SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
2/10/2013 7:36 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The
Servant’s Burial
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Mark
15:42-47
Message of the
verses: “42 When evening had already
come, because it was the preparation day, that is, the day before the Sabbath,
43 Joseph of Arimathea came, a prominent
member of the Council, who himself was waiting for the kingdom of God; and he
gathered up courage and went in before Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus.
44 Pilate wondered if He was dead by this time, and summoning the centurion, he
questioned him as to whether He was already dead. 45 And ascertaining this from
the centurion, he granted the body to Joseph. 46 Joseph bought a linen cloth,
took Him down, wrapped Him in the linen cloth and laid Him in a tomb which had
been hewn out in the rock; and he rolled a stone against the entrance of the
tomb. 47 Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses were looking on to see
where He was laid.”
As I read over the commentary that Dr. Wiersbe has on
this section of Scripture I learned something that I may have never thought
about before, and that is that the two men who buried Jesus must have planned
this event out together. We read in the
different Gospels about the events that happened after the death of Jesus and
we have to put all of them together to better understand what went on. We know from Isaiah 53:9 (“His grave was
assigned with wicked men, Yet He was with a rich man in His death, Because He
had done no violence, Nor was there any deceit in His mouth.”), that Jesus
would be buried with the rich even though many of the people who were crucified
were just thrown into a dump that Jesus actually made reference to in a parable
He spoke of.
Mark only mentions Joseph of Arimathea as the one who
buried Jesus, but he had help in the person of Nicodemus, the one who came to
Jesus at night. We know that these two
men buried Jesus and that they also anointed His body for burial. John reports that they used between 90-100
pounds of spices to anoint the body of Jesus.
(It depends on which translation you read as to how much the weight of
the spices was, but the point is that it was a large amount.) God had to give these two men wisdom as to
the fact that Jesus was to die on Passover and so them must have gotten
together in order to have this all planned out.
During the Passover celebration probably many of the shops would have
been closed so they must have bought the things needed to prepare the body of
Jesus beforehand. Why was all this so
important? For one thing it was to
fulfill Scripture, and for another thing it was to prove that Jesus would
indeed be raised from the dead. This
would also prove that Jesus was dead for if His body was covered with the linen
wrappings along with the great amount of spices that were used in that day then
there is no way He was still alive when He was buried as some people teach
today. When Jesus rose from the dead the
wrappings were still on the slab that His body laid for three days.
Joseph and Nicodemus had to work rather quickly in order
to have Jesus buried before Friday was complete, for Saturday would begin at
6:00 P. M. according to the way the Jews kept time, for that was around the
time of sunset.
I want to focus in on verse 43b which says, “and he gathered up courage
and went in before Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus.” We know that Joseph along with Nicodemus were
prominent members of the Sanhedrim, and that they were secret believers in
Jesus Christ, and so it would take a great deal of courage on both of their
parts to be “found out” that they were believers in Jesus, so this is one
reason that Joseph had to gather up his courage. Another reason would be that
he had to go before Pilate and this in and of itself would take courage.
Now let us think about the centurion who we mentioned
before as becoming a believer after seeing all the events of the crucifixion,
especially the way Jesus breathed His last. He was summoned by Pilate to verify
that Jesus was still alive, for Pilate was surprised that Jesus was already
dead and wanted to make sure that He was before giving His body to Joseph. One wonders what is going through the mind of
the centurion at this time, and one wonders what happened to him after his
encounter with Jesus.
We see in verse 47 that there were some women who watched
as to where Jesus was buried so that they could go to the grave site to prepare
the body of Jesus on Sunday. I am not sure
as to whether or not they saw that His body was already prepared or not, but at
any rate they wanted to know where He was buried so they could come there on
Sunday, for they would not come on the Sabbath day, especially on Passover week,
for John states that this was a high Sabbath.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: The phrase “and
he gathered up courage” has been something that I have thought about on the
many occasions that I have read through or heard this chapter being read to me
on DVD. Courage is something that had to
be gathered up by Joseph in order to do what he believed God wanted him to
do. There are times when I don’t have
the courage to do what God wants me to do, and I think that it will help me to
be reminded that Joseph had to gather up courage to do what he knew needed to
be done for the glory of God.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the LORD with all
thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall
direct thy paths.” 2Timothy 1:7 “For God
hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound
mind.”
Memory verses for the
week: Psalm 32:1-2
1 How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered! 2 How blessed is
the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit is no
deceit.
Turning Points Wisdom for
Today: “Knowledge is horizontal. Wisdom is vertical—it comes down from
above.” (Billy Graham) “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God,
who give to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to
him.” (James 1:5)
2/10/2013 8:33 AM
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