes.
I cannot live in secrecy. Any luck any longer?
And of course, we want to ask that today, if you believe in
God, that that that he has raised Jesus from the dead.
And in believing that we believe that there's a reason God raised
Jesus from the dead is because God was accepting the sacrifice
for sin that Jesus had offered. And that belief that that it was
a necessary sacrifice not just for the sins of men, but but all
of our sins personally, our sins, not just those previously,
but forward as well. He died for our sins.
And that belief demands a change.
It demands a new life. It demands us to think
differently, to live differently, to make our
decisions differently, to to look through the lens of what
Jesus has done for us on how we make the decisions in our life,
a life that cannot be kept in secret any longer.
It demands us to be standing for Jesus and we confess Jesus as
the Son of God and then we are baptized for the remission of
our sins. Maybe there's somebody here who
needs to do that today. Maybe there's someone here who
has done that but has fallen short, sin in their life
publicly, that needs to make a public confession or just needs
the prayers of the congregation here.
We ask you to come while we stand and while we stand.