Luke 23:50-56--Jesus Is Buried

Luke 23:50-56
English Standard Version

Jesus Is Buried
50 Now there was a man named Joseph, from the Jewish town of Arimathea. He was a member of the council, a good and righteous man, 51 who had not consented to their decision and action; and he was looking for the kingdom of God. 52 This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. 53 Then he took it down and wrapped it in a linen shroud and laid him in a tomb cut in stone, where no one had ever yet been laid. 54 It was the day of Preparation, and the Sabbath was beginning. 55 The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid. 56 Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments.

​On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.

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Jesus has given up His life on the cross at just the right moment, and now it is time that He must be buried rather quickly so that those who are burying Him can still be made clean in time to celebrate the Passover.  We are introduced here to Joseph of Arimathea, who was a member of the Sanhedrin who is described by Luke as being both "good" and "righteous" and we are told that he was also looking for the kingdom of God.  He was a member of the Council, but dissented in their recent decisions to find Jesus guilty of blasphemy and to kill Jesus, and it seemed that he had already made a decision that he wanted to be a disciple of Jesus, because He goes to Pilate to request the body so that he could bury it.

Pilate agrees and Jesus is laid in Joseph of Arimathea's tomb which had never had anyone else laid in it before (all this was to fulfill Scripture even if Joseph didn't realize that) and Jesus was prepared for burial on the day that is called the Day of Preparation (the day that the house is made clean of all leaven in preparation for the Passover).  Joseph prepared Jesus for burial wrapping Him in linen cloths much like those He was wrapped in as an infant, and they put a shroud over His face and head.  The women from Galilee watched so they could see where the tomb was and they came and anointed the body with various aromatic spices and ointments that would cut down on the stench of decay, and they were coming back to anoint His body again on Sunday when they would find that He was not dead for He had risen!  We'll talk about the empty tomb next time.

Luke then says something that I find significant.  On the Sabbath day they rested according to the commandment.  I believe the "they" here not only includes Joseph of Arimathea and the women, but also Jesus.  Jesus' work of atonement has been done on the cross and He said "It is finished" and then He rested for there was no more work to be done at that point  I won't be dogmatic about that and make it into a "first order doctrine," but I find it personally significant that the Sabbath day falls on the day that Jesus is laid in the tomb after His work of atonement is finished and before His work of justification and regeneration on Sunday.

I would hope that those preparing the body had time to be cleansed before sundown, but being unclean because of preparing a body for burial was one of the reasons that we see in the Old Testament that someone would possibly need to miss taking the Passover on it's prescribed day, and God was gracious enough to give a "make up day" exactly one month later, so it is possible that this verse is simply telling us that those who prepared the body for burial rested on the Sabbath day as they were commanded in the 4th commandment, but they did not celebrate the Passover because they were unclean and they were okay with missing this most-important feast day for the sake of Jesus and would take part in the alternate date exactly one-month later.

We end this chapter on kind of a solemn note.  It seems like hope has been lost and that the forces of evil have won, but those of us who know the prophecies and have listened to Jesus' own words know that He must not see decay and that that He will rise again on the third day, so we are waiting with expectation, yet those who were there and saw Him die did not have this same hope--only the Council seems to remember these words and they will go to Pilate to ask that a guard be placed at the tomb and the tomb be sealed because they don't want anyone to fake a resurrection.  It's interesting how God will use this to provide even better evidence that the Resurrection is real and was not faked, but we will hopefully talk about that next time.