As you can see from the leaflet, we are going to be considering this morning the burial of our Lord Jesus Christ from John's Gospel in chapter 19. But by way of background to that, I would like to read from the 18th chapter of John's Gospel. Turn there with me, please. John chapter 18, and beginning to read at verse 28. Let us hear the word of God. Then the Jews led Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness, the Jews did not enter the palace. They wanted to be able to eat the Passover. So Pilate came out to them and asked, What charges are you bringing against this man? If he were not a criminal, they replied, we would not have handed him over to you. Pilate said, Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law. But we have no right to execute anyone, the Jews objected. This happened so that the words Jesus had spoken, indicating the kind of death he was going to die, would be fulfilled. And that, of course, means crucifixion, not stoning. Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, Are you the king of the Jews? Is that your own idea? Jesus asked. What did others talk to you about me? Am I a Jew? Pilate replied. It was your people and your chief priests who handed you over to me. What is it you have done? Jesus said, my kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place. You are a king then, said Pilate. Jesus answered, you are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me. What is truth? Pilate asked. With this, he went out again to the Jews and said, I find no basis for a charge against him. But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release the king of the Jews? They shouted back, No, not him. Give us Barabbas. Now Barabbas had taken part in a rebellion. "Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe and went up to him again and again saying, 'Hail, King of the Jews!' and they struck him in the face. Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews, 'Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him. When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, Here is the man. As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, Crucify! Crucify! But Pilate answered, You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him. The Jews insisted, we have a law, and according to that law, he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God. When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid, and he went back inside the palace. Where do you come from? he asked Jesus. But Jesus gave him no answer. Do you refuse to speak to me, Pilate said? Don't you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you? Jesus answered, you would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin. From then on Pilate tried to set Jesus free. But the Jews kept shouting, If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar. When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge's seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement, which in Aramaic is Gabbatha. It was the day of preparation of Passover week, about the sixth hour. Here is your king, Pilate said to the Jews. But they shouted, take him away, take him away, crucify him. Shall I crucify your king? Pilate asked. We have no king but Caesar, the chief priests answered. Finally, Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified. May God bless to us his word. The burial of the Lord Jesus Christ, recounted at the end of the 19th chapter of John's Gospel, is our text. It's conceivably the most neglected event in connection with our Lord's life in the whole Gospels. Falling as it does between Good Friday and Easter Sunday and our not meeting for worship on Easter Saturday, it tends to be given inadequate attention. Of course, it isn't denied, we confess. Often, on the Lord's Day evening, he was buried. And the burial of the Lord Jesus Christ is specified by the Apostle Paul as one of the core truths of the Christian gospel. He wrote, do you remember, to the church at Corinth, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried and on the third day he rose again from the dead according to the scriptures. And he calls these the primary data, facts, doctrines, realities of the gospel by which alone people are saved provided they keep believing. The burial of the Lord Jesus Christ then looks two ways. On the one hand, it attests the reality of his death. Only dead bodies are buried. On the other, it anticipates the resurrection of the body. For it is what is buried that is raised. The burial connects death and resurrection. And it isn't merely a link, a necessary link between the one and the other. It has something to say by itself, in a unique way, about the death on the one hand and the resurrection on the other. The burial isn't the ultimate black hole. It's part of sacred and saving revelation. And each of the gospel writers present us with an account of it. And that means that in terms of their aims in writing their Gospels, the burial had significance for each of them. And John is the most specific of all four evangelists in indicating why he wrote what he did, why he selected for inclusion in his Gospel what he did. He says, these things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. And that believing you may have life in his name and his burial. Every bit as much as his death on the one hand and his resurrection on the other. His burial has something of the utmost significance to say in connection with the gospel of God. Now, John records three phases in verses 38 through 42 of John chapter 19 in connection with the burial of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he connects them all together in a way that we'll see in a moment. He refers first of all to the way in which Joseph of Arimathea approached the Roman governor Pilate for permission to have the body for burial. And then secondly, John mentions Nicodemus. Matthew, Mark and Luke don't mention him. But John does. Nicodemus comes and associates with Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph obtained the permission from Pilate. Nicodemus brings spices for the burial. And then thirdly and lastly, we are told how they together inter the body in the new tomb in which no one had previously been laid. Now, what John does is to connect these three incidents. And the way in which he does it is by the use of the word Jews, or Jewish, we have in the New International Version. Each of these scenes, let us say, John links with the Jews. First of all, for fear of the Jews. Then secondly, according to the burial custom of the Jews. And finally, because it was the Jews' day of preparation for the Sabbath. So what he's saying, you see, is this. that the burial of Jesus was a very Jewish event. In spite of the Jews, according to the burial custom of the Jews, because of the approach of the Jews' day of preparation, namely the Sabbath. And of course, we could add, by Jews, and of a Jew, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, both Jews. So was Jesus. So here was a very Jewish burial. But there's a difference to naught, isn't there? It doesn't come out explicitly in these verses. But when you put these verses in the context, which we took time to read a little earlier, here is not just an ordinary Jewish burial. Here's an extraordinary one. Here is something as unexpected as our Lord's legs not being broken. When both thieves, one on the right and the other on the left, their deaths were hastened by that means. He had already died. That was surprising. But then the next surprise is that his side was pierced. Why do the one when they hadn't done the other? And John says it was all in accord with Scripture. Here was God bringing his word to pass. Word becomes event. So it was with the burial, because way back some 800 years before the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, Isaiah had written, and we read the words, they made his grave with the wicked, plural, wicked ones. But he was with a rich one, singular. He was with a rich man in his death. So here is God at work. Ordinary to the outward eye. Extraordinary. Fulfillment of prophecy. Why? Because of who he was. And because of what he'd done. So what his burial does, what it says, what it shouts, is not just that God keeps his word. It does that. But it points to the fact that here was not merely a Jew, but the king of the Jews. Not just a Jewish burial, but the burial of the king of the Jews. Read back and you'll find the way in which that expression is repeated and repeated. The Jews say that's what he called himself. Pilate, don't write that. This is the king of the Jews. Just write that he said it. No, for one moment, to that man's credit, he's stuck by his word. What I have written, I have written. This is Jesus. The king of the Jews. And that's the significance we have to bear in mind. That here on the part of, shall we call them, his mourners or the burial party. Here were two Jews who knew who he was, who knew what his death had brought into being and who were identifying with it and giving to him when seemingly no one else would have or dared to, in spite of the Jews. The kind of burial that Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews, the son of God, the Messiah, deserved. So let's just look at these with a few questions in mind. Who buried him? Joseph and Nicodemus, of course. Jews, yes, not merely Jews. Joseph of Arimathea was a rich man. He was well known, respected, not merely that. He was a member of the Sanhedrin, this council that had been plotting against Jesus and that had condemned him. Nicodemus 2, John chapter 3, ruler of the Jews. Here were two men who up until this moment of time kept quiet. They hadn't identified themselves with Jesus. Nicodemus came by night, you remember. Why had he done so? There are various possibilities, one of them being that this ban, this interdict, That the Jewish leaders, chief priests and scribes, had placed on anyone who dared to confess that Jesus was the Christ. He would be put out of the synagogue, whatever that meant at the time. It had sufficient teeth, sufficient substance in it to cause people to be very apprehensive and fearful. And there were many, John 10, 12, tells us, who believed in him, but who were afraid to confess him because of what the Jewish leaders had said. There was one occasion, and it's in John 7, when the leaders had sent a band of their soldiers to arrest Jesus. They come back empty-handed, so to speak. And when they're asked why that's so, their reply is, no one ever spake like this man spoke. And the leaders turn on them, they round on them. And what they say is, are you going to be his followers too? The people who listen to him, they don't know anything about the law. Have any of the leaders of the Jews believed on him? That's their trump card. Look at your leaders. Not one of them has taken his side. And Nicodemus pipes up. Do we condemn anyone before we've heard him? And the way in which he is replied to is an indication of the overbearing attitude of these chief priests and scribes. They are intent on putting him to death. Don't you know? No one ever comes, no prophet ever comes from Galilee, from Nazareth. And that's all you hear about them until, until now they intervene in what is a moment of emergency. It seems as if they'd combined together because one has gone for the permission that's necessary and lo and behold, here's the other coming with the spices that are required. They'd probably laid a plan to that effect. And what they were doing, you see, was something that expressed total rejection and disagreement of the current view of the Jews and their leaders about Jesus. Joseph had been among those Jews that were waiting for the kingdom of God, like Simeon, like Anna. Nicodemus knew of course about the kingdom of God but Jesus had to tell him except a man be born again he cannot see, he cannot enter the kingdom of God and it's clear that Nicodemus is blind and outside he doesn't understand but now how when who knows but now they know and when Jesus' disciples have forsaken him and fled here come these two out of the woodwork and what they do is to say here's the king here's the kingdom Jesus Christ and him crucified is it possible it is possible isn't it that as Nicodemus saw that cross on Golgotha what flashed into his mind was as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the son of man be lifted up whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life whatever However, God's ways are mysterious and wonderful. And he can lay hold of those who are bitter foes and opponents. Or hesitant, fearful, apprehensive, questionable believers even. And given the time and given the moment, here they take their stand. And they say, he's the king. He's the Messiah. Here's the kingdom of God. Have you done so? Have you seen that Jesus is the Christ of God? Have you taken your stand for him? You young folk who have not yet professed your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Not your parents' faith, not this church's faith, your faith. Whose side are you on? is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, your Lord and Savior. And don't we all need to remind ourselves that here is the real king. Here is the lasting kingdom. The times in which we're living. Kingdoms and nations, each very protective of its territory. Intent upon its own prestige, maintaining its own economic stability, its own security. Thumbing its nose at other nations. They all crumble. The republic and the old country, and I've got an old country, though I don't have a republic. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Of his kingdom. There shall be no end. Do you see that even in a dead Christ? That's who buried him. Well, how did they do so? We're told. What could have happened to that body? Pilate could have left it there. He had right and power over it. Jesus had been put to death as an enemy of Caesar. Sedition, treason. He could have just left it there. That is what the Jews were apprehensive about, wasn't it? Could have done that. On the other hand, it could have been taken down and along with the two thieves tumbled into a common grave outside the city. That's what Isaiah is referring to. They would have made his grave with the wicked ones. Every Jewish family had a family plot. But someone put to death for blasphemy would have polluted that grave for each and every member of that family. Here is someone then who's an outcast from the state and the church, so to speak. And there's no one to plead his cause, no one to intervene, and time is pressing. And these two appear. You know, there are two incidents in the Old Testament which are very striking at this point. The first is King Asa, just after the division of the kingdom. Asa in the north, I'm sorry, in the south. And he began well in his reign, was faithful to God. But then, in order to gain help against Israel in the north, he made a treaty with the Syrians instead of trusting God. And later on in his life, he was afflicted and he turned to human remedies instead of turning to the Lord for help. When he died, there was a great funeral in his honor. It was a royal funeral, 2 Chronicles 22. And they laid him on a bier and the perfumers, they got all manner of spices and they made a great occasion out of his funeral. Later on, just before the people of Judah were carried off into exile, the last but one king, Jehoiakim, he'd behaved like a king of the nations in God's kingdom. And when he died, Jeremiah said, there'll be no mourning for him. No one will say, alas, my brother, alas, my father. His body would be dragged like a donkey and dumped outside the gates of Jerusalem. Both kings. Here's a king. And Joseph and Nicodemus come with far more in the way of spice and perfume than those women did who anointed the Lord's body for burial. Almost 70 pounds in weight. How did they carry that on his body? Perhaps they had servants. We don't know. They're doing him immense honor. They're saying, he's no Asa. He's no Jehoiakim. What they're saying is that here is someone who never turned from God. Always turned to God. Always trusted in God. Never took authority to himself. Always submitted to God. Here's the Messiah. Here's the real king. And they heaped these honors on him. On his dead body. Because of what they believed about him. Is he worthy of that kind of treatment in your eyes? Is he greater than any other? The Lord Jesus Christ, the only eternal Son of God, the King of the whole universe, King of kings and Lord of lords. Do you bring him your love, your gratitude? Does he have a special place shared by no one else? No one else. A special place in your heart. He's worthy of that. When we get to heaven, we will know how worthy he is of that. Worthy is the Lamb to receive glory and honor and riches and power and strength and dominion forever and ever. And when did they bury him and where? It was the when that determined the where, wasn't it? Time was short. Six o'clock in the afternoon, Sabbath coming. And not any ordinary Sabbath, but the Sabbath associated with the Passover. Touching a dead body wouldn't be able to participate in the Sabbath. So they hurry. Where are they going to place his body? Joseph has a tomb in a garden nearby. And there, having prepared his body for the burial, for burial in the way described, there they put him. No corruption had ever entered into that tomb. No one else had been there. No one else could come out of there. It was full Friday afternoon it remained full Saturday empty on Sunday and it was in a garden and there Jesus rested that Saturday was a day when he rested the work had been done nothing more to do you know that Saturday is the end of the Sabbath on a Saturday isn't it it's the end of that old covenant in all its ritual because he has finished the work and he's going to emerge from the tomb a victor and in triumph and on that Saturday he rested in and with God here is the Sabbath fulfilled into which you and I who have faith in him have begun to enter and death will not expel us from it and our bodies will be raised out of it because he sanctified the tomb for us. He was buried. His death is unique. His resurrection is inevitable. And so, for all who trust in him. What is the grave? It doesn't have the last word. It's to be an honoured place for those who trust in Jesus Christ. But it's not the last word. Because he rose. And you and I then, who trust in him, can, as far as our bodies are concerned, know that they will not be left there. They'll be reunited with spirits that have been made, that have been transported instantaneously into the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. When we close our eyes on this scene, we open them on his face. He died. He was buried. He rose. So will we in him. Let us pray. grant us then O Lord to know the reality of being in Christ and enable us to face whatever befalls us by His grace and strength and power and to do so in hope that the measure of life eternal that we have now will be consummated in heaven above Amen