Sermon Tone Analysis

*Mark 15:42-43… *Now when evening had come, because it was the preparation day (that is, the day before the Sabbath) 43 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.

*Commentary*

Joseph of Arimathea is called a “prominent member of the Council” which means that he was on the Jewish Sanhedrin that had condemned Jesus to death.

Luke 23:50-51 calls Joseph a “good and righteous man” who had not consented to the Sanhedrin’s plan against Jesus.

Matthew 27:57 says that Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, and John 19:38 calls him a secret follower of Jesus.

Mark says that he had been waiting for God’s kingdom which means that he longed for the Messiah to arrive.

So believing Jesus to be the Messiah he honored Jesus in having him buried.

When a condemned criminal was crucified his death did not typically mark the end of his shame.

Oftentimes the body was tossed aside to rot.

Those that were buried were only done so on the governor’s mercy, but treason (Jesus’ crime) almost always entailed disposal of the corpse.

The “preparation day” for the Sabbath in v. 42 refers to Friday (Sabbath being Saturday), and Joseph, in obedience to Deut.

21:23 which forbade a dead man to remain exposed overnight, needed to remove Jesus’ body from the cross before the Sabbath.

Evening had come, and since Jesus died at 3:00 (cf.

15:34) Joseph only had until 6:00 – the time that the Sabbath commenced.

Jesus was dead from 3:00 p.m. on Friday until early on Sunday morning when he rose (Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1) – a total of about 36 hours.

Now Matthew 12:40 quotes Jesus as saying, “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

But three days and three nights is 72 hours, so how could Jesus have died on Friday and rose on Sunday?

Consider…

The analogy of Scripture is the practice of allowing Scripture to interpret itself.

It involves consulting other passages in the Bible that speak of the same situation to gain insight.

For instance, Matt.

16:21, 17:23, & 20:19 speak of Jesus being raised to life /on the third day – /an impossible task if Jesus would have been dead for three days and three nights because then he would have been raised on the /fourth/ day./

/And Matt.

27:64 commanded that a guard be kept at the tomb /until the third day/ which in early Jewish thought was the time when the witness to a person’s death was accepted.

Luke 9:22, 18:33, & 24:7 also speak of Jesus rising on the third day.

And in Luke 24:21 there is the testimony of the two men who walked with Jesus on the road to Emmaus who claimed that Jesus had been raised from the dead on that day – the third day after his burial.

Add the testimony of John 2:19-22, Acts 10:40, & 1 Cor.

15:4, and it’s clear that Jesus was resurrected on the third day after his death – Friday afternoon to Sunday morning.

So the interpretation of Matthew 12:40 is that Jesus was not speaking of three 24 hour days and nights in predicting his death.

If that were so then he would have been raised on the fourth day.

Even the Jewish Talmud states that the Jews regarded any part of a day as a full day and night.

So when Scripture interprets itself the conclusion is that Jesus died on Friday and was resurrected the following Sunday morning – for a total time in the grave of about 36 hours.

*Food for Thought*

Providence is God working in every single detail of our actions to bring about His good and perfect plan.

Joseph teaches us that in everything we do that honors Christ, God is working through us.

Joseph simply buried Jesus, but God’s good and perfect plan would never have come to pass without that burial.

Remember that as you faithfully follow Christ.

God is working in us!

*Mark 15:44-47… *Pilate wondered if Jesus was dead by this time, and summoning the centurion, he questioned him as to whether He was already dead.

45 And ascertaining this from the centurion, he granted the body to Joseph.

46 Joseph bought a linen cloth, took Him down, wrapped Him in the linen cloth 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.

47 Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses were looking on to see where He was laid.

*Commentary*

Ancient records reveal that some crucified victims lived for two to three days after being crucified.

No wonder Pilate was surprised that Jesus was dead after only six hours.

But six hours was also all God needed to atone for mankind’s sins.

Now upon being assured by the centurion that Jesus had in fact died (Mark 15:39) his death was confirmed by Pilate – a fact denied by some skeptics today so as to explain away his resurrection.

They claim that Jesus never actually died and that he was revived in the damp tomb three days later.

The Gospel accounts, however, are clear that Jesus was dead.

His bones didn’t have to be broken to ensure death (John 19:33; Psalm 34:20), and the spear that was run through his heart ensured it (John 19:34).

That wound was significant enough that doubting Thomas was later able to put his hand into it (John 20:27).

Bodies were usually requested by the family members for burial, but even Mary failed to do this.

Jesus’ family and disciples had all abandoned him.

Joseph, however, though unrelated to Jesus, retrieved the body and gave him a proper burial.

In doing so Joseph not only made himself unclean by touching a dead body, thus disqualifying himself from partaking of the Passover, he also risked persecution from his fellow Jewish leaders who had condemned Jesus to death.

Verse 46 says that Jesus was taken down and wrapped in linen.

He had help from another Council member named Nicodemus (John 19:39) who was also a secret follower of Jesus (cf.

John 3).

In keeping with their tradition they likely washed Jesus’ body thoroughly then wrapped it in linen.

They anointed him with a mixture of aloes and myrrh which weighed about a hundred pounds (John 19:39-40), and their gummy consistency kept the linen wrappings tight.

This Jewish practice of wrapping was a simple encasing of the dead body to mask the stench of decay.

The tomb where Jesus was placed was covered with a heavy stone that deterred animals and thieves.

The fact that the women mentioned here saw the tomb where Jesus was placed in v. 47 is important because it confirms that they knew its exact location for their eventual return.

Some skeptics have proposed that the women went to the wrong tomb on Sunday!

But if they did, then so did the Jews and the Romans when they investigated the claims of resurrection.

* *

*Food for Thought*

Some people are secret followers of Jesus who fear persecution for their beliefs – just like Joseph of Arimathea.

Then one day the Lord changes their heart, and they become bold warriors of the faith – just like Joseph.

One day he was too spineless to defend Jesus and fearful of persecution, and the next day he was bold and fearless, willing to sacrifice his reputation and life to serve his Master and Lord by giving him a proper burial.

If you’re a secret disciple of Jesus, come out of the closet!

Ask the Lord to change your feeble heart into the heart of a warrior who is willing to sacrifice everything for the God who sacrificed His life for yours.

People like Joseph of Arimathea are the ones God highlights in the Scriptures.

Though nothing is known about him as a gutless man prior to his faith, his name and reputation are exalted today because of who he became after his faith was made manifest.

Pray that for yourself and the many others who are too fearful to reveal their faith boldly to the world.

God rewards those folks greatly for their faith.

*1 Peter 3:18-20…* For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that he might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit;19 in which also he went and made proclamations to the spirits now in prison 20 who were once disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah…

 

*Commentary*

The body of Jesus, the Christ – the Son of God, did not undergo decay while in the tomb.

The prophecy of Psalm 16:10 says, “You will not allow your Holy One to undergo decay” (cf.

Psalm 49:9).

The Apostle Paul comments in Acts 13:37: “But he whom God raised did not undergo decay.”

So for the 36 hours Jesus was in the grave he was clearly not dead long enough for his body to decompose.

This fulfillment of prophecy was aided by the 100 or so pounds of spices and the tight wrappings put on Jesus’ body by Joseph and Nicodemus (John 19:39).

Now while Jesus body lay in the tomb his spirit was still at work.

He did at least two things in the spirit.

First, he went into Paradise.

Luke 23:43 says that Jesus promised one of the criminals who hung next to him, after he called out to Jesus in faith, that he would be with Him on that day in Paradise.

Paradise is the temporary holding place for the dead who die in Christ and the OT saints who died believing in the God of Abraham (who is ultimately Jesus Christ).

It’s the place called “Abraham’s bosom” in Luke 16:22 where Lazarus went after death and the place that Paul was forbidden to speak of in 2 Cor.

12:2-4 because it was too wonderful.

The second place where Jesus’ spirit went during the time his body was in the tomb is found in the 1 Peter 3:18-20 passage.

Verse 18 says that Jesus died for the sins of all mankind in order to bring us to God, and in doing so he first had to be put to death in the flesh.

However, he was made alive in spirit, and it was in this spirit that he did an interesting thing: he went and preached to the “spirits now in prison.”

Who are these spirits?

Where is their prison?

Verse 20 says that these spirits Jesus spoke to were alive during the time of Noah, and it was during that time that they were disobedient even in the midst of God’s patience during those days.

Genesis 6:3 says that God gave Noah and the rest of mankind 120 years to repent of their evil deeds, so it’s clear that God was patient with them.

Now the context of Genesis 6 has to do with rebellious angels (demons) who had the ability to procreate with human women.

Their offspring was called in Hebrew the “Nephilim” – literally the “fallen ones.”

These particular demons were afterward designated to everlasting darkness in hell.