WWUTT 2518 The Body of Jesus Buried (Luke 23:50-56)

A man named Joseph of Arimathea took the body of Jesus from the cross, wrapped it, and laid it in a tomb.

And even this testifies to us the amazing grace of God that he shows to us in his

Son when we understand the text. This is

When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ. For he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Tell your friends about our ministry at www .wutt .com. Once again, it's Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Gospel of Luke, we come back to chapter 23 and we'll finish up the chapter today with the burial of Jesus.

Yesterday we read of his death on the cross, yielding up his spirit to his Father in heaven.

Today we read of him being taken down from the cross and buried in a borrowed tomb in fulfillment of the scriptures.

Let me begin reading verses 50 to 56. Here the word of the Lord. 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 who had not consented to their decision and 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 the body was laid.

Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments. On the Sabbath, they rested according to the commandment.

And when you think about it, Jesus rested on the Sabbath as well. After completing all the work that the

Father had sent him to do in his life and in his death. We read yesterday in verse 46 that Jesus, as he died, called out with a loud voice,

Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit. And after this, he breathed his last.

The work had been completed. And so now on the Sabbath, resting from that work, of course, this anticipates his resurrection, which is coming up on Sunday morning, and we read about it at the start of chapter 24.

God willing, we'll get to that next week. But for today, we read of his burial, and I've always been fascinated with the burial of Jesus.

Often, we focus a lot on the crucifixion for good reason. And as a good pastor,

I will study things about crucifixion so I can include those details even as we read of Jesus' death.

Of course, the worst thing about his crucifixion wasn't the gruesome manner in which he died, but that the wrath of God was poured out on him as an atoning sacrifice for us.

Yes, crucifixion is awful. And if there's anyone who did not deserve that, it was

Jesus. The perfect, sinless Son of God. We read of those gory details, knowing what

Jesus in his humanity would have suffered through on our behalf. But again, the worst part of that being that he took the wrath of God upon himself so that all of us who believe in him have nothing to fear of God's wrath.

We won't have to go through that because Jesus did that on our behalf. By faith in Christ, our sins are forgiven.

And though we will die, we will live forevermore with God in glory.

So yes, I'll read and study things about the crucifixion and still do so to this day.

There were things that I was reading about it even before coming into these lessons that I've done through Luke chapter 23.

And of course, I'm going to study the resurrection because without the resurrection, we don't have the promise of resurrection.

As the Apostle Paul talks about in first Corinthians 15, if Jesus did not rise from the dead, none of us rise from the dead and you're still in your sins and your faith is futile and in vain.

So the resurrection is vitally important to our faith. And we will talk more about that when we get to chapter 24.

But the burial part of it just tends to be forgotten. It's that thing that happens in between the crucifixion and the resurrection.

But there's still some fascinating things concerning Jesus' burial. And even studying the burial helps to prepare us for responding to bad arguments.

One of the worst that's out there is with regard to the Shroud of Turin. Surely, you know what this is, right?

Is that actually the burial cloth of Jesus? Well, I'll talk about that in a moment as we get to it, but let's come back to verse 50.

Now, there was a man named Joseph from the Jewish town of Arimathea. We don't actually know where Arimathea is or where it was.

We know it was in Judea and probably a little bit to the northwest of Jerusalem, but we don't know for sure.

There's not a town today that is called Arimathea. So wherever it was, either, you know, it's one of those towns that's been lost to time.

Maybe we'll uncover it through archaeology or it just could have changed its name over the years. So we don't know for sure where it's at, but Luke's readers definitely would have known.

And that's the reason why Luke includes his name in the town that he is from. You want to know more about these things that I am writing down for you, oh, most excellent

Theophilus, as Luke had said at the start of this gospel, well, talk to Joseph of Arimathea.

He'll even take you to the tomb itself. This was the place where I buried, where I placed the body of Jesus.

It was said of Joseph that he was a member of the council. So a member of the

Sanhedrin, the Jewish high court. He was a good and righteous man. Not everybody who was of the scribes and Pharisees were evil, though we've heard a lot about them over the course of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

There were some good men among them. Joseph of Arimathea, not the only one, Nicodemus would eventually become one of these men.

If we follow his story arc, so to speak, in the gospel of John, he's somebody that comes to Jesus in the midst of darkness, which was probably a reflection of his own heart.

We read about in John three, he later defends Jesus. And then after Jesus dies, he's among those that bring spices to the tomb.

So you see a change that happens in Nicodemus also very unlikely that Nicodemus would have gone along with the rest of the

Sanhedrin. But we know for sure that Joseph did not. He had not consented to their decision and action.

He was looking for the kingdom of God. That's a detail that Luke puts in there to demonstrate his good and righteous character.

He was looking for the kingdom of God. He was not against Jesus, likely listened to his teaching and wanted to know more and probably believe this man was the

Messiah along with the centurion that was at the cross that we read about yesterday.

Certainly this man was innocent. And Joseph of Arimathea would have thought the same about Jesus. Verse 52, this man went to Pilate, Joseph of Arimathea being a part of the

Sanhedrin would have had access to Pilate and was able to go to him and asked for the body of Jesus.

Now this was very, very unusual. This is not the way those who had been crucified would be handled.

A lot of times those who were crucified just got left on their crosses. As I talked about when we went through the crucifixion narrative, the

Romans wanted to make a spectacle of those who are being crucified. They wanted it to be public so that anyone who saw it would know what would happen to you if you disobeyed

Rome. So to keep people in line, they made their public executions visible to a lot of people.

And those who would be crucified were often the lowest of the low. It wasn't just anybody who got crucified.

Roman citizens were not crucified unless they were Roman soldiers that had deserted or they were traders or wouldn't follow orders or something like that.

They would be crucified. But usually it was like slaves and foreigners and those who were guilty of real serious crimes.

They were the people who would be crucified. And crucifixion wasn't something that the Romans were necessarily proud of.

Like they didn't tout it around like, look, we crucify people. You better stay in line or we're going to crucify you.

They didn't talk about it much and they didn't preserve the remains of those who were crucified.

The information that we have about crucifixion comes mostly from writing, although there has been some archaeological evidence that has been uncovered concerning crucifixion.

But again, if it's not going to be preserved, it's really hard to find remnants of crucifixion and be able to study those remnants and see just what was done with these bodies when they were hung on their crosses.

I read of an archaeological discovery just a few years ago. I think this was in 2021, if memory serves.

It was an archaeological dig in England of all places, but it was a Roman settlement that had been unearthed there in England, an ancient

Roman settlement. And they crucified their criminals. So they found in this in this

Roman settlement, a body that had been buried in a tomb. And that body had a nail through the heels.

And it had indicated to them that this person was crucified because that was a mark of crucifixion.

So this body was taken down, actually treated well and buried in a tomb. Very, very unusual to find that, though, because that's that's not the way that those bodies were kept.

There might be mass graves or they would be set on fire. And again, the bodies would just be left to hang there and animals would devour them.

They would stink even as people would pass by them. They would hang them in places probably where a lot of Romans wouldn't go by.

They weren't taken off their crosses and given a proper burial. Even family who had a member of their family who would be crucified, they would be so ashamed of it that they wouldn't want to have anything to do with it.

So it was really rare for anybody to go, hey, can we go get our relative off that cross so that we can go bury him?

And who would they go to and ask that question anyway? Again, Joseph of Arimathea has access to Pilate, so he's able to ask that question and receive the body of Jesus.

He took it down and he wrapped it in a linen shroud and laid him in a tomb cut in stone.

Now, again, with regards to this linen shroud, various burial narratives that we see in Mark and in Luke, especially where you have details concerning this linen shroud, there are those who have taken those narratives and they have said, look, this is perfectly in line with the

Shroud of Turin. The details that you read here, it looks like what we see in the

Shroud of Turin. So maybe it's authentic. They try to line it up with the Bible. Again, if you are not familiar with the

Shroud of Turin, it's an ancient artifact that dates back to the 14th century.

And it was even in the 14th century that there was a bishop that proclaimed it to be a forgery.

So even when the shroud was presented as the burial cloth of Jesus, there was a bishop who said, no, there's no way that's real.

So at one point it was completely dismissed, but it was kept nonetheless acquired by the

House of Savoy in the 15th century. It was later damaged by fire.

But when it was recovered and put in the Chapel of the Holy Shroud, I think this was in the 1600s.

It may have been when that transition had taken place. And the Chapel of the

Holy Shroud is connected with the Turin Cathedral. So that's why it's called the Shroud of Turin.

It's gained a lot of popularity since, of course, with advanced scientific methods.

And we can date things like that. The first time the Shroud of Turin was dated, well, it turned out that the material was dated back to the 14th century, exactly when it showed up.

So it seemed to be a proven forgery. But then there's all these other kinds of things.

I don't want to go into all the details, but all this other stuff that people who love the Shroud have come out with saying, well, look at this and look at this and look at this.

And they've managed to date it or find ways to date it back to the first century.

And there are many today who believe the Shroud of Turin to be genuine. This really was the burial cloth of Jesus.

I think it was earlier this year that Michael Knowles of the Daily Wire did a whole interview in front of the

Shroud of Turin, and they talked about its legitimacy and authenticity. This is the genuine article.

But it is not difficult to prove the Shroud of Turin is a fake.

It is not the burial cloth of Jesus. And all you have to do is read the burial narratives in the

Bible. I think that you can prove it archaeological or you can disprove its legitimacy archaeologically as well.

There is evidence. But when you look biblically at the description of the way that Jesus was buried, the

Shroud of Turin doesn't match it. The Shroud was wrapped around the individual head to toe.

So it went like the person was laid on the Shroud, and then it was folded over the head and went all the way down to the feet.

And if that was the way that Jesus was buried, then John 20, verse 7 doesn't make any sense, where Peter and John get to the tomb, and they look inside, and they saw the linen clothes that Jesus had been wrapped in.

They see the cloths lying there. And the face cloth, which Jesus had on his head, was not lying with the linen cloths, but was folded up in a place by itself.

Now, that wasn't just like a napkin of some kind that was laid over Jesus face. There's other myths that go along with that.

I'm not going to touch on those, though. Maybe we'll talk about that when we get to John chapter 20. But it's because the head of the body was individually wrapped.

So a Shroud would cover the person from the neck down to the feet.

This was the way that in the first century, Jews would bury their dead. They would wrap them in a

Shroud that would be across the body, not over the top of the head. And then they would leave the head open, and there was a separate cloth that would go over the head, or the

Shroud that they would use would have a hood on it, and the hood would come over the head.

But the whole Shroud itself wasn't like one piece that went, you know, head over heels.

It didn't go vertical across the body. It was horizontal around the body. And that one separate cloth that covered the head would have been the cloth that's referred to in John 20, verse 7, as the face cloth that was folded neatly by itself.

So just with the description of how Jesus was wrapped in this

Shroud, it doesn't match the Shroud of Turin. So biblically, we can disprove that the

Shroud of Turin is a fake. Archaeologically as well. It was about 20 or so years ago, there was a body that was discovered in Jerusalem in one of the ancient tombs, and they managed to date it back to the first century.

It's the only body that has ever been uncovered in a Shroud in Jerusalem that dates back to the first century.

And the way that body was buried, again, doesn't match the Shroud of Turin. So archaeologically, we can disprove it.

Scientifically, we can disprove it. And of course, biblically, we can disprove the legitimacy of the

Shroud of Turin. It is not legitimately the burial cloth of Jesus.

So anyway, Jesus was wrapped in a linen shroud. He was laid in a tomb cut in stone where no one had ever yet been laid.

Just like Jesus came into Jerusalem riding on a donkey's colt on which no one had ever sat.

So Jesus has now been laid in a tomb in which no one has ever been buried. It is a holy place for the

Holy Son of God to be buried and from which he would rise again. Verse 54, 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.

The women were mentioned previously in verse 49. All of his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things after Jesus was crucified.

And here we have a mention of those women again from back in Luke chapter 8. And those women play a crucial role coming up here in chapter 24.

Of course, it's the women who first of all come upon the tomb and find it empty.

And so Luke is continually mentioning them here. Verse 49, verse 56, that the women had come with him from Galilee.

Those women that had come from Galilee to Jerusalem, they followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid.

So when Luke is putting these facts together. Joseph of Arimathea, you can go talk to him.

He'll show you the tomb. You can go talk to any of those women. They'll show you the tomb. They'll even tell you exactly how his body was laid in the tomb.

Luke meticulous with all of these details, putting together once again, an orderly account of all of these things that can be tested.

This was written in the time of those eyewitnesses that they could testify to it.

I was there. I saw and all of these things that Luke records in his gospel are true.

They are factual. The death and burial and resurrection of Jesus are historical facts.

These are not religious myths. These are historical things that we're reading about here. These things really happened.

And there were so many eyewitnesses to the things that have been chronicled for us in the scriptures.

Now, after the women had witnessed this, after they had observed this, verse 56 says they return and prepared spices and ointments.

And on the Sabbath, they rested according to the commandment. So all of these things have taken place since sunrise with Jesus crazy trial and being brought before Pilate and then being sentenced to death.

He's nailed to his cross at nine in the morning. Darkness comes over the land at noon, lasts until three o 'clock.

Jesus yields his spirit to his father in heaven. They hung on the cross for a little bit longer than that, because though Jesus had died, the other criminals were still alive.

We read in John's gospel, their legs were broken to hasten their deaths.

And then Joseph of Arimathea takes the body of Jesus from the cross, wraps it, places it in a tomb.

All of these things happening on the same day. And now, finally, we've come to the end of the day.

The women are preparing spices to take them to the tomb. But all of these things have happened in such a way that they're not able to get the spices done in time, lest they be disobeying the

Sabbath. So they're going to have to wait until Sunday morning. But all of this by the providence of God so that those women would be the first to come upon the empty tomb.

Even in the details we read here concerning Jesus' death, we read of things that really took place, and they took place for you and me, my brother and sister.

Jesus died for us, all who believe in him. Our sins have been forgiven, and we have everlasting life with God.

This is, as some have called it, the greatest story ever told.

And it's the greatest story not because it's the most famous worldwide, known the world over.

It's the greatest because it is knowing this story and putting faith in Jesus Christ that saves you for all eternity.

This is the gospel, the good news that Jesus died, rose again so that all who believe in him will not perish but have everlasting life.

Though our bodies will be buried on earth for a little bit of time, we will rise again and be with our

Lord forever in his glorious kingdom. Joseph of Arimathea was looking for it.

Are you looking for the kingdom of God? Heavenly Father, I pray that you make us to walk as citizens of your kingdom.

Even now, people can look at us and see that we are of a distant land.

We are not of the people among whom we live. We are children of God.

And so we live our lives in such a way to be a reflection of our Father who is in heaven. We live our lives in such a way that we exemplify the citizenship that we have in Christ, in his eternal kingdom.

And may we do as Christ instructed us in chapter six, Matthew chapter six, to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all the other things that we need, you will add to us as well.

It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Tomorrow we'll pick up on an