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*COME OUT OF THE SHADOWS*
* *
*Luke 23:50 Now behold, there was a man named Joseph, a council member, a good and just man.
51 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. 52 This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.
53 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.
54 That day was the Preparation, and the Sabbath drew near.
55 And the women who had come with Him from Galilee followed after, and they observed the tomb and how His body was laid.
56 Then they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils.
And they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment.*
* *
*Introduction: *I realize that I am breaking some traditional norms by not preaching from certain passages today.
I am of the hope that the majority of the people I am talking to are Christians.
I also hope that there are people seated in this room who do not know Jesus as personal Lord and Savior, who will come to know Him today.
But the first business I would like to take care of today is that there is not a bunny rabbit on this planet that has ever given his or her life that the world might be saved.
So our celebration of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ is not just one Sunday in the year, like the world, but every day of the year.
Paul writes in *Rom 1:16 - 17*; *For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”
*
The word “salvation” basic meaning is “bring into a spacious environment,” but it carries from the beginning the symbolic sense of “freedom from limitation” and the deliverance from factors which constrain and confine.
Salvation means the deliverance from disease, from trouble or enemies.
In the vast majority of references, God is the author of salvation.
So God saves His flock, He rescues His people and He alone can save them; there is no other savior besides Him.
He is the refuge and savior of His people.
He saves the poor and needy when they have no other helper.
The word of Moses, “*stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord*” (*Exodus* *14:13*), is the heart of the OT idea.
Therefore to know God at all is to know Him as a saving God; so the words “God” and “Savior” are virtually identical terms in the OT.
The great instance of God’s saving deliverance was the Exodus (*Exodus 12:40–14:31*).
The redemption from Egyptian bondage through the intervention of God at the Red Sea was the determining factor for all of Israel’s reflections of God’s nature and activity.
The Exodus was the mould into which all the later interpretation of Israel’s history was poured.
It was sung in worship (*Psalm 66:1–7*), retold in story (*Deut 6:20–24*), re-enacted in ritual (*Exodus 13:3–16*).
So the idea of salvation comes forward from the Exodus which is permanently stamped with the elements of God’s mighty acts of deliverance in history.
Now I said all of that to set the stage for our study today.
Because what we must understand is that we are talking about a saved man who was living in the shadows of what he believed.
Joseph of Arimathea was a man of courage and fear, who made a decision to step out for Christ while Jesus’ eleven disciples were too confused and frightened to leave the safety of a locked up room.
Who was this man Joseph of Arimathea?
All four Gospels (*Matt 27:57-60*; *Mark 15:43-46*; *John 19:38-42* and here in *Luke 23:50-56*), tells the story of this man who stepped forward to bury the body of Jesus.
We are told that he was a council member.
That means he was a member of the Sanhedrin, the supreme court of the Jewish people.
We are also told that he did not agree with the decision reached by the council concerning Jesus.
This could mean he disagreed by not attending or that he was there but did not vote or that the council had not informed him because they knew how he would vote.
We are also told that he was a “good and just man.”
The Bible never uses words unnecessarily; therefore there must be a difference between “good” and “just.”
When it says that he was a “good” man, it speaks of what he was in himself.
Being a “just” man speaks of what he was to others.
His just dealing was just the outward expression of his inner goodness.
But before we examine his courage we need to accept a few basic facts.
According to John’s account (19:38) while Joseph of Arimathea, was “a disciple of Jesus,” he was a secret one, “for fear of the Jews.”
He allowed his fear to keep him from making his decision about Jesus public.
His fear had caused Joseph not to take a bold stand for Christ even though he knew that his heart was telling him to do so.
What kind of fear was it that kept Joseph a secret disciple?
Was it fear for his life, for his family or was it for his position?
It’s not always easy to step up against the establishment.
So for awhile Joseph remained a “secret’ disciple.
It is as if he is on the fence trying to keep a foot on each side.
In *Luke 16:13 *Jesus had taught, “*No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and mammon.*”
If there has ever been a time that you should have taken a stand for Christ but instead you just blended in with everyone else, take encouragement from the story of Joseph of Arimathea.
Even if you have given up on Jesus, He has never given up on you.
Even if you have been a secret disciple in the past, God can still use you if you will just recognize a few simple truths.
*Faith Will Demand Us To Take A Stand…COME OUT OF THE SHADOWS*
\\ Mark in his account (*14:43*) points out that Joseph exhibited “great courage” in going before Pilate to request the body of Jesus.
What Joseph did in going to Pilate and requesting the body of Jesus took courage for several reasons:
First, it took courage because under Roman law those condemned to death had lost the right to be buried.
They were either left for the birds to eat or they were taken down and thrown in city garbage dump.
Secondly, it took courage because Pilate was already angry with the Jewish religious leadership.
They had brought Jesus to him on trumped up charges and had insisted that he find Jesus guilty and condemn Him to death.
When Pilate resisted they all but threatened to complain to Rome saying, (*John 19:12*) “*If you let this man go, you are not Caesar’s friend.*”
Joseph had no right to expect that Pilate would give him the body of Jesus.
He had no right to the body and he had no right to expect any favors from Pilate.
But he went any way.
Third, it took courage to request the body of Jesus, because in so doing he was declaring that he was a believer in Jesus Christ.
*Faith Will Demand That We Pay A Price…COME OUT OF THE SHADOWS*
I don’t think that we today can really imagine the price that Joseph paid by going to Pilate to ask for the body of Jesus and the price to his personal self-respect.
It is hard to humble ourselves to such a degree.
In our text in verse 52 where it says he “asked for the body of Jesus,” the Greek word translated means “begged.”
The suggestion here is that Pilate made Joseph beg and plead for the body of Jesus.
\\ *The Price To His Social Status…COME OUT OF THE SHADOWS*
\\ How was he going to explain to Pilate why he wants the body?
How can he as a member of the very group who demanded Jesus’ death, now justify wanting to give him a decent burial without admitting that he was follower of Jesus.
Joseph must have known that the news that he had gone to Pilate would soon reach the Sanhedrin.
He had every reason to expect that as soon as this was known, he would lose his social standing, his status, in fact he would lose everything he had.
It’s not hard to imagine that they voted Joseph out of the Council, excluded him from any position of religious or social influence and did every thing they could to ruin his reputation in Jerusalem.
What a price to pay!
What I think is even more amazing about this story is that he is making all of these sacrifices for a man who is dead and as far as he knows, will stay that way.
What an amazing commitment!
*The Price To His Personal Finances…COME OUT OF THE SHADOWS*
There was certainly a financial cost to Joseph.
He had given up his personal tomb, which was a very expensive thing to do.
Remember, he is *NOT* expecting it to be empty in just three days.
He could have provided a cheaper tomb outside of the city, but he gave Jesus his best.
He also bought the linens and spices to care for the body of Jesus in the best way possible.
God used one Joseph to place His Son in a rented feeding trough and another to place His Son in a borrowed tomb.
The first Joseph placed Him a feeding trough, because He is the “Bread of Life” and Joseph of Arimathea placed Him in a borrowed tomb because He said “after three days, I will rise again.”
So are you giving God your best or are you giving Him out of your left-over’s?
How did Pilate answer this request?
*Mark 15:44-45* said: “*Pilate marveled that He was already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him if He had been dead for some time.
So when he found out from the centurion, he granted the body to Joseph*.”
*Faith Does Not Always Demand That We Stand Alone *
* *
In verse 53 it says, “*He took it down*,” but it cannot mean that Joseph took the body of Jesus down from the cross by himself.
Taking a lifeless body down from a cross is no one-man job.
\\ He had helpers.
At least one of those who helped Joseph seemed to be Nicodemus, another member of the Sanhedrin and another secret disciple (*John 19:39-42*).
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