Sermon text this evening comes to us from the Gospel of Mark. This evening we come to Mark chapter 15 verses 40 to 47. You can find it on page 853 in your pew Bible if you're using that. Mark chapter 15 verses 40. to 47. There were also women, looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the Younger, and of Joseph, and Salome. When he was in Galilee, they followed him and ministered to him. And there were also many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem. And when evening had come, since it was the day of preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate was surprised to hear that he should have already died. Summoning the centurion, He asked him whether he was already dead. And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph. And Joseph bought a linen shroud, taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud, and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene Mary, the mother of Joseph, saw where he was laid. That ends our reading. Let us go to God in a time of prayer. Oh, Father, this evening we would ask your blessing. We pray, Lord, that you would help us as we come to your word to hear your voice as living and active, a word which can pierce hearts, waken the dead, and bring new life. It would help us to understand and believe. In Jesus' name, Amen. Low in the grave He lay, Jesus my Savior, waiting the coming day, Jesus my Lord. It was that period of waiting, which we sometimes sing, that separates the cross from the empty tomb. While we do not give that intervening period nearly as much attention as we give, perhaps, to the resurrection or the crucifixion which preceded it, the burial of Jesus has made its way into our creeds as one of the fundamental tenets of the Christian faith. As Christians, we confess that Jesus was buried. Still we don't usually give that too much attention. Perhaps one of the reasons that we think little of Christ's burial is that we're hesitant in some ways to linger over the dead. We want to get on, we want to get to the resurrection. Now more than ever we are largely separated from death in ways unknown to previous generations due to medical advances, societal shifts. Death has become something of a private affair of which we are hesitant to speak. Or maybe it's because we like action. Death seems to be the cessation of action. Someone might say, what is there to discuss? He's dead. But whatever the source of our hesitation, our overlooking of the burial, if we do in fact overlook it sometimes, Mark does not share it. In his account, as we see here, Mark urges us to peer into the tomb of Jesus with him. In fact, if you just look there at your page, you'll find that Mark describes Christ's burial essentially as thoroughly as he describes the resurrection. That burial and the events which surrounded it are front and center in our text in Mark this evening. To be a bit more precise, you'll see that our text does not begin this evening at the tomb. It actually begins at the foot of the cross as Mark describes for us a number of witnesses who had seen Jesus crucified. So we could have arguably have considered those verses in 40 and 41 last week when we took up Christ's crucifixion. But what I hope that you'll see tonight is that the mention of these witnesses is the start of a thread which will weave its way through Mark all the way from this point up to the end of the book. These witnesses will be present at the cross, they will be present at the burial, and they will soon be present at the empty tomb. Their presence ties all three of these events together and their presence sends to us a clear message. This is a true story. There were witnesses who saw it all. So tonight we get to hear the true story of Jesus' death and burial. And we find, I believe, that it has the power to transform the way we view our own death. So as we read this story, we hear from three sources of testimony. First of all tonight, we hear of the women at the cross in verses 40 and 41. Second, we're going to hear of the men who stood before Pilate in verses 42 to 46. And finally, we hear of the women at the tomb in verse 47. First of all, then, we hear the women at the cross in verses 40 and 41. And just prior to this portion of the chapter, Mark's account of the crucifixion has reached something of a crescendo. Jesus has been mocked, he has been beaten, he has been crucified before the watching world. Some, you'll recall, even mocked him as he hung on the tree. Remember how it was that they challenged him to come on down if he was just as special as he had claimed to be. But Jesus would not be coming down. He had a mission to accomplish, and it would be accomplished. So we read last week that when Jesus breathed his last, the curtain in the temple split from the top to the bottom, and in response to this death, the centurion confessed plainly that Jesus was the Son of God. But while Mark's narrative in that passage portion of the chapter ascended to the heavens, He does not immediately move on to the next scene in the story. Instead, he provides for us a detail, which might well be considered anticlimactic if you fail to see his point. Jesus has made the atonement, which would make salvation possible. And before Mark moves on, he wants us to know that there were some women watching from a distance. It had not been featured in his record of those fake flowers up to this point, but he wants you to know, brothers and sisters, that they were there. And though they looked on from afar, they were indeed looking on. And among those observers were three women. There stood Mary Magdalene. This was the Mary from whom Luke tells us in Luke chapter 8, Jesus had cast out demons. And in the aftermath of that exorcism, she had become a student, if you will, of the great teacher. She had experienced Jesus' power and she had followed him up to the end. As we'll see, she'll also play a crucial role in bearing witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The precise identity of the second Mary is a bit more difficult to determine. Mark tells us, as we read there in the text, she was the mother of James the Younger and of Joseph. Now, because of this, many have suggested that the Mary mentioned here is actually Mary, the mother of Jesus. And the evidence in favor of that assertion is the fact that in chapter 6 of Mark's Gospel, Mark speaks of Jesus' mother Mary as the mother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon. So there are obvious similarities between those two descriptions. But it seems odd that if Mark intended to identify Jesus' mother here, he would leave out those other two previously mentioned brothers and, most importantly, Jesus. So there is evidence working against this being that Mary. These were, after all, common names, all of them. Even John, who testifies to the fact that Jesus' mother had been present at some point during the crucifixion, mentions a third Mary about whom we know little. So there were lots of Marys, if you will, present in and around the events of the crucifixion. So this Mary was a follower of Christ who was known to Mark's readers, and that's probably about as far as we can go in identifying this second woman. The third woman we read of there is simply called Salome. We would know even less about her than the second Mary, but Matthew's gospel gives a significant hint as to the identity of this woman. Matthew mentions the two Marys as he records this story, and then he includes the mother of the sons of Zebedee. The similarity between the two passages strongly suggests that Salome is to be identified as the mother the sons of Zebedee. So this is the mother of James and John, those well-known disciples of Christ. And having identified these women, Mark tells us that they followed Jesus and ministered to him. Particularly when he was in Galilee, during his earthly ministry, as he traveled about teaching and healing. And in the case of Mary Magdalene, casting out demons. So these women had not been among the twelve, we know that, but they were in that broader group of disciples who had followed Jesus throughout his earthly ministry. And the scriptures make clear that they had come up to Jerusalem from Galilee with a larger group of women when Jesus had made his entrance into the city. And based on these simple descriptions provided for us by Mark, you might think, well, what's the big deal? But the observation which we must make of these women is that they are being held up for us as faithful witnesses to Christ's crucifixion. In this way, the reality surrounding those events continued, as it has so often in Mark's Gospel, to subvert expectations. The first person to pronounce Jesus as the Son of God was a Roman centurion. And now, those who would be able to bear eyewitness testimony to the crucifixion of Jesus would be a fairly inconspicuous group of women. It would not be the men whom Jesus had chosen to be his disciples. Peter's been gone from the story since the night of Jesus' trial. But these women are still there. They're still standing and watching from a distance. And this was a group which at this point in history would not have been cast for the role of faithful witnesses. These were not the sort of people you were looking for if you were seeking to establish a testimony on the basis of reliable eyewitness accounts. If you were making this story up, to put it simply, these were not the folks you would choose. The testimony of women at this point in history was not thought to count for much. Brothers and sisters, this story is not made up. It's true. It's history. And in God's providence, in that history, the weak would shame the strong. These women would watch from a distance, but they would, in fact, be there to watch when Jesus died, even as others had fled. But as we come to verse 42, we see that these women were not the only witnesses to the death of Jesus Christ. His death would also be confirmed by the men who stood before Pontius Pilate. That's our second stream of testimony regarding the death of Jesus. Their activities are described for us there in verses 42 to 46. We read that when evening had come, since it was the day of preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council who was also looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. As we read this, we must confess that the subversion of expectations has not come to an end even now. At that very week, the Sanhedrin had condemned Jesus to die. Now we're told, evidently, not everyone who participated in that council was on the same page. This Joseph of Arimathea was himself, we're told, a respectable, well-to-do member of the council. We don't know what role he played in Jesus' trial. For that matter, we don't even know if he had been present to make up the quorum that had carried out that trial. But regardless of whatever role he did or did not play, he clearly had more sympathy for Jesus and for the message of Jesus than the high priest and his cronies. The details provided here by Mark in our passage suggest that this man was a faithful Jew with a budding faith in the crucified Messiah. How do we know that? Well, for starters, we see there very plainly that he was acting out of an awareness of the upcoming Sabbath. He was in a hurry because it was his desire to do the deed which he had come to do before sundown when all activity and work would cease. and we see in the second place that it was his desire that Jesus get a proper burial. The Romans, when they went about their business of crucifying, they were content to let bodies rot on the cross. It was a way to deter others from committing crime. But for the Jews, burial was of the utmost importance. It was a very significant thing. Listen to the words Deuteronomy chapter 21 verses 22 to 23, which were surely at the front of Joseph's mind on that day. Deuteronomy 21, 22, and 23. And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree. But you shall bury him the same day. For a hanged man is cursed by God. you shall not defile your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance. And so even a man under a curse who had been hanged on a tree was to be buried lest the land be defiled. And Joseph intended to see that happen. So on both counts, Joseph of Arimathea was doing what a faithful Jew should have done. But clearly, we see here that this faithful Jew was not just a faithful Jew. He was also a man of whom it could be said that he was looking for the kingdom of God. This was a man who was looking for the coming of the kingdom through the arrival of the Messiah. And the actions he takes, though we're not given all the details, the actions that he takes regarding the burial of Jesus strongly imply that he had found what he was looking for in Jesus. We don't know all that he understood, but clearly something was going on inside Joseph that would drive him to take these actions. And we see in the text that he had to summon up courage So he was not doing this on behalf of the council as someone simply trying to dot the i's and cross the t's on behalf of the Sanhedrin who were still in hatred and rage against Jesus. Rather, this was a man who was going out on a limb. He went with courage. According to verse 43, he goes to Pilate in order to ask for the body of Jesus. Now again, the Romans were content to let bodies rot. It did not bother them that bodies would go without burial, but they would often grant the body to someone who made a formal request. This was not all that strange. When such a request came in, it was up to the generosity of the magistrate who had overseen the crucifixion to decide whether or not the body would be released. And so the question was, would Pilate be willing to release the body of a man who had caused just that day Such an uproar. That's the question. And we might think not, but there were a couple of things working in Joseph's favor. On the one hand, I hope that we've shown in our study up to this point that Pilate was not fully convinced of the charges which had been brought against Jesus. That this was not Pilate's axe to grind. Clearly he carried out an injustice. This was the bee in the bonnet of the Sanhedrin. On the other hand, Joseph was an upstanding member of society. He was a respected member, we're told, of the council. So there was a chance that the two could come to an agreement. But when Joseph comes to make this courageous request, you might think that Pilate would laugh in his face. He would send him out the door from whence he came, but we read in our text that Pilate's initial reaction was sheer surprise. He was surprised to hear that Jesus had already died. A crucified man might linger for days before dying. It was sometimes a slow and torturous death, depending on how badly the man had been beaten beforehand. So Jesus' hasty death was not necessarily typical. In fact, Pilate's surprise was so great that we read there in the text that he seeks verification. He sins for the centurion. We're not told whether this was that centurion who had called Jesus the Son of God, but perhaps the context suggests that. That's the centurion which has been brought to our attention just moments before. So he sins for the centurion who had seen Jesus. He asks what Joseph has claimed. really true. Sure enough, the centurion confirms the claims of Joseph, Jesus was dead. And with that confirmation, all three men from different walks of life, including both Jew and Gentile, had come to an agreement over the facts. Jesus of Nazareth was a dead man and his corpse was ready for burial. This would have been further borne out by those servants, not mentioned here in the text, but who were undoubtedly present to help Joseph, this noble Jewish councilman, carry out his wishes. This was the sort of task and the sort of work which would have required several people, particularly if it was to be carried out in the hours between the death of Jesus and the coming sundown, which would have constituted the start of the Sabbath. And once everyone was on the same page, Pilate grants that body to Joseph. Now Joseph, following Jewish custom, probably washed the body of Jesus and made the proper preparations. We're told that he wrapped it in a linen shroud, which he had bought for this purpose. And he laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. Now the place where the corpse of Jesus was laid was a hand-hewn tomb owned by Joseph of Arimathea and his family, which Matthew tells us had never been used before. This was a grave which had the marks of wealth and respectability. These tombs were typically cut large enough to house several family members at once as the dead were laid on shelves, essentially which were cut into the walls of the tomb. And in some cases, Once the body had decomposed, the bones of those dead men would be transferred into boxes called ossuaries and placed in a separate part of the tomb so that those shelves could be reused. So this was the sort of place owned by someone wealthy where several generations could be laid to rest. So it was that Isaiah's words came true. From Isaiah 53, Jesus was with a rich man at his death. Having been placed in Joseph of Arimathea's family plot, they rolled the stone over the entrance of the tomb. And in the eyes of the world, you can place a period right there. The end of the story has come. Jesus is dead. He's been buried and he's gone. Joseph of Arimathea, Pontius Pilate, and a Roman centurion had agreed that it was so. So we've heard of the testimony provided by the women at the cross. We've heard of the testimony by those who appeared before Pilate. Lastly, we hear the testimony, brief as it may be, of the women at the tomb. This is again briefly mentioned in verse 47. After the stone is rolled over the entrance of the tomb, we read, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of Joseph, saw where he was laid. And this might strike us as a redundant point. Okay, okay, so they were there again. So what? I want to remind you, I want you to see that their presence is absolutely crucial. It is part of that thread which is woven between chapters 15 and chapter 16. It was a thread of consistent eyewitness testimony which could confidently connect the dots between the death, the burial, and the resurrection. We can say with certainty that the Jesus who died on the cross was placed in a tomb which turned up empty three days later because the same women who had watched him die saw where his body was laid. And then, as we'll see next week, those same women would return to find the tomb that they had watched close a few days earlier open and empty. They were eyewitnesses to the fact that Jesus was crucified, dead, buried, and raised. Again, in the first century, these were not the eyewitnesses you wanted These were the eyewitnesses they had because it was a true story and God was at work. Jesus was dead and with his suffering over, his body was in the tomb. But even if we establish the fact, and it's established because God said, that Jesus was buried, so what? What is the significance of the fact that Christ's burial stands between his crucifixion and his resurrection. It's one of the articles of our faith. The larger catechism, question 50, speaks of the burial as part of Christ's humiliation. It was during this time, it says, that he continued in the state of the dead and under the power of death until the third day. And in our text, Mark is at pains to prove that Jesus was really dead. There have been silly theories down through the years which have attempted to explain away the resurrection by claiming that Jesus did not really die on the cross. He passed out, blacked out, woke up in the tomb. Maybe he was replaced by a twin brother. There have been all sorts of theories, fanciful, that run against every bit of historical evidence. But against all of these ridiculous proposals, Mark stands firm. Jesus was really dead, and then he was really alive. As Reformed theologian Gerhardus Voss explains, when we confess that Christ was buried, we are saying that He has died completely, through and through, been taken away from among the living, removed from their midst. Only through the burial of a dead person does it become obvious that He is gone, that He is no longer numbered among the living. And so we boldly confess that Jesus was dead. And in many ways, his death was just like the death faced by his followers. Once buried, his body remained in the grave. And just as he promised the thief on the cross in Luke's Gospel, on that very day his soul was present in paradise. He faced the unnatural separation of body and soul, which confronts us all at death. In Jesus' case, both body and soul remained united to his divine nature, but they were temporarily separated from one another as he brought his state of humiliation to completion. This is a mystery of mysteries. But the gracious reality is that he suffered this fate for us. Death is the due punishment for sin. God told Adam, when he pronounced the curse, you are dust, and to dust you shall return. This principle is reiterated in the New Testament. We're told that the wages of sin are death. It was the sinless Jesus who was placed in the tomb. He was placed there as one who had paid the wages of sin by dying. He went into the tomb as one undergoing an undeserved curse in the place of sinners. And no, we know the end of the story, so we know that he would not remain there long enough for his body to see corruption. That's to fulfill Psalm 1610. But the point stands, after paying the penalty for sins, Jesus was dead, just as we deserve to be dead. He carried the curse out to its logical conclusion so that we might not die, never more to live. So understood in this way, congregation, the death, burial, Jesus ought to radically change the way that the Christian believer views death. We still wrestle. There's no denying it. We still wrestle with the effects of the curse in this lifetime. We still die a physical death of Christ's eternity. We have not yet seen all things made new in the aftermath of Christ's redemptive work. But His own death, burial, and resurrection are guarantees that that day is coming. Because Jesus was willing to undergo the dominion of death and to remain under it for our sake. We can say with Paul, oh death, where is your victory? Oh death, where is your sting? And so if you were to ask tonight what the practical significance of the burial of Jesus has for us, it's this. He finished his mission. He died and was buried. He continued in the state of the dead and under the power of death until the third day. This is a true story confirmed by eyewitnesses. And as a result, We can look towards our own graves, unflinchingly. That's the result. There's no sting, because Christ pulled the stinger out for all who look to Him in faith. So the last trial which awaits us is but a light, momentary affliction in comparison with the eternal weight of glory to come in the realm of the unseen, as Paul describes it in 2 Corinthians chapter 4. This is the hope of all who repent of their sins and look to Jesus Christ crucified, buried, raised for salvation. So we look to Him and live. Burial still awaits those who do so. Like Christ's, it will be temporary. We are laid to rest in Jesus, soon to be raised, because He went into the grave before us. Let us pray. O Lord, this world faces us with much suffering. We live under the specter of our pending death. Oh Lord God, but we give you thanks. That in Christ, the sting is gone. And though much sorrow comes, joy will come with mourning. Because Christ was buried, and then Christ was raised. And so, Lord, we thank You that by Your Spirit we are crucified with Him, we are buried with Him in baptism. We shall be raised to live forevermore. We give You the glory, in Jesus' name. Amen.