Christ's Burial - Luke 23 Vs 50-56

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you for coming this morning.

Welcome to Faith Bible Church.

I just want to go over a few announcements real quick.

We have prayer meeting tonight here at 6 p .m.

So if you can make it back to that, we would be happy to have you.

Sorry.

We have a leadership board meeting this Wednesday at 6 p .m.

That's in the back there.

We have our missionary of the month, which is Darcy Berglund.

She serves with Ethnos 360 in Indonesia.

She does Bible translation there.

So just pray for her safety and just pray that her ministry is fruitful.

We have baptism this Sunday, December 29th.

So if anyone's interested in that, just let Harold or Victor or Iljin know and they'll get

you there on that list.

Also, I think you guys have noticed, but we got the church painted.

Finally, it looks amazing.

So we thank Harold for coordinating that.

Did a great job.

Thank you.

Did you even pick the colors for that or did you have a consult?

You didn't.

Oh, you had somebody else do it.

OK, OK.

Either way, it looks beautiful.

OK, it looks great, though.

So with that, we'll just start service.

So we'll start in a word of prayer real quick.

Dear Lord, thank you for today.

Thank you for allowing us to gather all here this morning.

Lord, we just we just pray, Lord, that as we worship here today, Lord, that

you wouldn't have this be just something we do on Sunday.

Lord, something that is indicative of how we treat the rest of the week, Lord, and how we worship you throughout the week.

We pray that others can see that as well.

We thank you again for the safety of this building and being able to worship you in comfort, Lord.

And we love you.

We pray in Jesus name.

Amen.

It's good to be back with you.

We traveled about two and a half months and we're probably in a different church every Sunday.

And heard a lot of different music.

Some of it, I had a pain in my head.

It rocked my head off, most off my shoulder.

Message was good, usually.

But I was thinking.

It's a blessing to sing and hear voices.

I don't particularly like a performance up here.

I like to hear you singing in praise to the Lord.

And one of the phrases I heard a couple of times while I was gone that we mentioned in Sunday school this morning.

That we thank the Lord for the church building and how beautiful it looks.

But the church is not the building.

The church is you.

And some places started by saying, good morning, church.

And I thought that's a good thing to say.

And so when we sing, I don't want to hear me singing up here.

I want to hear you singing in praise to the Lord.

And our first song that we sing is, it says, O come all ye faithful.

So you faithful church are here to praise the Lord.

Let me hear your voices in praise.

Don't let it be a performance up here.

And the Lord says he loves to hear a joyful noise.

If you cannot sing, still lift your voice so we hear it.

So stand together with me as we praise the Lord.

Today I'm going to be reading Psalm 16, 5 through 11.

I'm going to be reading out of the ESV.

The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup.

You hold my lot.

The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places.

Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

I bless the Lord who gives me counsel.

In the night also my heart instructs me.

I have set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand.

I shall not be shaken.

Therefore, my heart is glad and my whole being rejoices.

My flesh also dwells secure.

For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol or let your Holy One see corruption.

You make known to me the path of life.

In your presence there is fullness of joy.

At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

We thank the Lord for his word.

Stand together with me again as we praise our Lord.

Silent Night, as probably most of you know, was originally written in German, translated in English, and

as I understand it, was written by a man who was writing a song for his children to sing.

So it's a praise to the Lord when talking about the Lord's coming.

You're going to sing the second verse without instruments.

Then they'll join us on the last verse.

Is that okay with you?

Sure.

Okay.

Silent Night.

Great singing.

It was nice to hear your voice.

And we'll dismiss our youngsters to Children's Church as pastor comes to bring the word.

We appreciate that we got to hear just the voices because that's what makes

the church gathering different from just listening to a live

stream.

You get to hear your neighbors singing to the Lord with

the death and riches of the theological truth that are in the Christmas hymns.

And you can't replace that.

In the end, the instruments are to help

us to sing to the Lord.

They are not the center stage.

With that, let's all turn to Luke 23, verses

50 through 56.

Luke 23, verses 50 through 56.

Now, behold, there was a man named Joseph, a council member, a good and just man.

He had not consented to their decision and deed.

He was from Arimathea, a city of the Jews, who himself was also waiting for the kingdom of

God.

This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.

Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a tomb that was hewn out of the

rock, where no one had ever lain before.

That day was the preparation, and the Sabbath drew near.

And the women who had come with him from Galilee followed after, and they observed the tomb

and how his body was laid.

Then they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils, and they rested on the Sabbath

day, Sabbath, according to the commandment.

This is the word of the Lord.

Let us pray.

Father, we are grateful for this church and, as mentioned, that it is the

people who make up this congregation that we call the church.

And we're grateful for your faithfulness towards us and how you have filled us

with your spirit that we may be filled with the knowledge of the risen Lord.

Help us to honor him and delight in him today.

Help us to experience his presence this morning and help us to know that he is with

us in his spirit.

We also remember the Pearl Harbor Day as yesterday, and thank you for

all the sacrifices of the young man who

stood firm and fought against the invasion.

Thank you for giving us decades more of freedom,

and we pray that we would remember the lives lost on that day.

In Jesus' name, amen, amen.

So this passage, rather short, but I think it's an important passage.

It is the passage right before the resurrection and

right after the crucifixion.

Now, after the crucifixion, we actually see two unlikely

types of disciples, a council member and Galilean women.

None of them are the apostles, yet they are the first ones to honor Christ

right after his death and, in fact, despite his death.

For the first time in Christ's earthly ministry, his

disciples don't get a verbal response.

For the first time in Christ's earthly ministry, his disciples do not see

the remarkable miracles by being around him.

For the first time in Christ's earthly ministry, his disciples do not receive the

assurance of his presence.

Instead, his disciples behold the blood -stained body, and his

disciples carry the limp body of their master and seal

it inside an empty tomb.

Yet, Luke shows us the faithfulness of Christ's followers

despite his seeming absence.

And this is a fitting conclusion to Jesus' crucifixion.

Luke began with a faithful man and woman, Zechariah and

Elizabeth, and now he is ending it with

Joseph and the Galilean women.

From his birth to his death, Jesus is surrounded by faithful followers

from all backgrounds.

Jesus is accompanied by the righteous ones whose primary priorities are to

honor Christ.

And this is the first portrait of the disciples without

Jesus' presence.

This is important for us today because we live without the privilege of Jesus'

physical presence.

We don't get to see him.

We don't get to dine with him yet.

And we have not literally walked with him, just like the apostles.

And we eagerly wait for his return.

And the world mocks us for this faith, even this morning.

How can you trust someone whom you've never seen?

Yet, we see that the early disciples honored Christ despite

his death.

And this shows us we can still follow him faithfully even when we can't see him,

and it is possible to trust him despite his physical absence.

Even more so than Joseph of Arimathea and the Galilean women

because we know how this ends.

We know that he's risen.

The main point of today's text is that true disciples are actively faithful to honor

the king until his return.

The true disciples are actively faithful to honor the king until his

return.

First, the true disciples honor Jesus even at a high cost.

The faithful disciples honor Jesus even at a high cost.

The first unlikely disciple after Jesus' death is Joseph, and Luke describes

him in the first two verses.

Verse 50, Now, behold, there was a man named Joseph, a council member, a good and just

man.

The first description of Joseph is that he's a council member.

He's part of the Sanhedrin.

It is the council of 70 Jewish religious leaders who made

important decisions for the nation of Israel.

The very body that falsely accused and tried Jesus

handed him over to be crucified under Pilate.

This is not the type of body you really want to belong to.

Unless we group Joseph with the high priest and the other wicked rulers, Luke

clarifies Joseph's character.

He's a good and just man.

Good means whole.

Good here means no contradiction.

Good means that his inner life aligns with his public life.

Right?

He is no politician.

What we see outside is what is inside of him.

Right?

What is expressed outside is what his inside looks like.

And righteous means having the right relationship with God.

Righteous has to do with God's standard of righteousness.

And this Joseph has the right relationship with God and others.

In fact, the gospel, according to Luke, started with the righteous Zechariah and Elizabeth.

The birth of Christ involved righteous men and women, and the burial of

Christ will also involve righteous men and women.

Now, how was he righteous and good when the Sanhedrin voted to kill Christ?

And Luke defends this in verse 51.

He had not consented to their decision and deed.

Despite being a member of the council that killed Jesus, Joseph did not take

part in it.

Whether he denied or declined to vote or refuted,

or whether he was not present to vote, it's unclear, but Luke

makes it clear he is not culpable and he dissented.

He was not in favor of killing a righteous man.

First, it shows that Joseph risked his career and character to identify with

the suffering Christ.

That's the first cause.

Joseph of Arimathea risked his social standing in order to follow Christ faithfully.

Second, disciples of Christ can be found in the most unlikely places.

This is important for us today because our culture wants to vilify

certain groups of people, whether rich or poor, white or black, Jews or Gentiles,

whatever.

But what this tells us is you can find faithful follower of Christ in any and every group.

We must never slander someone just because he is part of one group or another.

In relation to that, what's important is unless the career is flat

out illegal and immoral, Christians can be found in

any workforce.

Sometimes people think, do you think Christians can be, I don't know, nuclear

engineer if it's working for the weaponry?

And then I've heard one theologian say,

you would want a Christian to be working at a nuclear facility.

Wouldn't you?

There's really no job or no group that a Christian

can't belong to unless it's flat out immoral or illegal and unbiblical.

And that's what we see here.

Joseph of Arimathea was a faithful follower of Christ in the ruling

council that voted to kill Jesus.

He just didn't take part in it.

He remained faithful to God rather than the people.

Now, after describing his character, Luke tells us Joseph's hometown.

He was from Arimathea, a city of the Jews.

To this day, we don't know where exactly Arimathea is.

We believe that it might be 5 miles north of Jerusalem and it

would be known as Ramah.

That's where Samuel, the prophet Samuel is from.

But it's unclear.

And the reason is Ramah is sometimes called Ramatayim, which sounds like Arimathea.

But we are not sure.

But I think the point that Luke is making is that this Joseph is

different from other Josephs we see in the Bible, right?

He's not Joseph, Jesus' stepfather, right?

This is a totally different Joseph.

Lastly, we see Joseph's relation to Jesus.

How in the world did a rich religious ruler get in contact with the poor, falsely

accused, suffering Galilean?

Well, Joseph, who himself was also waiting for the kingdom of God.

The kingdom of God is the full restoration of God's people and

God's world done by, as you've guessed it, God.

In Israel, their eschatology was, in the last days, God will send His

messianic king, David's son, Christ, to make

all things right in the last days.

And, in fact, a lot of our Christmas hymns has that reference, that this Christ has come

to restore.

And that's what Joseph of Arimathea was looking forward to.

And seeking God's kingdom means not seeking any human kingdom, right?

Joseph of Arimathea was not looking to Rome to do the job of God.

Joseph of Arimathea was not looking to change the policies of Rome to

restore the kingdom of Israel.

Seeking God's kingdom also means not seeking His own kingdom.

Oftentimes, a lot of so -called Christian organizations

push for this kingdom agenda.

But what they really mean is that the poor get fed and the oppressed

get some sort of advocacy.

Those things are well and good.

But, ultimately, the kingdom cannot exist without the king.

The kingdom has to be centered around the king.

And if the king is never mentioned, the poor getting fed and

the defenseless getting a voice is not

actually tied to the kingdom of God.

The kingdom of God has to be brought forth by the king

himself.

And Joseph knew that prioritizing and pursuing God's

plan of redemption through Jesus Christ was pursuing the kingdom

of God.

And Joseph knew God's plan of redemption centered around King Jesus.

After all, there's no kingdom without the king, and there is no eschatological restoration without

the Redeemer King.

Joseph trusted that Jesus was that king, which

means Joseph was a disciple of Christ the King.

Now, what did Joseph do?

In the following two verses, we see what this faithful follower did and the cost that he incurred.

This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.

It was Friday late afternoon or evening when Jesus died on the cross.

Joseph hurries to ask Pilate to bring down Jesus' body so that it

could be buried right before the Sabbath.

This may be a foreign concept for most of us.

However, for the Jews, the sunset right after the Friday sunset, you may not work.

And some of you may have grown up in a culture where the Sabbath was

honored like that, of course, in America on Sunday, right?

All the cooking was done on Saturday night or before Saturday night so that

you could eat without having to cook or having to work on Sunday, right?

And this idea of Sabbath is still prevalent in Israel where every elevator is

programmed to stop at every level starting Friday night so that you don't

press the button which ignites, right, closes the circuit, and it's igniting

fire, right?

And that's work.

They have a very, very stringent view of the Sabbath.

Now, what this means for Joseph is

unless he buried Jesus that day, Jesus would not be buried until

Sunday.

And Joseph wanted to honor Christ by burying Him before the Sabbath lest

Jesus stay unburied through the Sabbath.

And moreover, the burial on Friday had another purpose because

according to Deuteronomy 21, 22 through 23, if you leave a dead

body all night after the execution, the body was considered cursed by God and

that body would in turn defile the land.

Joseph, being a righteous man who cares about God and who cares about his king, Jesus,

he desired to honor Jesus by burying Him that day which

also honors God's land.

He wanted...

When he honored Jesus to make sure that he's not just a common criminal who just hangs on the

tree all night, he also honored God and His land.

And verse 53 tells us what Joseph did after the body was given.

Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a tomb that was hewn out of the rock

that no one had ever lain before.

Although Luke does not give much detail, the Gospel of John actually tells us

that it was both Joseph and Nicodemus who wrapped Jesus in linen using

75 pounds of spices.

That is not a normal burial.

75 pounds of spices are expensive and that was not set apart for

a normal person.

What we see here is a royal burial.

They were not burying a criminal but a king and they both gladly assumed the

cost for the king who paid the infinitely more costly price for them.

Furthermore, Joseph gives up his own family tomb for Jesus' sake.

The tomb is actually... has never been used and the reason

is because Joseph has stolen life.

It was for him.

And it was hewn out of the rock, which means it was cut out on the side of the rock.

Remember, common criminals were just thrown out of the city into a ditch.

After all, they don't deserve the honor and respect of

being buried in a proper tomb.

Here, however, Jesus is laid in a tomb that is cut out of a rock and it's not just

any tomb but a very special one.

It hasn't been defiled.

No one's used it before.

For this king, he's laying in a tomb that's

just for him.

Joseph gladly gives it up for this king.

Jesus is not buried in an already defiled place and as we will see in the next chapter, it's

not just even a normal tomb.

It's a very intricate tomb where it's cut out where

the hole is small where you do have to stoop down to look, but it goes in, right?

And normal tombs didn't just have that because that would have been much costlier.

It was a special tomb.

And this leads to another cost to this, ritualistic purity.

Remember, this was the Passover.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread is the whole week and it's one of the three most important

festivals for the Jews.

And in fact, it's so important, according to the Gospel of John,

the Jewish leaders did not want to enter Pilate's governing quarter

lest they become ritualistically unclean because who knows what the governor does.

He's a pagan, right?

They didn't want to defile themselves even when pushing their own agenda to kill King Jesus.

Yet, Joseph of Arimathea has no problem becoming unclean to bury his

king.

After all, wrapping Jesus' body in clean linen meant touching

a dead body which would make him ritualistically unclean.

Ritualistic uncleanness is not sin, but it does prevent you from a lot of

community -related interactions.

You have to go through a purification process in order to be brought back.

That's an extra cost to a religious leader like Joseph of Arimathea.

But for his king, it was well worth it.

And what we see in Joseph of Arimathea is faithfulness at any cost.

Joseph of Arimathea, although not one of his apostles, remember, Joseph of Arimathea

was not at the Lord's Supper.

Yet, he is honored.

He honors Christ no matter the cost.

Even though there's no guarantee of any repayment.

He didn't know Jesus was going to rise from the dead.

Whether socially, financially, or ritualistically, Joseph honored Christ with all that

he could give, no matter what it cost him.

And when Christ was crucified for our sin, what's true is most of

his apostles were absent.

When Christ was crucified for our sin, most of them scattered.

Yet here, a few did remain.

Joseph is the portrait of a faithful follower who honors the king despite the

personal cost with no promise of any repayment.

He does it because he wanted to.

He does it because he loves the king.

And Luke shows us Joseph's remarkable faith, his king just died a humiliating death.

Anyone and everyone in Jerusalem has seen it or has heard of

Jesus dying.

Not just any type of death, but a death that is shameful.

And Joseph, as he holds Jesus' limp, lifeless body in his

arms, and there's no guarantee the restoration of the kingdom that he's looking for will ever

occur through this man who's limp and lifeless,

he eagerly honors the king with everything

that he had and in every way possible.

Whether his finances or future, nothing was too precious to hold back when it came to honoring

King Jesus.

For the first time in the gospel, Jesus is not physically with his disciples,

but we see the glimpse of faithfulness despite his absence.

And that is where we find ourselves today.

It is easy to forget about Christ's honor when he is not physically present.

It is easy to prioritize my plan over Christ's plan when

I cannot behold Christ's countenance.

Our five -year plan becomes more important than Christ's redemptive plan.

Our financial plan fills up our mind more often than Christ's

redemptive plan.

His eschatological coming.

We consider what we need to make much more important than

what Christ had done.

And this also holds for our reputation.

Our reputation often precedes Christ's reputation.

Oftentimes, sharing the gospel becomes scary.

Now, if you're naturally shy, that's understandable.

Maybe talking about anything is scary.

But there is one type of fear of negative opinion of man

that places our reputation before Christ's reputation.

What would my family or friend think of me if I share Christ often precedes what

would Christ think if I'm too ashamed to share what he has done for me.

I think Romans 1, 16 is a very convicting verse.

I'm not ashamed of the gospel, which is the power of Christ to save.

Because there are times where it is hard.

I had a friend in college, and he was kind of socially awkward, but he was,

possibly could have been a literal genius because he, like, fell asleep

during the SAT or something and got, like, one wrong.

You know, like, he was that, you know.

He had no problem getting a 4 .0 in college, but he was socially

awkward, but he was a new Christian.

But if you ever walked down, right, the busy streets

of a city, Berkeley, right, we would walk down together.

Any homeless person or really for them, anyone who's just there to listen, he would say,

hey, have you heard about the good news of Jesus?

He wouldn't.

There was no small talk with him.

He would just bring it up.

He might give food, you know, to the homeless.

He's like, can I tell you about the good news of Jesus?

And sometimes, shamefully, I almost felt embarrassed for his sake, but he wasn't

ashamed of the gospel.

His reputation didn't matter to him.

His reputation before a stranger did not matter to him because he cared more about the

reputation of Christ and the salvation of the homeless person's soul.

And for Joseph, too, his reputation didn't matter to him.

It didn't matter what the Sanhedrin would have thought.

Oh, who's the one who buried his body?

It's one of us.

It didn't matter.

Other people's opinion often matters more than his.

I don't want her to think I'm intolerant by talking about the exclusivity of Christ.

And these are the battles that Christ's followers have faced throughout history,

and these are the battles we face even today.

And Joseph of Arimathea has shown what it looks like to faithfully face them even when Christ

is not physically present.

We actually have even greater advantage because we serve the risen King.

Joseph had no idea that...

He had no expectation that Jesus would ever repay him.

We, however, do.

Not only of that, we have the guarantee of his spiritual presence through the

Holy Spirit.

Joseph did not have the presence of the Holy Spirit because this was before the Pentecost.

We, however, have the promised Spirit who will give us the right words to say even if we're stumped.

Now, second, how else do Christ's disciples honour Christ?

Second, true disciples honour Jesus by faithfully obeying God until the end.

The true disciples honour Jesus by faithfully obeying God until the end.

In verse 54, Luke transitions to remind us what is coming up, and it is the

Sabbath.

That day was the preparation, and the Sabbath drew near.

The day of preparation is Friday, right?

And it is called the day of preparation.

It's because you have to prepare everything that you might need for the Sabbath, whether

food, chores, cleaning, all the errands that would have

been needed to be done by Saturday or on Saturday would have to be done by Friday night.

And this was all the more important as the Feast of Unleavened Bread was unfolding.

It was not just any Sabbath.

It was the Passover Sabbath.

It was a national celebration.

So, you can assume these women who are watching the tomb, they have their own family to take care

of, you know.

They themselves are visitors.

They're not locals here.

Yet, consider how they're spending their day of preparation.

For a select group of women, there was a task greater than preparing for the

feast.

After all, it would have been heavily on their task list to prepare for the feast.

And the women who had come with Him from Galilee followed after, and they observed the tomb and how His

body was laid.

These women have followed Jesus to Jerusalem all the way from His stomping ground, Galilee,

north of Jerusalem.

And these women watched Jesus being crucified.

And while most of His apostles abandoned Him, and now they linger behind

and track down where He is to be buried.

Even after Jesus' death, these women do not leave His presence.

They watch the burial.

And what's the purpose of this?

Verse 56 tells us, then they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils,

and they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment.

They wanted to honour Jesus until the very end, or what

they presumed to be the very end.

They purchased spices and fragrant oils to slow down the body's decay

and hoped to come back after the Sabbath.

What this shows is that these women were pious.

They really cared about God's commandment.

They cared about what God had commanded, and they also cared about the state of Jesus' body.

And they didn't want to miss anointing Jesus'

body with probably myrrh here and other spices.

So, they linger around on Friday, the busy Friday, to know

where they need to return to in order to do that.

This is also interesting that Jesus received myrrh both around His birth and also

death.

And this was the last thing they could do for Jesus.

And this was the last thing they wanted to do for Jesus.

They didn't want to just forget Jesus as that one guy that we followed to Jerusalem.

But they wanted to honor Christ in the utmost respectful way

possible.

I do want to talk about the fact that Luke specially acknowledges these women,

and it has a huge impact.

First, women were not viewed as reliable witnesses according to the ancient

Jewish tradition.

Unfortunately, they were not allowed to...

There were not reliable witnesses before the court,.

Judicially.

This means there's historical veracity to this gospel account.

Think about this.

If you are going to make up a new religion for many people to follow,

wouldn't you want to make the faithful

disciples as men?

Wouldn't you want...

Ah, yes, it was Peter, John, and James.

They watched from the distance the tomb, which they were going to anoint the body of Christ on

Sunday.

You would want that.

Why wouldn't you?

After all, they were the first leaders of the church too.

Yet, Luke writes that it was actually the Galilean women,

he doesn't even name them here, who just watched from a distance so they could prepare and

come back on Sunday to honor Christ's body.

Luke gives us the truth of the matter rather than shiny fable.

The apostles were gone, but the women remained.

Jesus' death and resurrection then is a historical account.

If Luke is not willing to fluff up some of the truth here, what makes us think he

would do so elsewhere?

Luke's goal is to tell a verifiable, reliable, and

historical account of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And these faithful followers, these women who stayed behind and lingered on,

points to that.

What may have been an unhelpful point in the first century

is a crucial point in the 21st century.

Luke's goal was to tell the truth, even

if it didn't help the cause.

Second, we are to honor Christ by obeying God.

Or in another sense, there is no way to honor Christ by disobeying God.

These women were faithful to both Jesus and God when they kept the Sabbath.

There was no dichotomy.

When you honor Christ, you obey God, and when you obey God, you honor Christ.

There's no command in the whole Bible that causes you to dishonor Christ in order to obey God,

which means the Pharisees and the Sadducees who put Jesus to death disobeyed God and

dishonored Christ.

There is no verse in the whole Bible that makes you

disobey God in order to honor Christ.

So, all these antinomian so -called Christians who say, oh, these rules don't matter.

I can live however I want.

After all, I'm saved by grace alone.

There's no way that's honoring Christ if you're going to live

in disobedience to God.

This is because Christ is God's Son, and He Himself is also fully God.

There's no way to go around it.

If you want to honor God, honor His Son.

If you want to honor God, if you want to trust God,

trust in His Son.

You cannot approach God without the Son.

Third, for everything Joseph and these women gave, Christ

gave even more.

They may not have known it back in that time, that day, that Friday.

There is no hint that they were doing this knowing that Christ would rise from the dead.

They did it to honor their dead friend and king.

They gave their all for their final goodbye.

Yet, on that day, Luke knew, and we know, that the one who gave more was the one who was

buried.

The one who received the honor actually gave them much more than they

could ever repay.

Ultimately, Jesus, by suffering on the cross, freely gave His disciples a

divine pardon that they could not have earned in even the supreme of

their goodness.

Just a few hours before the burial, it was the crucified one who cried in anguish,

who faced the judgment of God on behalf of these women

and Joseph of Arimathea and even us, so that

we may be forgiven of all of our sins and be found righteous in Him.

How, then, can we count the cost that Christ incurred in order to deliver us?

I don't know how they did it, how they incurred the cost to give to a dead man who

they didn't think would rise from the dead, but for us, when we

know what He has paid and the fact that He is returning,

what in your life can we hold back from giving to Christ?

Many centuries later, a British theologian and hymn writer, Isaac

Watts, expresses this wonderful truth in his hymn, When I Survey the

Wondrous Cross.

And I will read a couple of verses that really illustrate this concept well.

When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, my

richest gain I count but loss and poor contempt on all my pride.

Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small.

Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.

When we consider the cross, the wondrous cross,

everything that we have and will have

is worth giving to the one who was crucified for our sake.

Let us pray.

Father, we are grateful that the king who was buried

gave far much, far more than we could ever repay.

And I confess that I forget how much he has given already,

that my heart would wander off to something else.

Help us to focus on this king who is coming back

because he has risen.

Help us to honor him with everything we have.

Help us to honor him no matter what the cost is.

Help us to honor him knowing that whatever we give

is far too small compared to what he has given.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Just remember as you go through this holiday season that Christ is the beginning of

Christmas.

And may we remember that as we are gathering all of our gifts, all the gifts that the Lord has given to us.

And with that, you are dismissed.