The Burial of Jesus
38 Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate's permission, he came and took the body away. 39 He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. 40 Taking Jesus' body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. 41 At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. 42 Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.
Dig Deeper
No culture has become more well known throughout the history of the world’s civilizations for extravagant burials than have the ancient Egyptians. The Egyptians were motivated by their firm belief in their conception of life after death. They believed that they would need to take certain items from this life into their burial chambers or tombs with them to enjoy in the afterlife. This also motivated their belief in and practice of mummification. As a direct result of this belief about death, the Egyptians would bury loved ones with certain needed items for the underworld. This was usually a rather modest affair for a normal individual, but not the king. Absolutely nothing was spared for the Pharaoh. We don’t even really have a complete idea of just how much wealth was buried when the important Pharaohs died but we do know that it was massive and far beyond that of any regular citizen. We get an idea, though, from the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun, the only Pharaoh’s tomb ever found intact. Tut, however, was a relatively minor king who died at a young age on short notice, but even with that, the wealth that was buried with him is nearly unimaginable. We can only speculate at the kind of burials that important and long-reigning kings had. All of this was not only to prepare the king for their erroneous beliefs in the afterlife, but also to show people in this life just how important and powerful the Pharaoh really was. Although the Egyptian’s specific burial practices were quite unique, the fact that they gave special and extravagant burials to their kings is nothing new or unique in human culture. Cultures have always done that and the nations of Jesus’ day were no different.
The specific burial customs of the Jews could actually take up to a year. They would take a body and wrap it in spices to help cut down on the smell as the body decomposed. The spices would be put on the body and then it would be wrapped up in long strips of linen and covered by a burial shroud. The body would then be placed on a shelf in a tomb cut into a rocky hill. Because this was difficult and expensive work, the tomb was generally used multiple times, often times for an entire family. After a time period that could be up to a year, people would go back into the tomb and retrieve the bones that were left of the decomposed body. The bones would be placed in a bone box called an ossuary and set on a separate shelf within the tomb. But even the Jews didn’t escape the desire to have special burials for their kings. The burial of a king would be similar to a regular person, but the amount of spices that would be used, for instance, would be far greater than a regular person.
It would have been the most common practice in Judaism, for the closest relative to collect the body for burial, but it was also a common practice for disciples to take charge of the body of their teacher and to handle his bury. That seems to be the case here with Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. But wait, you might ask. Where’s Peter, where’s Andrew, where’s Thomas? Surely that’s part of John’s point in this passage. It seems that the events surrounding Jesus’ arrest and death have scattered the twelve but have had the opposite effect on two men who never seemed to have publicly embraced Jesus during his life.
Joseph was a disciple of Jesus (Matt. 27:37), but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders, and he was waiting for the kingdom of God (Mk. 15:43; Lk. 23:51). He had followed Jesus but not in a way that had cost him anything, until now. Joseph, perhaps feeling as though he hadn’t done much for Jesus during his life, was now going to honor him in his death. He takes a major risk by going boldly (Mk. 15:43) to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. This was a risky move for a man that was clearly quite wealthy (Matt. 27:57) and powerful. To associate with someone who had been jointly put to death as an enemy of both Rome and the Jewish leadership was not a good situation for Joseph.
Similarly, Nicodemus was likely wealthy and powerful, being a member of the Sanhedrin like Joseph. He was first mentioned in 3:2 as the one who came to Jesus at night, a detail that was extremely important and symbolic to John. John is the only of the Gospel writers to mention Nicodemus and he does so only three times. In chapter 3, he came to Jesus in the dark but seeking answers. After that encounter, John speaks of those being in the darkness hating to come into the light. The next time we see Nicodemus (Jn. 7:50-52), he stood up for Jesus but only tepidly on a technicality of the law. He had, though, perhaps come into the shadows. This time, it may be only just before the darkness sets in for the night, but it was during the light nonetheless. He has, it seems, stepped into the light with Joseph and will openly associate with and honor Jesus in his death. These two men may not have done much for Jesus during his life but they will do everything they can in his death.
It seems likely that Joseph took care of the political arrangements, securing Jesus’ body, while Nicodemus brought the mixture of myrrh and aloes. These spices would be wrapped up with the body as a way of honoring the dead and keeping down the putrefying smell of the body. None of this would have been unusual except for one detail that one gives us. Nicodemus brought about seventy-five pounds of spice. That’s about a hundred times more than the amount that Mary had used to anoint Jesus with (Jn. 12:3). This was an incredible amount of spice, the amount you might use for a king. And that’s John’s point in including this detail, and likely Nicodemus’ intention in bringing this much. When Pilate hung that sign on the cross that declared Jesus to be the king of the Jews, he was right. He was the king, not just of the Jews but the whole world, and he deserved the burial of a king. If there ever was a proper king in Israel to take David’s throne, this was it.
Throughout the Old Testament, particularly the book of Isaiah, God had promised that he would send a king that was both the root and the shoot of the house of David, meaning that he would be both the antecedent to and descendant of David. He would be the suffering servant (Isa. 42:1-4; 53:1-11) through whom the kingdom of God would come. This was a kingdom that would be characterized by righteousness and holiness (Isa. 11:1-5) and would be a kingdom that was ruled perfectly by the Messiah (Isa. 9;6-7). This kingdom would be for all nations (Isa. 11:9) in fulfillment to the promises that God had given Abraham that all nations would be blessed through his descendents (Gen. 18:18). This was the kingdom that would last forever and would be a part of the present age while transcending that age (Dan. 2:44-45).
But here’s the rub. It’s one thing to realize that no one of Jesus’ day had really connected all of the dots and realized how this would all work out in one person. No one could have imagined exactly the way that God put it all together. That’s one thing. And it was one thing to begin to believe that Jesus might be the Messiah, the one to pull of these aspects of God’s kingdom together. But the real catch was, how could all of this happen through Jesus now that he was dead?
And he was certainly dead. John wants there to be no mistake about any of that. The Romans had beaten him, hung him on the cross until he was dead. They made sure of that death by sticking a spear into his side, and then pulled his lifeless body off of the cross. John was there and saw all that; he saw the blood and fluids ooze from Jesus’ corpse. And then he tells us that Joseph and Nicodemus took his body and wrapped it tightly in linen and spices, placed it in the tomb and rolled the large stone over the entrance way. There was no way in or out without the Romans stationed outside knowing about it. John gives us one more detail by the way. He says that this was a brand new tomb. There was no mistaking the wrong body or the wrong shelf or even the wrong tomb.
It’s as if John is setting up all the details because he’s got something big to tell us. Here, John tells us was another garden. Again, we have echoes of Genesis, but this is not the garden of betrayal. It is the garden of new birth and new creation. They laid his body in the tomb and it was Friday, but Sunday is coming. They would have to wait through the Sabbath, the last day of the week and we are left to ponder what that day must have been like for his disciples. But that week is coming to an end. A new week is about to dawn. A Friday world is about to meet the new creation of Sunday. The old week of the old world is about to draw to a close. The eighth day of the new world is on its way.
Devotional Thought
Joseph and Nicodemus both learned that even though they had remained secret disciples and not done much for Jesus during his lifetime, that there was always time to step up and boldly reflect the light of Jesus to the world. Do you ever feel a bit like these two men when you’re at work or school? Do you ever feel more like a secret disciple than one who is bold and out in the open with your faith? It’s never too late to step out into the light. It’s what you’ve been called to do. What are you waiting for?
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