He was buried. (1 Corinthians 15:4)
All four Gospels make a scene of Jesus’s burial. And all four reveal the name of a man we otherwise would not know — an intriguing figure whom a prophet had foretold some seven centuries prior.
That “he was buried” might seem obvious enough, and a small detail, but it’s emphatically not. Far from obvious, it was very unusual for a crucified body to be honored with burial. And far from small, the burial of Jesus blossoms with quiet, calm, world-rending weight — so great, in fact, that this act appears as a distinct step in the apostle’s threefold summary of the gospel that is “of first importance”:
Christ died for our sins . . . he was buried . . . he was raised on the third day. (1 Corinthians 15:3–4)
The burying of Christ crucified is not only the most important burial that ever occurred. This is why burial has existed throughout human history — that this man, the God-man, might rise up again, out of the ground, with the new-world life that has been the hope of God’s covenant people since our father Abraham. Jesus’s would be the first of the coming Resurrection of all God’s children, all those whose sins he had covered and whose eternal bliss he had purchased with Friday’s towering achievement.
Clearly, there has never been a more significant death. And of the many resurrections to come, there will never be one more significant. And right here in the middle, on Holy Saturday, we linger on the bridge between the twin glories of Friday and Sunday.
Dispute About the Body
For the Hebrews, the God of Abraham held out covenant hope for Resurrection — restoration someday to bodily life on the other side of the first death. In hope of this resurrection, they refused to burn their dead or abandon their beloved to the birds. Instead, they went to the extra trouble and expense of burying their dead to preserve the body that one day would rise again. The Jews even had divine instruction to bury all their dead — including capital offenders, by nightfall:
If a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day. (Deuteronomy 21:22–23)
The first-century Romans, on the other hand, did not share in “the hope of Israel” for bodily resurrection. They were content to leave carcasses on crosses for days and discard the dead with heaps of burning garbage.
On Good Friday, neither Jew nor Gentile recognized that, before their very eyes, Christ had “redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13), but each had their customs. And Rome had the hand of power.
Into this clash, then, stepped forward a man whose name we know only for this stunning act of courage and hope.
Enter the ‘Rich Man’
Few names other than John the Baptist and Jesus’s twelve disciples are mentioned in all four Gospels. But even more remarkable, this otherwise unknown rich man is specifically prophesied by the great Isaiah in his most striking oracle.
The Prophet had foretold seven hundred years before not only of a suffering servant but also of the perplexing conditions of his death. Among them:
They made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death. (Isaiah 53:9)
“The wicked” is plural, but “rich man” is singular. This Suffering Servant, said Isaiah, would somehow die with wicked men yet go to his grave “with a rich man.”
Matthew introduces him as “a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus” (Matthew 27:57), though not yet publicly (John 19:38). Luke tells us, “He was a member of the council, a good and righteous man, who had not consented to their decision and action [to crucify Jesus]; and he was looking for the kingdom of God” (Luke 23:50–51).
This Joseph apparently had the clout and fresh courage to do what would have been foolish for the family and disciples of a man crucified for sedition: ask a Roman governor for the corpse. Till now, Joseph has been a covert disciple. Yet at Jesus’s death, Joseph finds his nerve, observes D.A. Carson, “almost as if his previous faintheartedness was shamed by the crisis of the cross” (John, 629).
Pilate, to the surprise of all, grants the request — a meager concession for an execution he knew was unjustified.
His Savior in His Place
Emerging also from the shadows to bury Jesus is another member of the Jewish council, Nicodemus, who once visited Jesus by night (John 3:1–2). Together, he and Joseph, with whatever servants their riches could muster, transport the cold body and prepare it for burial. And Joseph himself, in a remarkable act of selflessness, grants access to his own new-cut grave, located in a nearby garden just outside the walls of Jerusalem.
In life, the Son of Man had nowhere to lay his head. Now in death, a redeemer arises to honor his body and bury him in a dignified tomb, where even a rich man could rest. Joseph substitutes his own place of burial for the one, he soon would discover, had died to redeem him.
After the gut-wrenching horrors of Good Friday, a glimmer of hope appears for those with eyes to see through the sobs. There was a faint whisper of hope when the soldiers did not break his legs. Now we have the stunning, unforeseen provision of a garden tomb — that is, unforeseen by his disciples, though not unforeseen by Isaiah.
So, even on this holy Sabbath — the final one before the new age dawned — as Jesus’s body rests in peace, the tide begins to turn. The greatest man who has ever lived is dead. But even now, on this very day, Israel’s hope of resurrection endures, and this very death secures that ancient hope.
A late Friday afternoon providence may have felt like small comfort to his shattered followers. But they did not yet know how soon this seed, sown in an unsuspecting garden, would spring with the indestructible life of Israel’s resurrection hope.
