The Dark Before the Dawn
Extended Easter Series: Matthew 27:32-28:20 • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Matthew 27:57-61 ESV
57 When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus. 58 He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. 59 And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud 60 and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away. 61 Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb.
Something that I always find so amazing is the consistency of God’s revealed Word, the Bible. Which thus leads us to the conclusion that the Bible could have in no way been formulated by the schemes of man.
For example, the Bible was written by approximately 40 different men over the course of 1,500 years in three different continents.
Now, if you were to take someone like myself, a man in his mid-30’s who has lived his entire life in the central Illinois region, who has similar interests as I and who has even had a similar upbringing as I, and if you were to assign the two of us to write a one hundred page document on a certain subject that we are both extremely interested in, what do you think the odds are that we will both write documents that not only don’t contradict one another, but that would even complement one another?
It’s practically impossible for that to happen. My document and the document that the other man is writing would surely contradict one another repeatedly. And that is with two very similar men from the same time and culture writing a document on a shared interest.
But as was said, the Bible was written by 40 different men, most of whom didn’t even know one another, who were from a wide variety of cultures, and who lived in different centuries, sometimes even different millenniums, yet not only does the Bible never contradict itself, but it always complements itself and perfectly fulfills those things which is prophesies.
This evidence alone should convince us of the divine origin of the Bible. But if that is not enough, I’ll give you another example.
I was once reading an article where the author of this article corresponded with some mathematicians that he knew, and he asked these mathematicians to compute what the probability would be that just eight of the different Old Testament prophecies spoken of concerning the coming Christ that were fulfilled during the time of Jesus by Jesus would be fulfilled during the time of Jesus by Jesus by mere chance.
The mathematicians got back to the author of this article and told him that the odds that one Man could meet the conditions of all eight prophecies was one in 280 octillion. In case you’re like me and don’t know just how big that number is, I will tell you that it is the number 28 with 27 zeroes trailing behind; a truly unfathomable number!
Yet this is exactly what was accomplished through Jesus the Christ. Undoubtedly, this is the Word of God!
And what we see today as we continue through our series of sermons are more prophecies being fulfilled and more proofs that what has been recorded for us in the pages of Holy Writ is indeed legitimate and inspired by God.
Now for the last few weeks what we have been talking about are some of the events that took place right around the very moment in which Jesus had died, but today, we will be moving on from the direct account of Jesus’ death to what takes place going forward from the death of Jesus.
I want to start by pointing out the first four words of our reading and briefly speaking of them. The first four words of our reading simply say,
Matthew 27:57a ESV
57 When it was evening,
The “evening” mentioned here is in reference to that time in which the sun was setting. Thus, it was at this time when it was evening that the following takes place.
Now, we don’t see it here in Matthew’s account, but over in John’s account we see the importance of adding the detail that what takes place here takes place when it was evening.
In the Gospel of John, chapter 19, verse 31, we read:
John 19:31 ESV
31 Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away.
Thus, we see here that it was at this time that the bodies hanging upon the crosses were to be taken down. This particular Sabbath took place on a high day, that is, the Passover commenced on this particular Sabbath. Allowing these bodies to remain hung during the Sabbath, the Jews believed would pollute the land.
Thus, the soldiers went about breaking the legs of those who were being crucified, but to their surprise, they found Jesus to already be dead. Because of this, they did not break His legs, which, if you don’t already know, was the fulfillment of another prophecy concerning the Christ.
But to ensure that He was fully dead, a soldier took his spear and pierced His side, once again, fulfilling yet another messianic prophecy.
Thus, having established that it was now evening, we then look at the remainder of this 57th verse, which tells us,
Matthew 27:57b ESV
57b there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus.
So, we are now introduced to one Jospeh of Arimathea. This Joseph, our reading tells us, was a rich man. He was also a disciple of Jesus.
But before this particular event took place, Joseph was not so open about following Jesus. Now, just like before, we don’t see this in our reading, but we do see it in John’s gospel. The first part of John, chapter 19, verse 38 tells us,
John 19:38a ESV
38a After these things Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews,
So, he was a disciple of Jesus, but one who had been secretly practicing his faith for fear of what the Jews, what those known as the Sanhedrin would do if they found out that he was a follower of Jesus.
And speaking of the Sanhedrin, over in Mark’s gospel we discover yet another detail of this Joseph, where he is described in the first part of Mark, chapter 15, verse 43 as:
Mark 15:43a ESV
43a Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God,
So, we see that Joseph himself was a member of the Sanhedrin! The Sanhedrin had declared that Jesus was an enemy to the civil and religious government. And this Joseph of Arimathea, who was on the council that declared Jesus an enemy was himself a follower of Jesus!
Knowing this, I think that we can understand why Joseph of Arimathea had not let it be publicly known that he followed Jesus.
We then see in verse 58 what this rich, respected member of the Sanhedrin who was a disciple of Jesus done after he heard that Jesus had died, where we read:
Matthew 27:58 ESV
58 He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him.
Joseph, a rich, respected member of the Jewish Sanhedrin put himself at great personal risk by doing what he had done here. He risked his riches, reputation, and safety so that he could ensure that his Master received a proper burial.
You see, in those days, the bodies of criminals who had been executed under Roman law were carried away and literally tossed into the city dump. This was the case so that the one who had been executed would experience the final disgrace.
You see, in those days, a proper burial was immensely important. A proper burial was and indeed is the last honor that the living can pay to the dead, and therefore the lack of this last honor was and is the final disgrace.
Because Joseph of Arimathea wanted to give his Master this last honor, he boldly approached Pilate, the governor of the region, and he asked for the body of Jesus so that he may give Him a proper burial and thus give to the Lord Jesus this last honor. Pilate agreed to this and thus the body was given to Joseph of Arimathea.
We next see what Joseph of Arimathea had done after obtaining the body of Jesus when we read verses 59 and 60 of our reading, which say,
Matthew 27:59-60 ESV
59 And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud 60 and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away.
Thus, after receiving the body of Jesus, Joseph began to prepare the body for a proper burial. But while our reading here doesn’t reveal this to us, we know, once again, from John’s gospel, that Joseph of Arimathea was not alone in this.
We read of he who accompanied Joseph of Arimathea in this matter in John, chapter 19, verse 39, which tells us:
John 19:39 ESV
39 Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds in weight.
Joseph went to prepare the body of Jesus for burial, but Nicodemus came with him as well.
In John, chapter 3, we read of the famous dialogue between Nicodemus and the Lord Jesus. Also, from that third chapter of John we learn that like Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus also is a respected member of the Jewish Sanhedrin.
Thus, as was said before, at great personal risk, Joseph and Nicodemus retrieve the body of the Lord Jesus and then prepare and provide Him with a proper burial.
After preparing the Lord for burial, we read in the first part of verse 60 that Joseph had laid the Lord Jesus in his own tomb.
Once again, prophecy is fulfilled as Jesus is laid in the rich Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb. The prophecy is found in Isaiah, chapter 53 and verse 9, which reads:
Isaiah 53:9 ESV
9 And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.
Though Jesus had done no wrong, committed no evil, He died the death of a wicked man and was laid in the tomb of a rich man, Joseph of Arimathea.
After this was accomplished, Joseph rolled a stone, described here as a “great” stone in order to emphasize the great size that it possessed, in front of the entrance to the tomb.
Because this stone was such a huge and massive stone, it cannot be imagined that Joseph himself, or even just Joseph and Nicodemus were able to roll it to the entrance of the tomb. Thus, Joseph being a wealthy man probably had many servants and thus had the combined effort of his many servants roll this massive stone where they rolled it to.
This was all done to prevent any meddling with the Lord’s body, whether that meddling come from beasts or evil men.
But Matthew also fills us in with another important detail, and that detail is found in the last verse of our text, verse 61, which tells us:
Matthew 27:61 ESV
61 Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb.
Now, this is an important detail because it shows us that all of this was witnessed by more than just Joseph and Nicodemus. Throughout the Bible, Old and New Testaments, we are told that at the testimony of at least two or three witnesses shall a charge be established.
We already have the testimony of both Joseph and Nicodemus, here we also have the testimony of Mary Magdalene and the “other Mary” who is likely the Mary mentioned back in verse 56, the mother of two disciples named James and Joseph.
Thus, there were not two witnesses, nor were there three, but rather, there were four witnesses!
This is important because what it reveals to us is three things. The first is that these witnesses tell us that there is no denying that Jesus was completely dead when this took place. It’s not like Jesus was still alive and thus got up and simply walked out of His tomb later that night.
The second thing that it reveals to us is that there is no mistaking where Jesus was buried. It’s not as though the guards whom we will speak of next week were guarding the wrong tomb or that the followers of Jesus went to the wrong tomb after His resurrection.
And the last thing that it reveals to us is that because the stone was such a huge and massive stone, there was no way that anyone was moving it.
What this reveals to us is that the Word of God always comes to pass, it always has its effect. The Old Testament scriptures had revealed to us that the Christ would die on behalf of His elect people, and what we see here is that death fully coming to pass.
But the Old Testament scriptures also revealed that the Christ would not remain in His grave, but that He would be resurrected. And so, it was!
The scriptures, Old and New Testaments reveal to us, the elect people of God, that because Jesus rose again, so will we be raised at the establishment of the new heavens and earth.
We now live as pilgrims on earth, and if the Lord tarries, we will return to the dust of the land of our pilgrimage; but take heart! for we rise to eternal glory!
The scriptures that have been fulfilled time and time again are the same scriptures that give us this promise; thus, may we hope in that City, that glorious New Jerusalem!
Amen?