Today’s sermon given by JC Erasquin:
Good morning! — And happy early-Thanksgiving. It’s a privilege to have been asked once again to open up God’s Word at this gathering today and give the sermon.
I invite you to turn in your copy of the scriptures to the Gospel according to Mark, chapter 15. If you’re using the Bibles in the pews, this passage starts on the bottom of page 801.
We will be starting near the end of chapter 15 in verse 42 and reading through verse 47. Anyway, here’s Mark 15, verse 42 and continuing:
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. And 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, and 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 and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was laid.
Let’s pray.
Heavenly Father:
You are the God of faithfulness. Would you incline our hearts to receive your word with gratitude this morning? Thank you for meeting with us today.
In Jesus’s name we pray: Amen.
The gospel according to Mark is an action-packed biography of the life and death of the historical figure Jesus of Nazareth. Chapters 14 and 15 of Mark’s Gospel include some of the most violent and humiliating moments of Jesus’s life over the course of less than two days.
In chapter 14 of Mark, Jesus prays in deep psychological and spiritual distress at the garden of Gethsemane, asking God to remove the coming wrath of the cross. Next, the Lord is betrayed by one of his best friends, Judas, to the Jewish authorities, who falsely accuse him of blasphemy, later mocking and abusing him at his trial.
1 Not long after, another one of Jesus’s best friends, Peter, betrays him too, on three separate occasions denying even knowing Jesus at all.
By the start of chapter 15, Jesus has been handed over to the Roman authorities for questioning, afterwards receiving a severe beating. And after that, the public chooses to set free an insurrectionist and murderer instead of the innocent Lord, condemning Jesus to death by crucifixion. In some of the last hours of this earthly life, Jesus is mocked again by the people around him, physically abused again, and then he is nailed to a wooden cross to slowly bleed and asphyxiate to death.
Mark records these last moments in verse 34 of chapter 15:
And at the ninth hour [that is, about three p.m.] Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
And then the Prince of Peace was dead. And not long after, evening had come– which leads us to our passage this morning. I’d like to walk us through this message in three stages: unpacking the narrative, meditating on its significance, and then sharing a few ways to apply it to our lives, including a thanksgiving-themed closing.
First: unpacking the narrative. Verse 42 of Mark 15 tells us that it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, meaning that there were likely only a few hours of sunlight left until all work– including proper burial of the dead– had to cease (according to Jewish law at the time).
But verse 43 tells us that in the midst of this time crunch, an unlikely candidate to care for the body of Jesus emerges: not one of Jesus’s brothers or any of his mother’s male relatives, but a respected member of the [Jewish] council! A man named Joseph of Arimathea went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus!
But even more is at stake here than we might think at first glance. According to Jewish law in Numbers 19, anyone who handled a dead body at this time would be considered ritually unclean, disqualifying them from participating in sacred ceremonial observances— including the Feast of Unleavened Bread to be observed that evening, a big deal in Jewish society.
The book of Leviticus tells us that minor forms of impurity, caused by, for example, touching an unclean animal, could be dealt with by washing oneself and then waiting until sundown. Touching a dead human body, however, led to major ritual uncleanness, requiring a multi-day cleansing process.
2 All this to say: By handling Jesus’s dead body, Joseph of Arimathea gave up the ability to fully participate in the Feast of Unleaved Bread with the rest of the nation of Israel, intentionally making himself ritually unclean for the sake of loyalty to the Rabbi he believed was the Anointed One of God.
And to complete the picture: Joseph was a Pharisee serving on the Jewish Sanhedrinthe same judicial body who just a chapter before had condemned Jesus as worthy of death and handed him over to be killed by the Romans! And so, in addition to ritual cleanness, Joseph’s reputation as a respected member of the council must have certainly been at stake in this decision to ask for Jesus’s body and give him a proper burial.
And yet, in spite of all these things, verse 43 of Mark 15 tells us that Joseph was himself looking for the kingdom of God, [and so he] took courage and asked the Roman governor Pontius Pilate for the body of Jesus.
Put yourself in Joseph’s shoes for a second in verse 44. All afternoon, you’re waiting to see if any of Jesus’s relatives will take him off the cross, but no one comes. (I’m reading into things a little bit). A crazy thought pops into your mind: “Well… maybe I should be the one who gives Jesus a proper burial.”
You shake your head and think, “No, I can’t do this. What if someone sees me? What will they think? The Sabbath feast is just in a few hours…”
But somehow and somewhere you find courage to shake away your doubts. You decide to make your way to the office of Pontius Pilate and stand before him, knowing that only he, as governor, has jurisdiction over whether or not a criminal’s crucified body was to be buried (though they almost never were). You take a deep breath and look Pilate in his eyes and ask him: “Grant me the body of Jesus.”
You watch Pilate narrow his eyes and open his mouth to answer. You think he’ll say yes. You’re terrified he’ll say no.
But in verse 45, we read that he says neither. Pilate was surprised to hear that [Jesus] should have already died, so he summoned the centurion, another Roman officer, to confirm the news of Jesus’s death. And once the centurion affirms that Jesus really did die, we read that, for whatever reason, Pilate does in fact exercise his authority as Roman governor to grant the corpse to Joseph after all. I can only imagine Joseph’s relief.
3 Next, verse 46 tells us that Joseph wasted no time, purchasing a linen shroud as soon as the body was given to him. It’s likely that, from here, Joseph had help from other men as he removed the nails from Jesus’s hands and feet and took the body down from the cross. Maybe Roman soldiers or Joseph’s servants assisted him; we don’t really know. But Mark emphasizes that it might as well have been Joseph of Arimathea alone whose hands wrapped the Lord in a linen shroud […] and whose arms laid [the Lord] in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock.
Notably, Matthew’s Gospel account of the burial tells us that this stone tomb might’ve actually been Joseph of Arimathea’s family tomb. Historical context tells us, too, that this kind of tomb described in verse 46– a stone-carved tomb with a heavy stone rolled against the entrance– was a privilege usually enjoyed only by wealthy families. And yet, Jesus the carpenter from Nazareth was buried in a rich man’s tomb. As the prophet Isaiah predicted hundreds of years prior: they made his grave […] / with the rich in his death (KJV).
And, finally, according to verse 47, this act of devotion was at least somewhat public: Mark tells us that Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where [Jesus] was laid.
Okay, that’s the narrative. Now, meditating on significance.
To start, as we’ve just discussed: the historical Jesus of Nazareth was a poor itinerant Jewish preacher who was misunderstood by crowds, persecuted by religious leaders, abandoned by all his friends, and sentenced to death by crucifixion at the hands of the Roman Empire. | And in a mysterious way, it was the eternal will of God, the Father of Jesus Christ, for all these things to take place. Isaiah also tells us: It was the will of the LORD to crush him.
But importantly, it was also God’s eternal will for his Son to be taken down from the cross in the arms of one of his followers. To be wrapped carefully in a linen shroud. To be publicly buried in a high-quality tomb meant for materially wealthy men. Indeed, a complex combination of circumstances, convictions, dispositions, and actions had to line up perfectly for Jesus’ relatively elevated burial to take place, not to mention the fact that it all needed to be figured out before nightfall! But God the Father arranged it all with impeccable timing and attention to detail.
I like the way that theologian R.C. Sproul frames the good fortune that God sprinkled over Jesus’s burial. He says:
4 [The] life of Jesus followed a basic progression that moved from humiliation to exaltation . . . When do we find the turning point in Jesus’ life from humiliation to exaltation? Usually, when people look at the biblical narrative, they say: “That’s easy. Jesus’ exaltation begins on Sunday morning with His resurrection from the dead.” While that may be the zenith of His exaltation in the New Testament, it is not the beginning. The beginning, the point of transition from suffering to exaltation, is found in His burial.
Let’s draw this out. What exactly is so special about the burial of Jesus? The burial is a hinge. It’s a turning point that connects Jesus’s violent death and his glorious resurrection.
As Jesus died on the cross, the fullness of God’s wrath against every injustice was being poured out onto him. But according to the Gospel of John, chapter 19, Jesus uses his final dying breath to say at last: It is finished. And then, when Jesus dies, it is all finished. The Lord’s atoning, punishment-taking work, is completed at his death. The penalty for the sin of the world paid for in full.
And by the time of the burial, there’s a sense in which Jesus’s suffering is over. And now, in light of that completed work, something else is on the way, something stirring in and through and around the cool tomb air. I speak, of course, of God raising Jesus from the dead.
Let me try to tie this all together. At the burial of Jesus, the impending, inevitable exaltation of our Lord has just begun to shine through the darkness of sin and death, and we seee signposts of the Father’s love. Love displayed through Pilate’s unusual decision to let Jesus be buried, love displayed by Joseph’s care to wrap Jesus in new linen. Love displayed by the tomb’s prestige, by the stone which kept Jesus’s body safe from would-be thieves, and more!
All of these things were providentially ordained to be so because God the Father loves his Son; because it was his will to show a part of that love publicly by an honorable burial. Because God had promised that he would not let [his] Holy One see corruption.
Let’s put that a different way. Christians believe that God was behind the resurrection of Jesus. Christians also affirm that, in a mysterious way, God was ultimately behind the death of Jesus as well. So, how about another just-as-big truth: God was behind the burial of Jesus, too.
5 The burial of Jesus Christ is a monument to the Father’s forever-committed faithfulness to the Son. Even through Jesus’s life of sorrow and pain and humiliation, the Father was faithful to the end to take care of his Son. When we read about or hear about or recall the burial of Jesus, we should think: “This was a public sign that God has kept, is keeping, and will keep his promise to bring Jesus to glory. This is the Father showing faithful love to the Son.” That’s the burial of Jesus: a picture of God the Father’s love for God the Son.
But here’s where it gets interesting. When the New Testament talks about Christ’s burial, it actually only touches briefly on the Father’s love, lingering on that fact very briefly, if at all. Instead, all three times in the New Testament epistles when the burial of Jesus is explicitly mentioned (in Romans 6, 1 Corinthians 15, and Colossians 2), we are told most centrally, this main message: We Christians are buried with [Jesus] in [our] baptism. That passage in Romans 6 is key, I think— the Apostle Paul writes to the church in Rome, saying:
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
Did you hear that? Baptism, in part, is the sign that says, by faith, we are fully, completely united to Jesus Christ– to his death, to his burial, and to his resurrection. The sign that says: [We] have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer [we] who live, but Christ who lives in [us].
And here’s why that’s critical. We might know that when a Christian puts his faith in Jesus, he is promised that, like Jesus, he has died and is no longer bound by slavery to sin– because, by faith, he has been united to the death of Christ. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Paul is saying: the sign that marks our death in Christ is being lowered into the waters of baptism.
We might also know that when a Christian puts his faith in Jesus, he is promised that, like Jesus, he will be raised bodily from the dead– because, by faith, he has been united to the resurrection of Christ. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. Paul is saying: the sign that marks our resurrection in Christ is being raised from the waters of baptism.
So,, how about this: when you put your faith in Jesus, you are promised that, like in the case of Jesus, God has not abandoned you in your life of sorrow, humiliation, and pain.
6 In fact, the Father has set into motion a complex combination of circumstances, convictions, dispositions, and actions, all lined up perfectly to draw you to impending, inevitable glory— because, by faith, you have been united to the burial of Christ. And Paul is saying: the symbol and seal of that union with Christ is being plunged beneath the waters of baptism!
So, brothers and sisters: when you read about or hear about or recall the sacrament of baptism, think: “This is a public sign that God has kept, is keeping, and will keep his promise to bring many sons [and daughters] to glory. This is the Father showing faithful love to his people!” So, brothers and sisters: remember Christ’s burial— and remember your baptism.
All the way back in 1529, church reformer Martin Luther wrote what has come to be called his Small Catechism, a brief summary of the essentials of Christianity. Like some other catechisms, it’s structured in the form of a question and then an answer, for the purposes of teaching and learning. Article 184 of Luther’s “Small” Catechism is particularly relevant to our text today. It’s quick, so don’t miss it. It says:
“[Question:] What comfort do we have from the burial of Christ?
[Answer:] He has buried our sins, hallowed our graves, and taken away their horror.”
Did you catch that? Jesus’s burial has buried our sins, leaving nothing to condemn us before God ever again. Jesus’s tomb has made our future tombs holy, repurposing that doorway to Hades into a hallway to a resting place at the Father’s side. And the Father’s care for Jesus in that rich man’s tomb has taken away the horror of death, because Jesus’s burial gives us proof that God isn’t just no-longer-angry at those in Christ, but he is determined never to leave nor forsake them. That’s the burial of Jesus— and by extension, Christian baptism: a picture of the gospel. A picture of God the Father’s love for God the Son– AND all the people to whom God the Spirit has given the gift of faith. So let us remember our baptism.
We must remember— otherwise, we forget the gospel.
The gospel: which starts with the fact that humanity, following the nature of our first human ancestor, has rebelled against the good Creator of all things. Human beings made in the image of God as a result are now alienated from the Giver of Life, leaving them instead under the shadow of judgement— that is, death in all its forms.
7 And as a further product of our failure, the world that God made good now also sags and sobs and limps along under God’s disapproval of the human beings meant to take care of it.
The gospel: which reveals that there is actually one Man who did not fail at bearing God’s image—Jesus, the Eternal Son of God, fully human yet fully divine, fully endorsed by the Creator, fully raised from the dead, fully exalted as the rightful image-bearing Lord over all the world! This Jesus died to take the full punishment for humanity’s rebellion, offering himself as a sacrifice in humanity’s place to pay the unpayable price for our sin. And today, image bearing humans who respond to this good news with faith are forgiven and declared righteous before their Creator— not by their own work, but by Christ’s work— so powerfully and completely that now we can call the Creator-God our Father.
And finally, says the gospel: this Jesus really lives even today, working in the lives of his people to restore this formerly sin-shackled world through his Holy Spirit, having promised one day to return to gather his new humanity to rule a renewed universe. —Amen?
But when we forget the fact that the God of the Universe has made human beings for glory: we allow the iPad to raise our children, and we allow bullies to determine how much we’re worth, and we start thinking that getting married would really only tie us down, and we start checking our email when we should be resting, and it starts feeling kinda good to watch YouTube Shorts when we should be hard at work.
But God has a solution for the cloudy, self-centered, forgetful thinking of Christians like you and me. He has given us, among many other amazing gifts, a tangible, public monument to his forever-committed faithfulness, something made of people and created stuff we can touch and feel and hear and smell and remember— the sacrament of baptism.
Even though we should just be able to take God’s promises in the Bible at face-value, God knows that we are all shallow, and weak-willed, and nearsighted. And so, by grace, God has given us a gift for our ongoing faith— a gift called baptism. Whenever we feel ourselves growing uncertain or frosty towards God, we can hold onto that gift of baptism as a picture of the good news about Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection. We can meditate on that gift of baptism as a reminder that we have been saved by grace, through faith, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
8 God says to us in every baptism we witness: “Remember Mark 15 and the burial of my Son. I am faithful. I love my Son. I will not let him see corruption because I keep my promises. Death cannot and will not cease my love for him. My Spirit has publicly raised him up, and I personally arranged the events of history and the composition of the universe to make that happen! This person going down into the water, being fully immersed, and being pulled back up is a picture of that good news. Don’t forget it.”
And our Father God says to us who are believers in Christ at our own baptism: “Remember Mark 15 and the burial of my Son. I am faithful. I love you. I will not let you see corruption because I keep my promises. Death cannot and will not stop my love for you. My Spirit has publicly raised you up, and I have personally arranged the events of history and the composition of the universe to make that happen! You going down into the water, being fully immersed, and being pulled back up is a picture of that good news. Don’t forget it.”
So, Christians: let us remember our baptism— and let it point us back to the love of God displayed at the burial of Jesus Christ. —Here are my three application points, now, to tie everything together:
- Are you someone on the outside of this whole Jesus thing? Well, the Christian life is a tough one, and our Lord promises as much when he says in John’s Gospel: In this world, you will have trouble. But, as we’ve discussed, it is also a life undergirded and surrounded by the love of the God of the Universe. The Christian life and the Christian future is one energized and ordered and advanced by the Spirit of Creation working through his people— and you’ve been invited into the fullness of that life and future by Jesus Himself, who has overcome the world by his death, burial, and resurrection. Ask yourself: do I want that kind of life and future, upheld by Christ the Lord? Talk to a Christian you know and ask them how to get to know God personally through Jesus.
- Are you someone who has already come to believe in Jesus as the Master and Savior of your life? God is commanding you: get baptized! And that isn’t just a personal piece of advice from me. Baptism is the sign instituted by the Lord Himself to mark those who belong to him and follow after him (see Matthew 28). The apostle Peter wrote about the importance of baptism. As we’ve discussed, the apostle Paul wrote to the Romans about baptism, too— and to the Corinthians, and the Galatians, and the Ephesians, and the Colossians about the same topic of baptism. Over the course of the book of Acts, Luke records literally thousands of people getting baptized after having put their faith in Christ.
9 Indeed, to be a baptized believer is to confess the New Testament truth of the gospel in the way that Jesus commands and the way the apostles modeled it. Do you believe the gospel? Get baptized!
- Are you already a baptized believer in Jesus? Remember your baptism.
It is very possible—if not common—to be a baptized Christian who is afraid of death. It is common too, to feel great despair in the moments of your life when you remember that you’re dying. You don’t need me to remind you of that helpless feeling when you feel that same morning ache in your joints, or when you suddenly find it harder to think clearly, or when you discover that new pain in your chest, or that blurriness of the vision, or that cough, or those cramps, or are faced with just the sheer inevitability of all that decay. And yet, it is likely the case that you, Christian, are still quite confident that when you die, you’ll find yourself in Heaven, at rest until the coming of the new creation. You, Christian, understand that there’s a sense in which death is ultimately a kind of good thing if you zoom out enough, and you’re pretty darn sure that the God who created all things is a God who loves you, having proved it at the cross.
But in those moments when you remember that you’re dying, you still can’t help but worry about what would happen to your spouse if you had to leave them behind. And, you wonder, what would happen to the kids? You think, “Who would walk my daughter down the aisle?” We get caught in this tension: on one hand, “I know Jesus died for me, so I’m going to Heaven when I die” and on the other, “The experience and reality of dying is scary and lonely and it hurts and I don’t like thinking about it, so I rarely do.”
Brothers and sisters: let us not regard so lightly the God who buried Jesus Christ. The burial shows us a God who is thoughtful and careful and attentive to the details of the life of his Son, a God determined to care for his Son even with Jewish burial customs and a Roman governor and even death itself standing in the way. And so our baptism shows us a God who is thoughtful and careful and attentive to the details of our lives, a God determined to care for us even with our crippling anxiety and deep embarrassment and death itself standing in the way.
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor headaches nor chest pains, nor surgeries nor therapy, nor diagnoses nor ineffective medication, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. When we remember our baptism, we remember the gospel.
10 And it’s our baptism that shows us a God who will send “Josephs of Arimathea” into our own lives, people who bring dignity when so much is broken. Our baptism reminds us that God himself has purchased and provided for us new “linen shrouds” as a promise of richer treasure in and beyond this passing life. When you, Christian, remember your baptism, you can say: I am thoughtfully and carefully and wonderfully loved by God the Father, and even as my body wears down, my baptism stands as an incorruptible signpost of that love.
And importantly: While baptism tells the gospel story of Jesus and therefore our story, too, it also tells the story of the whole world—a creation once dead and buried but soon to be fully raised to glory. So how about this: when you remember your baptism, you are calling God to mind all his intentionality and thoughtfulness and attention to detail—but not only at the scene of Jesus’s burial. The act of remembering is one that can prime our thoughts about God’s steadfast love in every area of life, from the big things like death to the small things like speeding tickets.
Consider, for example, the season of Thanksgiving. Have you seen signposts of the Father’s careful and thoughtful love? Love displayed through:
- the gift of children to parents
- the gift of fuel to drive cars across the country or fly planes across the world
- the gift of a big, fried turkey, which you bought at the grocery store, which was taken from a farm and fed by corn, which was watered by the rain, which fell from the sky
- the gift of college football
- the gift of real, hearty laughter at the first family gathering without grandpa
- the gift of a warm house and a new dog on a below-freezing evening
- the gift of the first family gathering with the baby on the way
- and every other good and perfect[ing] gift from above?
Brothers and sisters: these gifts and more are all signposts of the Father’s love: the same careful kind of love we find at the burial, the same intentional kind of love we experience at our baptism. So, how about this:
11 Whether or not you’ll be gathered around a turkey dinner this Thursday, remember this week and every week to give thanks for God’s gifts of faithful love. Or, better yet: Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, and his steadfast love endures forever.
Let’s pray.
Heavenly Father:
You are a good Father who gives good gifts. Let us give thanks to you in all circumstances, for that is your will in Christ Jesus for us. And help us to never forget the gospel of your Son Jesus Christ.
In his name we pray: Amen.
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