Last week was somewhat of another ill-timed detour from our study of the Gospel of Mark. I appreciate Jared filling the gap and keeping the focus on Christ and what He accomplished through the cross. We ended last time we were in the Gospel of Mark, in chapter 15, with Jesus on the cross. And we saw that through that three-hour period of complete darkness. The wrath of God that our sins deserve was being poured out on God the Son. It was God taking His own wrath that we deserve to shield us from it. So that all who put their trust in Jesus Christ alone will never experience that wrath because Jesus took it for us. As we looked at that and had more time to think on this, and it still weighs on me, that I don't think that we can come close to fully comprehending just how much Jesus suffered on that cross. Those three hours of darkness in a way, veiled that suffering from the sight of man. It makes me think and wonder if maybe we couldn't handle it if we could comprehend it. Just how much Jesus suffered on that cross. It was way more than just the physical pain of crucifixion. As bad as that was, it was so much more. as our sin was placed on Holy Jesus. And probably the most telling part of the depth of the suffering that happened on that cross was that toward the end of it, when Jesus cried out, My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me? That somehow, in some respect and to some degree, God the Father forsook God the Son. God the Father turned away from, turned His back on God the Son. And it apparently wasn't long after that, in verse 37, Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed His last. According to the Gospel of John, that last cry was, it is finished. Jesus had completed everything that he came to do, sin's debt was paid, and Jesus gave up his life. At that point, as we saw, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, signifying that the barrier there had been between man and God has been removed through Jesus' death. That after seeing all that had happened, when the centurion who was standing right in front of him, saw the way he breathed his last, he said, truly this man was the Son of God. And we ended, last time we were in Mark, with Jesus dead on the cross. Because He gave up His life, not because anyone took it from Him. And that was what we looked at last time, in a way, Mark's death notice about Jesus. the Messiah died voluntarily through crucifixion during Passover shortly after three o'clock in the afternoon. Now what comes next is the funeral. The funeral happens quickly. Not a whole lot of details given about it. It could be seen as not having a lot of significance. It could be seen as just a technicality He died on the cross, that's a big deal. Resurrection, that's a big deal. The burial just had to happen in between. But we actually find in Scripture that the burial was very important. The Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15, verses 3 and 4, For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, That Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. And that He was buried. And that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. Paul says that a part of the message that he delivered that was of first importance. Meaning that there is nothing more important that he could have passed on to them. These three things. Jesus died on the cross. He was buried, and He rose again. I know I'm not giving away any secrets about Jesus rising again, even though we haven't gotten there yet in Mark. You know that this is coming. But as we think about the timeline here, and we try to look at it from the perspective of those who are there, yes, we rejoice in knowing that's coming, but we need to think about the severity, the hopelessness, of what happened on that cross, what continued through the next many hours. We don't want to skip the burial. Paul says that that was a part of what was of first importance. He also wrote in Romans chapter 6 verse 4, therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death. so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. Now if it is the case that all believers have been baptized by the Holy Spirit into Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection, if that's a significant part of what it means now to be a Christian, there must be something really important about the burial of Jesus Christ, and we should know some things about that burial. Also the fact that all four Gospels give some details of Jesus' burial tells us this is important. We should know about it. It seems like I remember an advertisement, I don't remember where it was, who gave it, where I saw it, something from a funeral home that said something like, One of the most loving things you can do for your family is to prearrange your funeral. Nobody knew it at the time, but we're going to see some details of Jesus's funeral that God had prearranged, which should remind us this was God's plan. As low as we have gotten into these depths of how terrible that was that happened that Friday, we should remember this was God's plan. Jesus' disciples didn't understand that. They did not comprehend yet that it had to happen this way. I'd like us to consider for a little bit what was happening that Friday from the perspective of the disciples. You remember their expectations. And part of the reason I want to think about this from the disciples perspective is because we don't read anything about the disciples in this passage. They weren't there. They had these huge expectations clear up to the night before, that Thursday night. Things that happened through that week that led up to where we are in Mark 15. If you think back to the Sunday before, when Jesus publicly presented himself as the Messiah, riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, to the praise and rejoicing of the multitudes of people. Could you imagine what those disciples were thinking that Sunday? being the closest friends of Jesus. They had all kinds of expectations of their own power and their position reigning with the King. That finally Jesus would be sitting on His throne, they would be sitting on thrones right next to Him. On Sunday, things were going great. And in their minds, this is going to be great. But now on Friday, Jesus is dead. They had left everything to follow Him. They put all of their eggs into that basket. That basket has been destroyed. The body of the Messiah hung lifeless on the cross. Where are the disciples now? is dead. Judas has committed suicide after he had betrayed Jesus. All of that would have been a huge shock to the other eleven disciples. They weren't expecting any of that. Judas was their friend. They trusted him. He betrayed Jesus and now he's dead. John was there at the cross to witness at least some of what happened. The other 10, we don't know where they were. They weren't there. They had scattered because of fear. And it would have looked like all hope was lost. It would have looked like they had nothing left. Everything they had been living for is now gone. If an official obituary had been written by Mary, Jesus' mother, 11 of those disciples would have been included as friends and survivors of the deceased. Because Jesus treated them like they were family. They were so close, their names would have been there. And yet they were nowhere around when it was time to plan and to hold the funeral. Well, this too was a part of God's plan. As we have seen in Scripture, as was prophesied, the shepherd has been struck and the sheep have scattered. The ones who are still there, near to Jesus, willing to attend to His body, may be surprising. other survivors that would be listed on that obituary. Survivors of the Messiah at His death. Mark 15, verse 40. There were also some women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, the less, and Joseph, and Salome. Again, these verbally brave and very confident disciples are gone. They're not there, except for John. He was there at least part of the time. The rest are gone. Mark doesn't list everyone who was there. If you compare some of the other gospel accounts, there were a couple of other names mentioned. Some of them maybe came and went through this time. Might be why they aren't all listed together in every place. But there was a group of women. who knew Jesus. They cared about Jesus. One of them that Mark apparently doesn't list was Mary, the mother of Jesus. She had been there. She had maybe left later on. Salome, by comparing Matthew's record, was apparently the mother of James and John. We know that she was traveling with them when they came to Jerusalem. She had encouraged James and John to go ask Jesus You could sit on his left and his right in his kingdom. She was there. But this group of mostly women stayed as close as they dared. Some of them would stay for the funeral. Mark gives us just a little bit of information about this group of ladies in verse 41. It says, when he was in Galilee, They used to follow him and minister to him. And there were many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem. That's an interesting bit of information because it means that probably quite a few of those accounts that we have read and studied about Jesus and his disciples through Mark, when they were in Galilee, some of these ladies were probably there too. And Mark doesn't mention them during those accounts. Some of the other Gospel writers don't mention them as being there. But they must have been there. They went where Jesus went. Because they cared about Him. They wanted to help Him in whatever way they could. So they followed Him like the disciples had followed Him. And that means that probably some of them had to give up some very important things. to be able to follow Jesus. Their trust had been in Jesus too. Now he's dead. If you imagine what was going through their minds on that Friday. This one they loved and trusted and followed, he's gone. They cared about him. They're staying. They're still there. When we come to verse 42, funeral plans begin to be made. Not by someone we would expect to be making these funeral plans. Verse 42, it begins, when the evening had already come, because it was a preparation day, that is the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea came, a prominent member of the council, who himself was waiting for the kingdom of God, and he gathered up courage and went in before Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. And when it says that evening had already come, evening by their method of telling time and their classifications of the day would be any time between three o'clock and six o'clock. We would consider it late afternoon. For them, the next day began at sundown. The next day that would begin at that sundown was the Sabbath, Saturday. Now that Sabbath was an extra special one because it was also during the Passover celebration. So we know it's Friday, it's still Friday, getting late in the day, and something needed to be done quickly about the body of Jesus. Because nothing could be done on the Sabbath. which began in just a couple of hours. Again, the disciples weren't there. They did not come to provide a burial for Jesus because they were afraid. They didn't come. But someone else, this other guy, who also had a lot to lose by associating himself with Jesus, he came forward to show respect, to provide some dignity, toward the body of Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea. A prominent member of the council became the mortician for Jesus' funeral. Now that's interesting, because being a member of the council means that he was a part of the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin was a group of religious leaders who just had Jesus put to death. It was a group that Pilate was really annoyed with for putting him in a position where he felt like he had to go through with this, do what they want. One of those 70 men, being a prominent member, the wording there, probably a big part of that means he was wealthy. He was a rich man. We're told in some of the other gospel accounts that that was the case. He was wealthy. He was respected. This was a man that had a lot going for him in the world. He went to Pilate to ask for Jesus' body. Now, as we've seen what the council and what the chief priests, the Pharisees, what they had been doing toward Jesus, we might think that he had some ulterior motives in asking for Jesus' body. But he didn't ask for it to further mock or humiliate Jesus. He wanted to give the body of Jesus a respectable burial. Now that would be really unexpected. The gospel writers tell us some things about Joseph of Arimathea that show us that he was different than most of the rest of the Sanhedrin. Mark tells us that he was waiting for the kingdom of God. That means he was someone who studied and believed God's word. He had hope. He had expectations that involved Jesus. That just maybe he was the fulfillment of those kingdom promises. Most of the rest of the council were just in it for the power and the money. We're told in the scripture that's why they hated Jesus. That's why they wanted him dead. He stood in the way they thought of their ability to make money, to have power. Joseph, even though he was a rich man, that's not what he was in it for. He was waiting for the kingdom of God. Luke tells us that Joseph was a good and righteous man. That couldn't be said of most of the rest of the St. John tells us that Joseph was actually a disciple of Jesus, but a secret one for fear of the Jews. Luke tells us that Joseph did not consent to the Sanhedrin's plan to kill Jesus. Though somehow, either that he wasn't there when they took the vote, or he just didn't vote, he wasn't OK with what happened to Jesus. It's interesting that he was afraid to say so while Jesus was alive. But for some reason, now, when it looks like there's nothing left that Jesus could do for him, now he speaks up. He listened to Jesus' teaching. He believed what Jesus said. He hoped that Jesus was the Messiah. That all seems to be lost now. Why did he speak up now? Why did he keep it secret until now, when Jesus is dead? I don't know the answer to that. Maybe it's just that he was tired of the system that would do this to an innocent man. He didn't want to be a part of that anymore. For whatever reason, he didn't care. He didn't care who knew. He wasn't worried about the consequences. He went to Pilate. He asked for the body of Jesus. Another interesting thing there, that would make him disqualified by being defiled and touching a dead body. He would not be able to celebrate the Passover. As you remember the things that were important to the Sanhedrin and all the things that they wanted to do, keeping the law, going with the look of things, this would disqualify him from that. Verse 44, Pilate wondered if he was dead by this time. And summoning the centurion, he questioned him as to whether he was already dead. Now, shortly before Joseph came and asked for Jesus' body, according to the Gospel of John, some others of the Sanhedrin had also gone in to talk to Pilate. And they asked Pilate, because it was almost the Sabbath, and this was an extra special one because of the Passover, to have the legs broken of the men on the crosses so that they would die faster, so they could be taken off the crosses and be out of the way for their special holy day. Think about the difference here between those people of the Sanhedrin and Joseph and their priorities. This was another time when most of the Sanhedrin was being very hypocritical. They wanted to give the appearance of doing the right thing. Not leaving bodies on a tree overnight, because that's what the law said to do. Don't leave them on the tree overnight. They really wanted to have a good, clean, and enjoyable time of worship on the Sabbath and for the Passover. It was so important to them. We need to get these bodies taken care of. We've got to do the right thing here. When it was them that just committed the worst sin imaginable by having the Messiah murdered. Now this request was something that happened sometimes, breaking the legs of the prisoners. What normally would have happened, because this is how the Romans did it, The people who were crucified would have suffered there for a few days. And as we've mentioned before, that the way they would die was by suffocation. They would have to push and pull themselves up on those nails to be able to breathe. This hanging on them with their arms outstretched, they could not expand their lungs to breathe. They had to push themselves up to breathe. After a few days of doing that, they would get too weak to do it anymore. They couldn't continue to breathe, and they would suffocate. After that, the Romans would leave the bodies there, let them rot. Let the vultures and coyotes take care of the bodies. Then whatever is left after several days is thrown into the city dump. And this is supposed to send a message. Don't mess with Rome, or this will be you. Now Pilate was getting used to being pushed around by the Sanhedrin that day, and so he granted their request. According to John, they broke the legs of the two thieves on the crosses on each side of Jesus. It was probably done by smashing their legs with large hammers. And they came to Jesus to do the same. But he was already dead. So they didn't do it. Now for some reason, it doesn't appear from historical records, it doesn't seem that this was typically done, but there was a soldier standing there with his spear, and he's dead anyway, he's jabbed a spear into Jesus' side. Blood and water came pouring out. Now this wasn't intended by anyone who was there. involved that day, but they were carrying out God's plan. Psalm 3420 prophesied that the Messiah's bones would not be broken. In the law regarding the Passover, the bones of Passover lambs were not to be broken. The perfect lamb of God was offered as a sacrifice with no broken bones. I was fulfilled. There's a prophecy in Zechariah 12, others in Isaiah 53, about the Messiah being pierced. And he was, with that spear. God's plan is being carried out. Pilate didn't know what all had happened at the place of the skull, Golgotha, So he was surprised that Joseph would come and ask for the body of Jesus that he would already be dead. He didn't think that would happen so quickly. So he called for the centurion. And remember the centurion, this is the same guy who saw Jesus die and confessed that he really must be the son of God. This is the same guy who would have overseen many crucifixions. A guy who knew a lot about death. Pilate brings him in to question him, is Jesus really dead? Verse 45, and ascertaining this from the centurion, he granted the body to Joseph. God is very wise. How wise? Well, he's all-knowing. But God knew that people would try to come up with some explanation for what comes next that was something other than Jesus rising from the dead. He didn't actually die, he just passed out, he fainted. God moved the gospel writers to include many proofs that Jesus really did die. Now we're only looking at a few of them as we're focusing primarily on Mark this morning, but this should be a convincing one. Was Jesus actually dead? Well according to this high-ranking soldier, who knew a lot about crucifixions and death, and he was there. That's something that amazes me that so many scholars can say that the ones who were actually there were wrong. And they know more today, thousands of years later, than the ones who were actually there. The centurion was there. He saw it happen. And he gave undisputable testimony that Jesus was, in fact, dead. There's no way Pilate would have released his body if there was any question if he was dead. If there was any possibility that the centurion was wrong, he would have been in big trouble. So he was sure Jesus was dead. Pilate granted Joseph's request. He let him take the body. To further prepare for the funeral, verse 46, Joseph bought a linen cloth, took him down, wrapped him in the linen cloth. John tells us Nicodemus was there too. Remember Nicodemus, that guy who came to Jesus by night in John chapter 3. Nicodemus, who was another member of the Sanhedrin. He joined Joseph. and helped with the preparations for the funeral. John tells us that Nicodemus brought with him about 100 pounds of myrrh and aloes. Now these myrrh and aloes were meant to give a pleasant odor, to somewhat mask the unpleasant smells of death, to give some dignity to the body. When we're told that he brought about 100 pounds, That's a lot. That would be something like what was used for a king's burial. So Joseph and Nicodemus, they risked a lot. They spent a lot. They had to carry a lot and showed a lot of respect toward Jesus. Remember, none of the other disciples were there. We're going to see soon that these were things that needed to happen to fulfill prophecy. Because God had pre-planned this funeral. The disciples weren't there to do it. You think about the promises made, the prophecies made of what would happen at Jesus' death and his burial. The disciples weren't there to do it. But these very unlikely men, Joseph and Nicodemus, who up until now had been secret disciples, they show up at just the right time to do just the right things to carry out God's perfect plan. Now that should show us and should remind us some things about God. That God will always carry out His perfect plan, even when it looks hopeless to us. Even when we don't see any way that this could work out. How could Jesus possibly have the burial He should have when His disciples are gone? God knew. God had His way. He made the way. God is faithful. And we can trust Him. Joseph and Nicodemus showed up. They took Jesus' body off the cross. They wrapped it in the linen cloth. They put the spices between the layers of that cloth. And now it's time for the burial. I was getting later in the day. This had to be done quickly. Well, it just so happened, by God's providence, that Joseph had purchased a tomb. Presumably, he had purchased this tomb for his own family, and it was right near where Jesus was crucified. We're told in Scripture it was a new tomb, John tells us. No one had been laid in that tomb previously. had been carved into a rock on the side of the hill. It was the kind of place that rich people used for their families. The rest of verse 46 says, And laid him in a tomb, which had been hewn out in the rock, and he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Now, if the disciples had been there, I don't know what they would have done with Jesus' body. they may not have been able to take it. They didn't have the kind of position that Joseph had. It could have been, if Joseph wasn't there to ask for the body, it would have just been thrown into the city dump. But because it was Joseph who asked for Jesus' body, Scripture was fulfilled. Isaiah 53.9 says this, His grave was assigned with wicked men, yet he was with a rich man in his death, because he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Jesus died as a criminal. He died between two thieves. And it was the plan to just toss his body wherever they would have tossed the bodies of those thieves. Probably the city dump. That plan didn't turn out. because God made other arrangements. Jesus' body was laid in the tomb of a rich man, but only for a little while. Verse 47, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of Joseph, was looking on to see where he was laid. Now that's another detail God knew would be important to prove what comes next, that we will see Lord willing next time. In some ways, This wasn't much of a funeral for such an important person. And it wasn't very well attended, like four people at this funeral. But it went exactly according to God's plan that he revealed hundreds of years before and exactly accomplished the purpose that God had for it to prove that Jesus really died on that cross. sin really has been paid for. We'll look at that more next time.