John 19:31-42 (His Prophecy-Fulfilling Death)

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day sermon. We pray that as we declare the

Word of God that you would be encouraged, strengthened in your faith, and that you would catch a greater vision of who

Christ is. May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word, and may the Lord be with you.

There's a man named Sir Austin Henry Layard, I think. I'm saying that because I don't know how to pronounce his last name, but he's a young British archaeologist who embarked upon a pretty remarkable journey.

He left Britain, he went to the Middle East, and he did so in order to discover the ancient city of Nineveh, which was the capital of the

Assyrian Empire. Now against all odds and against the desert heat in Iraq, I've been there, we had thermometers that registered at 135 at one point.

I don't know if they were broken or if that's just how hot it was, but it was hot. So against all of that he found the city's ruins, he found the magnificent palace of Sennacherib, and what he actually found was so impressive to him was that every single detail of his archaeological discovery aligned perfectly with the

Scripture. It affirmed the accuracy of the Scriptures, and to the on -looking archaeological world they were shocked.

The Bible is true? Coincidental. It affirmed the reliability of Scripture.

Every artifact that he found was backed up by God's Word, putting to shame all who dare malign it.

Did you know, this is fascinating, this is bonus material, there's in the Scriptures it talks about Belteshazzar, you remember the guy who is at the party and he's drunk and then he sees the writing on the wall, and okay, did you know that secular archaeology said, myth, he didn't exist, he wasn't a real person.

They found it, verified the Scripture once again so that all of those who dare malign the

Scriptures are put to shame. It is true, and everyone else is a liar. It affirmed

God more than anything fulfills his promises, and that's what I'd like us to focus on today, that God fulfills his promises.

I want us to focus on the greatest fulfillment of a promise that has ever been given in all of history, and that is the death and the burial of Jesus Christ.

What I want us to do today, again, we're not gonna look at anything new, maybe, but we're gonna look at things that are old, and we're gonna look at things that are really old, much older than Calvary, much older than the tomb.

We're gonna look back at nine historical things that were prophesied before they even happened, nine things that Jesus walked through in his final moments that were fulfillments of Old Testament prophecy, that showed that God's Word can be trusted, that showed that every single detail of the

Word is true, even though his people missed it. And what

I want us to see in that is that as we see that the Word of God is true, even on the granular level, even in details that you and I might consider superfluous or extra, that that should encourage us that God's Word can be trusted in our life as well, that God's promises can be trusted in our life as well.

If he did it here, then he does it here. That's my point. So if you will, turn with me to John chapter 19.

Believe it or not, we will be in verses 31 through 42, and we will finish

John 19 off today. I only have 9 points and 12 application points, so we're okay.

Donna gave me a look, that's why I said that. If you will, let us read the

Word of the Lord. John chapter 19, beginning in verse 31. Then the

Jews, because it was the day of preparation, so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the

Sabbath, for that Sabbath was a high day, holy day, asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away.

So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man and of the other who was crucified with him, but coming to Jesus, when they saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.

But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.

And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true.

And he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe.

For these things came to pass to fulfill the scripture. Not a bone of him should be broken.

And again, another scripture says, they shall look on him who they pierced, and after these things

Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but a secret one for fear of the

Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate granted permission.

So he came and took away his body. Nicodemus, who had first come to him by night, also came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds weight.

So they took the body of Jesus and they bound it in linen wrappings with the spices, as is the burial custom of the

Jews. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had been laid.

Therefore, because of the Jewish day of preparation, since the tomb was nearby, Jesus was laid there."

Let us pray. Lord, thank you for your word today.

Thank you for John being such a faithful eyewitness of these things, and Lord, thank you for the scene in the gospel of John.

Lord, we ask that you would help us to see how it is so deep, so rich, a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, and Lord, I pray that that would encourage us to believe that your word is true and good and trustworthy.

In Christ's name, amen. Just to begin, John says that he who has seen these things has testified.

His testimony is true, and he knows that he's telling the truth. He's trying to tell you he's telling the truth. And then he says, these things came to pass to fulfill the scripture.

Not just the things that he lists right there, he's saying these things, all of these things, came to pass to fulfill the scripture.

So what we're looking at is every aspect of Jesus's crucifixion and burial was already predicted.

It was already prophesied, and these things happened accordingly, the exact way that God determined for them to happen, to encourage

God's people in past, present, and future that God can be trusted with his promises. That's what these verses mean.

Now the first thing that we see here, the these things, is that they did not leave him hanging.

They did not leave Jesus hanging on the cross. In the law of God, Deuteronomy 21, 22 through 23, it says, if a man has committed a sin worthy of death, and Jesus had all the sins of the world poured out on him, every murder, every adultery, everything.

So there's enough there to warrant death. And you hang him on a tree.

His corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day.

For he who is hanged is accursed of God, so that you do not defile your land which the

Lord your God has given you as an inheritance. There is a theme in the Bible of trees which is fascinating.

Adam cursed at the foot of the tree. Abraham blessed at the oaks of Mamre. Absalom hung from a tree under the curse of the tree.

You see what I'm saying? There's a theme in the Bible that judgment happens under trees.

Do you remember it says that Deborah, the great Old Testament woman, the mother of Israel, she judged

Israel underneath a tree? This is a theme. So isn't it interesting that the judgment of God that should have been poured out on Adam in front of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was poured out on Christ at the tree of Calvary?

That's a theme. Now in order to avoid defilement, the Jews said, we can't allow

Jesus to hang on the cross. This man that we murdered and we lied about, we spit in his face and bludgeoned to death and all of the other righteous things that we did, we can't allow him to hang here because he will defile our ceremony.

So they requested Pilate that they take him down. It says then the Jews, verse 31 of John 19, because it was the day of preparation so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the

Sabbath for the Sabbath was a high day, asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away.

Astounding, in fact, that as they're murdering Jesus they're worried about their Sabbath. I just find that irony so incredible, and yet if you know something about crucifixions, well the

Bible does compare the two, but that's not what I was saying. If you know something about crucifixions, crucifixions are you die by asphyxiation.

You don't die from the pain, you don't die from the blood loss, you don't die from the whippings and the beatings, you die by being suffocated to death.

Because as long as your legs have the ability to push your body up, then your diaphragm, which is collapsing because your chest cavity is pushing down on it and suffocating you, because you can push up, you can take a breath, and you will be surprised at how resilient the human body is when you are your own executioner.

The question is, if I could just push up in agony for one more breath, you will, and you will continue to do it.

History has recorded that most people who are crucified eked out their final moments for hours.

36, 48 hours of agonizing sleeplessness. That's average.

48 hours of pushing up to breathe, not sleeping, hallucinating on the cross because your mind is breaking.

48 hours. So the fact that Jesus dies pretty quickly is astonishing.

And it actually comes to encourage us, because it lets us know that the Bible is accurate, and that it's faithful in everything that it says.

It's first faithful in the fact that it's Deuteronomy 21, 22 says that the curse fell on Christ. Cursed is anyone who dies upon a tree.

Jesus Christ took our curse, so the Bible is faithful. Jesus did not die by a firing squad, if they had such a thing.

Jesus did not die in some other way, by stabbing, or by choking, or by whatever else. He died on a tree.

And he died on a tree because God was absolutely telling the story of this man taking our curse.

He's the one who took the curse of the land on him. So that's a fulfillment of Scripture.

But also, the fact that they did not leave him hanging on the cross is also a part of our second fulfillment.

Not only did he take the curse upon himself, but he did not have his legs broken, and that is intentional.

And maybe you say, well, Jesus died for our sins. What does it matter about his legs? It matters for the story

God is telling. If you remember back in the

Old Testament, there's a couple passages I'd like to remind us of. Psalm 3420.

David writes in the Spirit, prophesying about the coming Messiah, he says, he keeps all his bones, and not one of them is broken.

This is a Messianic Psalm. This is a Psalm about Jesus, that not one of his bones are broken, so that the

Word of God would not be considered contradictory. On a single point, Jesus died faster than most people die in crucifixion, because when the

Roman centurion got to him, he didn't need to break his legs, he was already dead. And the Roman centurion said, why waste the energy breaking a man's legs who's already dead?

So he died. Jesus died, was already dead when he fulfilled this prophecy.

Look at the matchless beauty and power of God. Jesus fulfilled prophecies when he's dead, prophecies he couldn't manage to fulfill on his own.

Astounding. Also in the Passover, in Exodus 1246, you remember Jesus is our Passover lamb?

He's the one who dies for the sins of the people, his blood painted on the cross is the blood that's painted on our hearts so that the angel of death passes over us and does not kill us because of our sins, though our sins the way that they deserve.

Do you know that the Passover lamb that Jesus is typifying, you cannot break the

Passover lamb's legs. It was a rule, Exodus 1246 says you shall not break any of its bones.

How beautiful is it that the true Passover lamb, God protected him from having any of his bones broken.

The fulfillment here when the soldier came and found that he was already dead and his legs didn't need to be broken is telling a glorious and beautiful story that Jesus is the

Passover lamb, no legs broken, spotless and unblemished, who takes away the sin of you and I.

Now the Roman soldiers would have it broken his legs if they needed to. If they heard the smallest little gurgle, they would have broken his legs, but they didn't need to because he was already dead.

I find this fascinating that Jesus died within hours after his crucifixion compared to others, and again this is because of the sovereign will of God so that he could tell the story of his son being the true

Passover lamb. Again this is a testimony to the inerrancy of the scriptures, this is a testimony that even though the

Jews were the ones who handed him over to be killed and they knew about the Passover lamb, while they were watching this

Passover lamb being killed they were dreaming about their Passover dinner at home. While he died as their

Passover lamb, they missed it. So even though they didn't get it, God was sovereignly showing that his will is true in all things, and even in the small details.

Maybe you've never thought about it before, why would Jesus' legs being broken be a big deal? He already died for our sin, he already forgave us of all of our sin, why is this important?

It is important. It is important because he's the true Passover. That's the second thing.

The third thing, see we're moving through these quick, it doesn't matter that I have 27 points today, we're moving. The third thing, the third historical fact in here that was prophesied before it happened was that they were going to pierce him, that the soldier was going to come and pierce his side.

This is not something that just happened as a matter of happenstance in the moment, on the day that it occurred.

It was prophesied. Isaiah 53 says he was pierced for our transgressions and he was crushed for our iniquities.

The chastisement that brought well -being upon us was put on him.

Isaiah 53, five. 700 years before Jesus died, it was prophesied that he would be pierced.

Psalm 22, 6, for the dogs surrounded me. Look at who God calls the ones who are surrounding

Jesus. Can you imagine as Jesus cried out on the cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Which is the first line of Psalm 22, that's the first line of the song, for the dogs have surrounded me.

The ones surrounding the cross were the dogs. For the dogs have surrounded me, a band of evildoers have encompassed me, they pierced my hands and my feet.

So the three different ways that Jesus was pierced, through his hands, through his feet, and through his side, all prophesied before it happened.

Zechariah 12, 10, I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on me whom they have pierced, and they will mourn as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over him, like a bitter weeping over a firstborn.

When Jesus was pierced on that cross, this is a fulfillment. The Roman soldier did this to diagnose death.

There's a great book by Lee Strobel called The Case for Christ. It's very interesting because it has medical evidence in it on why the

Romans actually did this. This was not superfluous extra, this was not something that they just did because they were just violent and mean and they didn't have a dad who loved them, that's not why they did this.

To diagnose whether a person had truly died, because you would swoon a little bit on the cross and it would look like you were dead, to diagnose it they would stick the spear up through the ribcage and they would pierce the heart in that way, and if blood and water flowed out of it, it was a sign that your heart had collapsed and that you were dead.

It was pretty much a fail -proof sign that you were dead. So they were just doing what the medicine, the medical community at the time said, if you want to diagnose if they're dead and you can't reach them with the stethoscope, stick a hole in them and see if blood and water comes out and then you'll know if they're dead.

That's what they were doing, and yet what I find so fascinating is that they were fulfilling prophecy unwittingly, unknowingly, doing what

God said was going to do. What's the significance of this piercing? Well, there's sacrificial significance here.

There's sacrificial significance because Christ is the prophesied one who was struck, who was pierced, like the rock in the

Exodus narrative that our brother Michael told us about last week. That rock was struck and water flowed out.

There's sacrificial significance here. Christ did not merely foresee his death in general, he foresaw every aspect of it in particular, gruesome detail, and he inspired his prophets to write about it before it occurred, a thousand years before it occurred in Psalm 22.

That's number three. Number four, the fourth thing that's fulfilled in prophecy is that it said that blood and water was going to flow out.

John 19 .34 says that immediately the blood and water came out. Now this one is not necessarily explicitly revealed in the

Old Testament, but the symbolism of it is. Blood and water are ceremonial agents.

Blood and water are cleansing agents. So if you wanted to cleanse something that was broken or that it was dirty or was defiled, you would either pour out blood or pour out water.

If it was your physical body, you would wash with water. If it was your soul, you would pour out blood.

If you had sinned and your soul had become dirty, the blood would be poured out for you.

The priest himself would gather the blood of the Passover lamb and pour it out in front of the altar, literally pour it out on the ground, symbolizing that you've been made clean.

So water and blood represented two layers of cleaning. One was a physical cleaning like showers and baths, and one was a spiritual cleaning where the blood was covering your sins.

So in that way, the entire ceremonial law, which is all about washings with water and pouring outs with blood, is typifying and pointing us to this moment where the blood and the water pour out, that Christ is fulfilling every aspect of the law.

The New Testament tells us that our salvation has been bought and paid for with blood and water.

Did you know that? So it's also a salvific aspect. The blood, what is the blood? It talks about the blood being for our justification.

Romans 5 .9, much more than having now been justified, not by the blood of bulls and goats, but by his blood.

We shall be saved from the wrath of God through him. So the New Testament is telling us that the blood poured out by the true high priest who is on the cross, that's

Jesus, that blood was poured out for our justification. What does justification mean? Justification means that if you have sinned, all of us have, that your account is going to be made right.

Let me explain this. When you go to a store and you debit something on your bank card, there's a transaction that happens and your account is debited and that account is credited to the store that you just shopped from.

Now, in the Bible, we don't have anything in our account. We're poor, we're broken, we're destitute, and it's even worse than that.

We've ran up a bill that is greater than our national debt, which at current estimations is somewhere in the 20 trillions,

I don't even know. It'll be 30 before we leave. My point, we could not pay it back.

There's not enough money in the economy to pay it back. So what is justification?

Justification is that God took a debt you could not pay and he paid it back. And then, not only did he bring your account back to zero, he deposited in your account the riches of heaven so that you walk away being the most indebted person ever existing, now walking away as the richest person that's ever existed, full of the treasures of heaven.

It's a two -part work. All your sin wiped away and all of Jesus is righteousness given.

That's what justification is, and you get that by the blood of Christ. You also are regenerated, and the element that's used there to describe it is water.

Titus 3 .5 says, he saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to his mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the

Holy Spirit. What's a better washing than water? The washing that is poured out on you and I by the

Holy Spirit of God So both of these, Old Testament water and blood used for cleansing and washings are brought into the

New Testament to signify our justification and our regeneration. What is regeneration? It means you were dead and then

Jesus brought you back to life. You were regenerated. That's what that means. So in Christ, you've been forgiven of all your sins, you've been given all of his righteousness, and you've been brought back to life by his blood and his water which he poured out on the cross.

Isn't that beautiful? And it was prophesied when Moses was standing before Mount Sinai receiving the law.

It was prophesied 1 ,500 years before it happened. Amazing. Blood and water also typify something critical and crucial to the

New Testament Church. Baptism and the Lord's Suppers. Our brother Mike said last week, I'll only add one thing to what he said because what he said was beautiful.

Do you know who's the first person who, in a way, gets baptized in the New Testament according to a

Christian baptism? It's fascinating. It's the man who stuck Jesus in the side and the blood and the water sprinkled on him from above.

It's a fascinating thing because that's why, that's how we're baptized. We're baptized with the water that Christ has set aside for us in baptism being sprinkled from above.

There's three ways to get baptized and we think all of them are great. There's immersion like the ones who died in the

Red Sea. It tips my hand on what I think about immersion baptism, but there you go, it's still a valid baptism.

Then there's the pouring and there's the sprinkling. The pouring of the water from above is so represented in the

New Testament. The Holy Spirit coming from above and resting on God's people. Jesus' blood flowing down from above onto the

Roman centurion who cries out, this must have been the Son of God. It's almost like he came alive in that moment, isn't it?

This is typifying our baptism in the Lord's Supper. Beautiful means of grace that are for our nourishment.

People say, well, I don't need to get baptized. I'm a Christian, I believe. That's a sort of salvation only -ism, as if salvation is the finish line of our faith and not the starting line of our faith.

I'll tell you this, if you don't feel like getting baptized, you better have an excuse like the thief on the cross who was nailed to a cross.

If that's not your story, come to the waters of baptism because they're for your good. It's Jesus' mercy and love being poured out on you from above, so come to the waters of baptism.

The Lord's Table. Gosh, isn't it interesting how the enemy attacks the things that are the most important?

Baptism. I don't need to get baptized. That's satanic. How about this? The Lord's Supper. I'm not worthy to come to the table.

I've done too much wrong. I've sinned too much. Yeah, that's the point. That's why you needed a

Savior. That's kind of the gospel. If anybody can say,

I'm not worthy of the table, yes and amen. Tell me something new. But the table is for you.

It's for you because he loves you and he's poured out his mercy on you. It is for you.

Do you remember that moment at the end? What's that movie, Good Will Hunting, where he hugs him and tells him he loves him and he's like, and then eventually he's crying and weeping?

Sometimes that's us. We can't accept the love of God. We can't accept what he's done for us and we need to be repeatedly told over and over and over, the table is for you.

Come. Stop navel -gazing at your sin. Stop identifying yourself with your past failures and brokenness.

If you're a Christian, you've been washed in the blood of the Lamb, so come to the table and feast on the portion that he's given you.

Amen? That's the fourth thing, that his blood and his water flowed. It has so much sacramental, sacrificial, salvific typology embedded.

The fifth thing is that they looked upon the one that they pierced. Fascinating, fascinating prophecy.

John tells us in John 19 .37, again, Scripture says, they shall look on him who they pierced.

John had someone in mind because John is the one who looked upon the one who was pierced, but he says that they will look on the one that they pierced.

Revelation chapter 1 says that they will see the one whom they pierced. And then

Zechariah 12 .10 says that they will look on me, the one that they have pierced, and they will mourn like one who's lost a child.

The Jews in this time period did not understand this prophecy. They did not understand that as they watched him gloating and mocking and laughing and wagging their fingers at him and saying, oh, call to the prophets and call out to your

God to rescue you, Jesus, if you really are the Son of God. When they were mocking him, they had no idea that they were fulfilling the very prophets that they said with their lips that they loved, and they had no idea that the prophecy was going to be fulfilled.

They went home that day thinking, Zechariah said this about Jesus. No, he didn't. It says that we're gonna mourn.

Look at how festive we are. Look at how much fun we're having during the

Passover. Look at how great we killed Jesus. They probably were thinking that. Do you know, 40 years after Jesus was killed, a single generation that Jesus says within a single generation all of these things are gonna come on that generation, they did weep and they did mourn, and the city was surrounded by the

Romans like Luke 21 20 says, like Matthew 22 10 says, and their city was set on fire and they were destroyed.

And they weren't destroyed just because they killed Jesus. They were destroyed because they persecuted his bride.

For 40 years, the one who they pierced and the one who loved him, his bride, the church, they persecuted, they chased out of synagogues, they murdered, they beat, they bruised, they hanged, they crucified, and after 40 years the prophecy of Zechariah 12 10 came true.

Brothers and sisters, when God says something in his word, it doesn't always happen immediately, but it always happens exactly when

God wants it to happen. They looked on the one they pierced and they mourned because of it.

Isaiah 53 says, he was pierced through for our transgression, but he was crushed for our iniquities.

The chasing for our well -being fell upon him, and by his scourging we are healed. There's two things that the cross did.

For those who hate God, it made them mourn, but for those who love God, there's a different kind of mourning that happens.

God says that hell will be filled with people who weep and gnash their teeth. There's a kind of mourning that's sorrowful and hateful that is among the damned, but there's a kind of mourning among the believers.

It says that that it's a good thing. Godly sorrow leads to repentance. There's a sorrow that comes knowing that we also were the ones who crucified him.

You don't have to be a first century Jew to be a part of the killing. One lie, one false witness, one breaking of the

Ten Commands, which we've all done today, and you were there. There's an old

Negro spiritual in early America which says, where were you when they crucified my

Lord? I was there. I was there, and so were we.

So what Isaiah 53 is saying is that we will mourn too, but that mourning that we have will lead to joy, and the false joy that the

Jews had in gloating over their Messiah would lead to bitter weeping. Jesus doesn't produce subtle reactions.

When Jesus gets a hold of your life, he does not produce subtlety. He produces vibrancy or hatred.

He produces joy or despair. Depends on what side of heaven you're on. Amen. The sixth thing that we see is that Joseph of Arimathea took the body.

This is such a fascinating one to me. Joseph of Arimathea took the body of Jesus. Again, this is not something that Jesus worked out.

It says that Joseph of Arimathea was a secret disciple. He was not hanging out with the apostles. He did not come and visit

Jesus in the upper room on the night that he was arrested and say, hey, is there anything I could do for you? He was a secret disciple.

It was a shock when he asked for the body. So nobody conspired with him. Nobody coordinated with him, and guarantee you, when we ask him in heaven, he's gonna say,

I had no idea that I was fulfilling prophecy by doing that. And yet John 19 .38

says, and after these things, after all the other things that God fulfilled perfectly, Joseph of Arimathea being a disciple of Jesus, but a secret one, and for fear of the

Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus. And Pilate granted him permission, so he came and he took away the body.

This is a striking act of courage for a man who's been pretty consistently hiding, number one.

And that act of courage leads us to this prophetic fulfillment. Isaiah 53 .9 says, his grave was assigned with wicked men.

He died as a criminal, and yet he was with a rich man in his death. That almost sounds like a parable, doesn't it?

His grave was assigned with the wicked. He died because they accused him of sin, and yet with the rich man in his death.

How is that possible other than what Jesus did? He died as a sin offering for you and I, and then he was buried with a rich man in a rich man's grave.

Joseph of Arimathea, by the way, was rich. If you were a Pharisee or a Sadducee, you were rich.

Jesus doesn't call them lovers of money for nothing. At the time period, at the time period, taxes for the average citizen would be about 80 % of your income.

Herod was taxing you about 50 % of your income. The Romans were taxing about 20 % of your income, and the tax collectors were skimming off the rest.

So imagine, you make $100 and you keep 20. So most people were poor.

The Pharisees had found a way, by leveraging religion and wielding it over the people's heads, to extract massive amounts of resources from the common folk, to keep them under their thumb, and also to become wealthy.

It was a sick and sadistic way of doing religion, and yet they did it. That's why Jesus calls them whitewashed tombs, lovers of money.

That's why he tells them that their gold infilatories are so impressive. So Joseph would have been a rich man.

Just like somehow in America, when you move to Washington DC, you automatically get rich. There's no corruption in that at all.

It's just you were poor and now you're rich. You were Bernie Sanders and now you're Bernie Sanders rich.

It just happens. It's like there's money in the air. Okay, Joseph of Arimathea was a part of this aristocracy.

He was wealthy and he buried Jesus in his tomb, and he fulfilled Isaiah 53, which is fascinating.

It shows us that God is sovereign over his word, that God had prepared the tomb that he wanted his son to be buried in before the world was even created.

I was thinking about this this morning. You know, like a carpenter and a stonemason. Stonemasons would have been the ones who cut out the tomb.

Carpenter and stonemason is the same word in Greek. So imagine the guy, let's call him

Joe, Joe the carpenter in Judah, and he's bought and paid for by Joseph of Arimathea, and he goes and he cuts out the tomb that Jesus is going to be buried in.

He had no idea what he was doing. I was thinking about that this morning, how all these people had no idea what they were doing, and yet all of it was exactly the way that God wanted it to be.

Isn't that amazing? And it should encourage us that in our life, when we go walking around with not a single idea about what is happening, without a single concept of that God is involved in my life at all, that God is sovereignly weaving it all together for his glory and for his purposes.

There is nothing accidental or random about any atom in the universe. It's all under the sovereign hand of God.

Amen? Number seven, Nicodemus anointed the body. This is another fun one. It says in John 19, 39 through 34,

Nicodemus, who first had come to him by night. It wasn't because night was just a better time for his schedule.

He was a coward. He didn't want to be seen, so he came to Jesus at night, probably with a little lantern hidden, and he was very careful.

He came to Jesus by night. He also came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloe, about a hundred pounds weight.

So if there's one way you don't want to get, or you want to go secretive and clandestine in the city of Jerusalem, carrying a hundred pounds of burial spices, probably not one of them, so this is an act of courage.

Praise God the coward became a became courageous, as is the burial custom of the

Jews. This may seem like an insignificant detail that Nicodemus is involved here, but it's not, because he first came at night, now he's coming in the day.

He first came secretively, now he's coming openly. He first came trying to hide, now he's coming lugging this hundred pounds of burial material, because at least he can show his allegiance to the dead

Christ when he could not do it when Jesus was alive. That may seem like this insignificant detail, but it's not.

The second aspect that may seem maybe not even noticed is what he brought. He brought myrrh.

Do you know where we see myrrh at in the Bible? In his birth. In his birth.

It's an odd gift for the Magi to come bringing. It's an odd gift. It would be like your child, your beautiful child, whoever your child is, and a group of people coming to your home and bringing a casket for a gift for their birth.

A little morbid. You would probably say, hey can you please take that back and give us the money for it and we'll buy something else.

The wise men brought gold, a symbol of his kingship. Frankincense, a symbol of his priesthood.

And myrrh, a symbol of his perfect death. Myrrh is burial spice.

It would take a hundred pounds of myrrh, which is very strong. If you like essential oils like some do, it's a strong smelling spice.

A hundred pounds of that is what it would take to knock down the smell of a corpse. So they're bringing him spices for his burial.

I love how his birth and his death are connected so well. He was wrapped in cloths as a baby.

He was wrapped in cloths in his tomb. He had burial spices given to him at his birth. He had burial spices given to him at his death.

It's almost like God had a purpose, and he did. Of course he did.

We're seeing it all over the place. Psalm 45 7 says that you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness, therefore your

God has anointed you with the oil of joy above your fellows. So this anointing that's happening to the body of Jesus in some ways is like this anointing that David prophesied about Jesus.

A thousand years before Jesus was even born, he said that you would be anointed above your fellows.

So he's not only anointed for death, he's anointed as king. You remember Mary who anointed his feet with oil?

He's anointed as king. Isaiah 61 1 says, the spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the

Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted. Jesus is anointed in his death. What is the rest of his ministry all about?

Through his church. Two thousand years of bringing good news to the afflicted. He was anointed, which means that his death was not the end.

It was the beginning of a world -changing, world -flipping phenomenon where the good news is gonna come to the broken and the beaten and the dejected.

Us. It's gonna come to us. Isn't it great that the very first two men who served

Jesus were cowards and losers, in a sense? I love that.

I love that the very first people who found his tomb empty were women, because at that time women were not even afforded the right to speak in court.

I love that it's the rejects of society that were first saved, because if you think about it, there's room for us in that little band.

There's room for us at Jesus's table. Not the high and mighty, not the well.

Jesus didn't come for them. He came for the sick, came for the weak, came for the broken, and we see that even in the way that he was anointed for his death.

Number eight, he was laid in a brand new tomb. Not an accidental detail, and it's also not that they just so happened

Jesus's body was getting really heavy, Nicodemus was struggling along with the spices, and they're like, we got to stop this tomb now.

No. It is absolutely critical that Jesus was buried in a clean tomb, because if he wasn't, then the story that God was telling would have been untrue.

Jesus doesn't just die for you, he's buried for you, and he's buried in a specific way for you.

Remember we talked about a couple weeks ago the Old Testament sin offering? The sin offering is slayed by the priest.

Jesus was slayed by the priest. The priests pour out the blood in front of the altar. They poured out

Jesus's blood there on that altar, and then what happens to the body of the cow, of the goat, or of the dove?

It's carried outside of the camp, and it's buried in a clean place.

You don't have a sin offering if you don't have it terminating in a clean burial place.

So 1 ,500 years before Jesus was crucified for our sins, the destination that he would end up in as a clean burial tomb was critical.

It's the only way that you can fulfill Leviticus chapter 1 and him be the guilt offering that takes away our sins.

It's the only way that he is that pleasing aroma that goes up to the heavens and completes

Leviticus 1 .16. It says, this is the priest, he shall take away its crop with its feathers, this is the bird offering in Leviticus 1, and cast it beside the altar eastward to the place of the ashes in a clean place.

Do you know the direction that they traveled was eastward? The direction that they traveled to carry

Jesus's body was exactly the direction that they would carry a offering, and they buried him in a clean place.

This is not happenstance. This is God being gracious to us to show us that he cares about his promises.

You and I, when we became a Christian, we wouldn't have known any different. Somebody could have said to us, did you know that Jesus is buried in a clean place?

I don't know, I just know he died for my sins. We wouldn't have cared less, we were just grateful for what he did.

But as we grow, as we learn, as we get deeper in the Scripture, we're reminded over and over and over again that he cares about the details, and that's good news because he cares about the details of your life.

He doesn't just care about the moment where you say, I have decided to follow Jesus, you fill out your card and you sing your kumbaya. He cares about your whole life, every detail of your life, every detail is noticed.

He cares about the details, which means there's never a moment where God has abandoned you, or forsaken you, or not noticed you.

If you're struggling right now, your cry might be, God, you feel far from me. What's true about that statement is your feelings, but not that God is far from you.

He can't be. He notices everything. He went to the painstaking details to fulfill it in his

Son, and he will go to the painstaking details to fulfill his Word in his children's life as well.

If you're a child of God, he cares for you like he cares for Christ, and his

Word will be true in your life as well. Number nine, they buried him in a garden.

This is not a coincidence. Life began in a garden.

Adam was installed as a high priest in the garden, and then what happened? Adam fell, kicked out of the garden, cast out of the garden, locked out of the garden.

Isn't it crazy that the new world that Jesus is creating with people who are forgiven for their sins begins in a garden?

He started in a garden, the Garden of Gethsemane, praying like Adam. You remember Adam couldn't go back into the garden because of the great cherubim who had the flaming whirling swords, and even if he wanted to go back in, that would kill him.

Jesus goes back into the garden, and they did kill him, and then what do they do with him?

They bury him in a garden tomb, and then what do they do? As soon as he's resurrected from the dead, the first people to find him,

Mary, do you know what she says to him? She thought he was the gardener! That's not an accidental detail of the text!

She knew what he looked like, and yet the job and the role that Jesus was playing was so dense upon his countenance that she saw him not as Jesus, but as the gardener.

It wasn't until she heard his voice that she said, "'Rabboni.'" She's seeing Jesus in his high priestly role of bringing humanity back into the garden.

Do you remember when Jesus comes out of the tomb and Mary finds the two angels standing there? How many angels guarded the way to the

Garden of Eden? There's two. How many angels guarded the way into the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle?

There was two. How many angels guarded the way to the Holy of Holies in the temple in Jerusalem?

By pattern recognition, two is right. She found two angels, and yet they were not guarding the way to the presence of God anymore.

They said that the presence of God has now exploded out into the nations. The swords of the angels have been put down, and now we can come back into the garden again, being led by our true gardener,

Jesus. None of this is accidental! It all is pointing to the beautiful story that God is telling.

So that's nine things. Nine things, I hope, that encourage you, and I hope they encourage you in several different ways.

Number one, I hope it causes you to rest in God's sovereignty. There is not a single atom in the cosmos that goes astray without God saying, "'Mine.'"

Abraham Kuyper said he looks out at everything that was made and he says, "'Mine.'" That's what

Jesus says. I want you to marvel at God's sovereignty. I want you to marvel at the fact that there's no accidents and there's no whoopsies in God's kingdom.

Everything was prophesied and everything happened. That means you can trust your

God. When you and I are fickle and frail and liars, God is not.

We can trust him even when we can't trust ourselves. Number two, I also want you to embrace the cross.

We don't talk about this enough. I think we should talk about this out of every breath that comes out of our mouth. The cross is where we were saved.

Don't let that become old news to you. Don't let that become something that you're like, oh yeah, you know,

I was saved. No! It should always curl our toes. It should always mystify us.

He saved me. Like, Jesus, do you know who I am? Yes, he does.

Why would you do that? Live, brothers and sisters, in the wonder of the cross.

I was telling our Sunday school class this morning, shameless plug for Sunday school, that sometimes in theological circles or settings, we're a church that loves theology.

We love the Bible. Sometimes it's easy to say, well,

I didn't really learn anything at church today. I didn't learn any new facts, and just kind of have this sort of disappointed mentality.

Brothers and sisters, the greatest thing you've ever learned is that you, as cancerous and broken as you are,

God saved. Let that be ever new and ever good, and a well that goes deeper than any archaeological fact or Greek or Hebrew that I can sit up here and nerd out on.

The cross of Christ and his death for you is the good news. Number three, I want you to rest in his perfect sacrifice.

Don't live like your hope is in you. Don't live like your hope is in your life, your plans, your will, your money.

It's not. You're a beggar who's dependent upon the only one who can give you bread.

Live like that. Rest in him. Trust him. Trust him in your work. Trust him in your home. Trust him in the way that you drive.

Trust him in every facet of your life because you are as weak as you think you are, but yet he's stronger than you could ever possibly imagine.

Trust in him. Number four, drink deeply from the means of grace. Do not, brothers and sisters, go on living with a shallow view of the means of grace.

We saw in the blood and the water that flowed, it's a picture of baptism in the Lord's Supper. Drink deeply from the means of grace that God has given you.

Drink deeply from his word. Learn it. Study it. Meditate upon it. Memorize it.

Pray to the Lord. Fast and set yourself aside for it. Come to the Lord's church. Come to the Lord's table.

Drink deep of the gifts that he's given you so that you can rest in the provision that he has. These are all good things.

Number five, boldly identify with Christ. Josephus and Nicodemus were turned from cowards to courageous lions.

That is what our culture needs. Our culture doesn't need pre -death Nicodemus anymore.

We don't need Christians who are so afraid that we hide in our shells. I told the story once, but I'll tell it again.

Maybe you don't, maybe you haven't heard it. When I was in training in the army, we were in this place called the

National Training Center. And we, our Humvees, were out there. That's our little military vehicles and stuff.

And it just so happened that there was an endangered species of turtle that lived there.

And it just so happened that they were quite rare, but we ended up seeing one. And you're not allowed to touch them.

You're not allowed to move them. You're not really allowed to look at them because they have this really maladaptive defense mechanism.

If they get scared, they will go in their shell and they will urinate themselves until they drown. This is probably why they're endangered.

I can think of no better metaphor for the modern evangelical church. We have put our heads in our shells, urinated ourselves, and are drowning.

Stand up for Christ. Be bold for Christ. The Lion of Judah was resurrected for you.

Stop laying down. Stand up. Amen? Have courage to stand with Christ.

Have hope in Christ. Be in awe of His redemption. Have gratitude for His sacrifice.

Find your security in His death and live in the hope that He has given you until He comes again.

Let us pray. Lord, we thank you that every single element of John 19, 31 through 42, is just fulfillment scripture.

There's nothing novel. There's nothing unique. There's nothing surprising. It was all there.

And Lord, how terrifying is that? That the Jews who knew their Bibles better than we do missed these things.

It goes to tell us that human strength and human will can't accomplish the things of God. The only reason that we see that these passages are fulfilled in Christ is not because we're smart, not because we are more sophisticated or we have a better theological hermeneutic.

The reason we understand this is because God the Holy Spirit has revealed it to us.

Jesus, thank you for dying a death that fulfilled all scripture. Thank you for rising to life in fulfillment of scripture.

Thank you for ascending to the throne to sit down and reign in fulfillment of scripture.

And thank you for sending forth your Holy Spirit on your church to lead us, to guide us, to strengthen us, to make us courageous like you did in your first century church.

And Lord, I pray for a revival of that in the 21st century church. That we would as a culture of Christians in this country stop being cowards and stand up for Christ.

The world can be turned upside down when just a few people get it. Lord, would you help us as your people to get it.