Episode Transcript
[00:00:24] Speaker A: Hi, I'm Josh.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: And I'm Gabriel.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: And today on reading the Gospel, we are studying the event, the burial of Jesus.
This is found in all four Gospels. It is found in Matthew, chapter 27, verses 57 through 61, in Mark, chapter 15, verses 42, 47, in Luke, chapter 23, verses 50 through 56, and finally in John, chapter 19, verses 38 through 42.
Today we are going to be reading from the Gospel of mark in chapter 15 and verse 42.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: And when evening had come, since it was the day of preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, 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.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: And Pilate was surprised to hear that he should have already died. And summoning the centurions, he asked him whether he was already dead. And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph.
And Joseph brought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in the tomb that had been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb.
Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of Joses, saw where Jesus was laid.
So we've now come to the burial of Jesus.
Who's Joseph of Arimathea?
[00:02:02] Speaker B: What we learned from this passage is that he is one of the members of the Sanhedrin.
Don't forget, Jesus Christ was brought before the Sanhedrin early in the morning, before a few of them, and later before the whole council.
And it says he was a respected member of the council.
So in addition to this, Josephus, the Jewish historian, said that Joseph of Arimathea was one of the three richest people in Jerusalem.
If all his wealth was. Was transformed into food, he would have enough food to feed the whole population of Jerusalem for about 10 years or so.
So he was a rich person, he was influential, and at the same time, he was looking for the kingdom of God.
Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus, it was not a professed, publicly professed disciple. He was not following Jesus from place to place. He was not one of the 12, maybe not one of the 72, but he was a disciple in the making.
And when an event like this, when a crisis pops up, that will make or break you. And this time, that crisis, the death of Jesus Christ was a turning point for the life of Joseph of Arimathea.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
And so he comes and he's. He's going to honor Jesus, the Sabbath is coming and this is important for them.
[00:03:46] Speaker B: How did Joseph honor Jesus?
[00:03:51] Speaker A: By giving him a brand new tomb. Probably a tomb cut out for him.
[00:03:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:56] Speaker A: And, and back then it's interesting being over in Jerusalem.
You have the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, you have the garden tomb. These different places where Jesus could be buried. And while the garden tomb is a beautiful place, is not likely the tomb that's an earlier tomb, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
When you're in this church, there's this big tomb in the center. And that's not likely the tomb either. When you go to the back of the church, in the very back, there's this little outcrop and there in the back there's a first century tomb.
And it's very small. You can't stand up and walk in there. You have to get down and get in there.
[00:04:40] Speaker B: I remember that.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: Yeah. But that, that is most likely like if any of those three locations are the place, that's the one that's most likely to be the place where Jesus was buried. But, but this was a new tomb and that area had been around a long time. So cutting out a new tomb would have been a. Like you said, he was rich, so this was probably his personal tomb. And he's now giving this to Jesus.
[00:05:05] Speaker B: In Matthew 27, said his own new tomb.
So what do we give to Jesus? How do you honor him?
If we have to apply this principle to us nowadays?
[00:05:19] Speaker A: Yeah, this would be giving the best.
You know, you can go some places, go to cemeteries. And as you drive around the cemeteries, you see the big mausoleums, the, the big tombs that are, are glorious and, and wonder about those people. Huh. I wonder what kind of life they led.
And so I don't know.
Joseph is giving the best to him in this place of honor that he had.
[00:05:50] Speaker B: And maybe we didn't have a new tomb cut in stone or we didn't have a, you know, a car to give Jesus Christ or a house which has an upper room to make a place for Jesus Christ.
What do we have? What can we give him?
[00:06:09] Speaker A: The best thing we can give him is our hearts. Give him our life and surrender to him.
You know, my kids can come home and give me whatever thing they want. They could bring home a Lamborghini for my birthday.
But that would mean nothing if they didn't love Jesus. For me, the best gift they could give is a relationship with Jesus. And I think that's true in our lives.
We can give the world to Jesus, but if we don't give our hearts. If we don't give our life, it's meaningless.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: I remember that verse that says, God is looking on our planet, in our world, and he is searching for someone to give his heart. Young man, give me your heart.
Jesus is not looking for money. He's not looking for our resources.
Of course he will accept them if those are an expression of giving him our heart.
And it seems that for Joseph of Arimathea, having the courage to go to Pilate and publicly ask for the body of Christ when he knew that all the other Jewish leaders, council members, were just watching the situation, that was a lot of courage.
Giving his own new khatum to Jesus was somehow a commitment of his life.
Lord, I like to make my allegiance to you public, and I'm going to do something when you need it the most.
[00:07:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it was important to note, we talked about this earlier, that they're doing this before the Sabbath comes.
They're making sure he's buried and getting him in the tomb because they're keeping the Sabbath.
This was not just any Sabbath. This was a high Sabbath. This was the Passover that weekend.
So everyone was in Jerusalem.
But they were taking the time now to make sure that they could rest.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: On the Sabbath hours when Mark. Because you read from mark, right, chapter 15, verse 42, when evening had come, since it was the day of preparation.
And Mark felt the need to explain because the main audience of Mark is non Jewish population. He was the secretary of Peter who traveled all the way to Rome to plant the church there. And he took notes. And from these notes he put together the Gospel according to Mark.
[00:08:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:57] Speaker B: And Mark explained to this audience, decades later, after the death of Jesus Christ in verse 42, that the day of preparation is the day before the Sabbath.
He assumed that his audience, those who read the Gospel, they know what the Sabbath is. That means they are still keeping the Sabbath. And what explained a Jewish concept, the day of preparation, that is the day before the Sabbath. Decades later, after the death of Jesus Christ, when the Gospel of Mark was written, keeping the Sabbath was known. Most likely was a practice embraced, still embraced by all Christians.
[00:09:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
And so Pilate here, he's surprised that Jesus has died, and so he summons a centurion and asks him whether he's already dead.
That's interesting to me because again, going back to the practice of not allowing people to stay on the cross over the Sabbath hours, you would think he would know, know that.
So my reading in this is when they come and say Jesus is Jesus had died it wasn't at the hand of the centurion that Pilate's finding out that it wasn't the centurion that killed Jesus. He died. And so Pilate's like, well, let's double check this. I need to make sure.
[00:10:17] Speaker B: Maybe he was surprised and wanted to talk to centurion. Which centurion? The same one who watched Jesus Christ dying and saying, indeed, yeah, this was the Son of God for sure. They talked to each other somehow.
Did he die? Really?
How did he die?
This was an event when God in his infinite wisdom and grace offers one more proof to Pilate that indeed Jesus Christ was not of this world, that his kingdom was from above.
[00:10:56] Speaker A: I wonder how many people in the lead up to Jesus death were like Judas and maybe hoping to start, spark something, spark a miracle, spark an event, a revolution or something.
I wonder if Pilate thought that, oh, Jesus is going to get himself down from the cross.
He's more powerful, he's going to do something.
I wonder how many people were there.
[00:11:24] Speaker B: Herod for sure, had those kind of thoughts. Because when Jesus Christ started preaching, he was afraid. He thought that John the Baptist, whom he decapitated, was resurrected and he was afraid of, you know, retaliation.
So maybe that idea was somehow popular or was part of their fears.
[00:11:45] Speaker A: And I wonder how many of Jesus followers were standing there at the cross waiting for him to come down. And that moment where he breathed his last must have been so shocking.
Wow.
[00:11:59] Speaker B: And he said, it is finished.
[00:12:01] Speaker A: Yeah. He didn't come down. He didn't get off the cross. And, and I think for me, this, this hits at the thought that God doesn't always act in the way we expect.
[00:12:12] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:12:12] Speaker A: And we, even today, need to think outside of our, our belief system. We need to think that God is bigger than us and he might act in ways that, that we don't know now. Now he doesn't. I don't believe he acts outside of what he shares in the Bible. So we can stand on the, the Bible, the truths taught in the Bible and the promises God makes.
But what we need to look at is our interpretation and our understanding.
[00:12:44] Speaker B: So it's very important to read the Bible carefully and to develop expectations which are in sync with the word of God.
[00:12:54] Speaker A: And again, just plugging this podcast, again, this is why we do this, that we can develop this daily connection with God. And we invite those of you who are listening to share this with others. We don't. You never know how it's going to affect someone's life, whose life it is going to change. By connecting with God daily, we can get to know him more and not be surprised.
[00:13:20] Speaker B: And this story of burial, practically the day of Friday ends by saying that Joseph, taking him down, wrapped him in linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that has been cut out of the rock.
And he rolled a stone against the entrance.
And in Matthew 27 it says he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb. And after that he went away. Yeah, but Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, that is most likely Mary's sister, they were still there sitting the opposite of the tomb. And this is how the day of Friday ends.
Yeah, with a man of God, Joseph Remathia, who made a commitment to make his face public and ask for the body of Jesus Christ, offer him the best.
And the women sitting there in disbelief, in pain, maybe crying.
And this is how the story ends into the Sabbath, which is the day of rest. And nothing is being reported about that day.
[00:14:36] Speaker A: Let us pray.
Father, as we reflect on this event, it saddens my heart.
But it also gives hope that while Jesus died the second death, while he was in the grave, there was plans beyond that.
And just like the people around him, sometimes we think we know your plans. But we could be wrong.
I pray if we ever find ourselves in a position where we're sure we thought you were leading in a direction that we won't turn from you if it doesn't go the way we thought, but that we will study, connect with you daily and seek to know your will in our lives.
I pray that we will know how much you love us. In Jesus name, Amen.
[00:15:31] Speaker B: Amen.
