By Rev Charles Seet

Preached at / Published Life BPC 1045am Svc, 2010-12-26

Text: John 19:31-42

When we sang the carol 'We Three Kings,' awhile ago, we were reminded of the gifts that were presented to the infant Jesus. I would like to draw your attention to the 4th stanza that we sang: 'Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume Breathes a life of gathering gloom - Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, sealed in a stone-cold tomb.' Perhaps you may wonder why myrrh is linked here with gloom and a stone-cold tomb. It is because it was one of the embalming spices that were used to prepare the body of Jesus for burial after He had died on the cross. Hence, the burial of Jesus was already in view right from the time of His birth, and it was important enough to be represented by one of the gifts of the wise men. 

However, His burial does not seem to receive very much attention today. You have probably heard many sermons preached on the death of Jesus and many sermons on the resurrection of Jesus - because they have very great significance for us. But how many sermons have you heard about what happened right in between these two events? Perhaps none at all. And yet the burial of Jesus is no less important than His death and His resurrection. For instance, when Mary of Bethany anointed Jesus with expensive spikenard a few days earlier, Jesus commended her act and said, 'She did it for My burial.' (Matthew 26:12) And He said that this will be reported wherever the Gospel is preached. Thus, when Paul summarized the gospel message in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 he said, 'For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the scriptures'

Why does Christ's burial deserve a place in the Gospel? There are at least two reasons. Firstly, by being buried, His identification with us becomes full and complete. Human life begins in the cradle and ends in the grave. By going all the way from the cradle to the grave, Jesus has become like us in every way. There is now nothing in human life that is alien to Him - He was buried just as we are buried after death. And so, when it is our turn to die and be buried we have the wonderful assurance that our Saviour has gone down that path before us. Thus, we have nothing more to fear about death and burial. 

When I was very young I used to be very scared of tombstones and graveyards. And it didn't help to know that the primary school I attended was built on the site of a former Chinese cemetery! I stayed away from funeral wakes and had a morbid fear of looking at any corpse. But as I came to know the Lord Jesus more and more, I realized that I do not need to be afraid of these things, since He had been through it all. Jesus is no stranger to death, graves, tombs and funerals since He Himself had been prepared for burial and had lain dead as a lifeless corpse inside a cold and silent tomb for 3 days. That completely removes my fear of all these things. How comforting it is to know that we have a Saviour who has been buried! That is the first reason why Christ's burial is part of the Gospel. The other reason is that the burial of Christ set the stage in the most perfect manner for His resurrection from the dead.

As we now study our portion of Scripture this morning we will see that everything that happened after Christ died was providentially arranged by God to prepare for that glorious moment when Jesus would rise up from the dead. And it all happened in such a way as to give no doubt at all that He had truly risen from the dead. Let us turn our Bibles now to John 19 and read vv.31-42 (read). From this passage we will learn that God was glorified in no less than 3 ways in the burial of Jesus Christ. Firstly of all, God was glorified in

I. The Timely Preparations for Christ's c(vv.31,42)

The day that Jesus died on the cross was the feast of the Passover which would be followed the next day by the feast of Unleavened Bread. Now, here is something we must observe: There could not have been a better day for Jesus to die on the cross than that Passover in AD 30. Why? It is because in that particular year the Passover just happened to fall on a Friday, the day before the Sabbath. This means that that Sabbath was also the first day of the feast of Unleavened Bread, making it a very special Sabbath. In v.31 it is called a high day. And so, special regulations were enforced to ensure that it was kept undefiled. 

According to Jewish Law no work was allowed on that day. This is why Friday was called 'the Jews' preparation day' in vv.31 and 42 of our text. It was the time when they must complete all their work in preparation for observing the Sabbath. Since cooking and washing were not allowed on the Sabbath, they did all their cooking and washing on Friday. Now, what if someone dies on the Sabbath? Nothing could be done. All work of embalming and burying him would have to wait until the next day. 

And no crucified victims were to remain hanging on their crosses on the Sabbath because this would defile that high Sabbath day. To the Jews, the Sabbath begins at 6pm on Friday evening. And so, on that particular Friday in AD 30, they had to ensure that all the 3 crucified victims were dead, taken down from the crosses and buried before 6pm. But this could not happen without any intervention, because victims of crucifixion have been known to take more than a day to die. So the solution to this was to break their legs - which would hasten their death and allow them to be removed quickly. This happened to the two thieves who were crucified with Jesus - The soldiers smashed their legs with a mallet and they died shortly after that. 

Things would have been done quite differently if their crucifixion had been carried out on a different day - a day when there are no constraints imposed by special days or sabbaths. There would have been no necessity to speed their deaths. They would have been left to suffer on their crosses until they died many hours later, and after that their bodies would not be removed immediately but left to be devoured by wild animals. Their remains would then be cast together into a common grave with the bodies of many other victims of crucifixion. This was the usual practice of the Romans to make crucifixion the most horrifying mode of execution and an effective deterrent against crime.

What would have happened if this had been done to Jesus? Then there would have been no convincing proof that He had truly risen from the dead. The Jews would have said that the disciples must have come secretly at night and stolen the body of Jesus from that common grave in order to deceive people that He had risen. Or the Jews could have taken any of the decaying bodies out of that common grave and say, 'Look, here is the dead body of Jesus.' Then no one would believe the testimony of the disciples that Jesus had resurrected from the dead. Therefore it was truly providential that Jesus happened to die on the day just before the high Sabbath day.

The lesson we can learn from this is that nothing ever happens by chance. Every event in our lives is carefully ordered by God and is timed to happen to accomplish His divine purpose (Romans 8:28). And God can use anything at all to accomplish His purpose. In the case of Jesus' burial God used the restrictions imposed by the Jews' observance of special days. When Jesus was born, God used a Roman taxation decree to ensure that He would be born nowhere else but in Bethlehem. In your case God may make use of a change of weather, or an unexpected delay, or a change of government policy to direct the events in your life. I am sure there were times when you have wondered why certain things have happened to you, things that you had not planned to happen. Take this as God's providence at work - and trust Him to work out all things well for you.

And so we have seen how God's providence had caused Jesus to be crucified on that particular Friday, as there could not have been a better day than this for Jesus to die on the cross. But that's not all. Do you know that there could not have been a better hour for Jesus to die than at around 3pm on that day? (Mark 15:34-37) Things would have turned out very differently if Jesus had died much later than that. If the soldiers had found that He was still alive when they broke the legs of the other two victims, they would have broken His legs as well to make Him die faster. 

And this would mean that His death no longer qualifies to be a Passover sacrifice for us. This is what we see in v.36 of our text 'For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of Him shall not be broken.' The scripture that this refers to is Exodus 12:46 where we are told that the Israelites had to take special care to keep every single bone of the Passover lamb intact when they killed it, when they roasted it, and even when they ate it. Why was such a strange requirement as this necessary? There is only one possible reason: To make it very obvious that the Passover lamb points to Jesus Christ! 

Hence the fact that Jesus was already dead by the time the soldiers broke the legs of the other two victims was providentially arranged by God to provide an important proof that He is none other than the Passover 'Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.' (John 1:29) This brings us now to consider the second way in which God was glorified, and that is through:

II. The Final Proofs before Christ's Burial (vv.32-37)

The fact that no bone of Christ was broken is only one of the proofs that He is God's Passover Lamb. The other proof came in a rather unexpected way. Verse 34 says that one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear. No reason is given why the soldier did this. It was surely not done to kill Him, since the preceding verse says that they knew that Jesus was already dead. Some commentators say that it was done to confirm that Jesus was already dead. But if there was any doubt in the soldier's mind that Jesus was dead, then why not break His legs to make doubly sure? In my opinion there is no reasonable explanation for this soldier's act. 

It may well be that he did it merely for fun and for his own spearing practice. But even that frivolous act was providentially arranged by God to provide several important proofs for us concerning Christ's death. Firstly, it proved that Jesus is God's Passover Lamb. One of the important requirements of the Passover Lamb is that its blood must be extracted to provide the means for Israel's salvation. In the story of the Exodus, when the Angel of death saw the lamb's blood spattered on the doorposts and lintel of a house, it would pass over that house and no one in that house would die (Exodus 12:13).

Hence the spearing of Jesus was essential to complete His role as our Passover lamb since it released His precious blood to flow profusely out of His body and save us from dying for our sins. Dearly beloved have you been washed in the blood of the Lamb? His blood is the only means that can take away your sins. Verse 35 tells us that this particular proof which the soldier's spearing provided should draw a good response from us 'that ye might believe.' Therefore, if there is anyone here who is not saved, please do not delay any more. Come to the Lord Jesus and receive the cleansing flow. Let His blood be applied to you right now so that you will be 'passed over' when God's awful judgement comes. May God's name be glorified through the salvation of sinners that is wrought through the spearing of Jesus on the cross.

Secondly, the spearing of Jesus proved that He is none other than God Himself, because according to v.37 it was the fulfillment of the Scripture, 'They shall look on Him whom they pierced.' This is quoted directly from Zechariah 12:10 'And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.'

You will notice that God is the one who is speaking here. God says, 'I will pour' the spirit of grace and of supplications.' Only God can possibly do that. But He then says, 'they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced.' And this was fulfilled at the moment when Jesus was pierced with the soldier's spear as the Jews looked at His lifeless form on the cross. Here then is indisputable proof of the deity of Christ, given before His burial. If you have any doubts that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, may you now be convinced to believe it in this proof.

Thirdly, the soldier's spearing served the most important purpose of proving that Jesus was dead. Some skeptics have tried to claim that Jesus did not die on the cross. They say that He merely fainted or swooned and that He revived after He was laid inside the tomb. This would mean that Jesus was not resurrected but merely resuscitated. There is nothing miraculous in being resuscitated since many people even today are also resuscitated. But God has apparently anticipated this 'swoon theory' of unbelievers, and He provided the proof on the cross to debunk it through the spearing of Jesus by the soldier. The proof is found in the description of what flowed out of the wound - it was not blood alone, but blood and water.

If Jesus was still alive, only blood would have flowed out. This can be confirmed easily by anyone who has medical knowledge. It can also be confirmed medically that the description of blood and water flowing out of the wound is consistent with a person who has died with a ruptured heart. The blood that flows out of a ruptured heart accumulates in the pericardium, the chamber in which the heart is located. Upon death the blood separates into two parts: the clear fluid serum, and the thick red crassamentum which sinks to the bottom.

As the soldier's spear punctured the pericardium from below, the red crassamentum would flow out first. This is the blood that John mentioned. Then the clear serum fluid would flow out after that. This is the water that John mentioned. You will notice that v.34 does not say that it was 'water and blood' but 'blood and water' that flowed out of the wound. This sequence confirms that Jesus probably died with a ruptured heart which may be due to the most intense agony He suffered as He bore the full weight of God's awful wrath against our sins. One verse of Scripture that corroborates this is Psalm 69:20 which says, 'Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.' This must clearly be a prophecy of Christ's death on the cross, because the very next verse tells, 'They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.' We had already seen in an earlier sermon from John's gospel how this was fulfilled on the cross.

Thus we have seen how one unexplainable act by a soldier at the cross produced a result that proved 3 things about Jesus: (1) that He is indeed God's Passover Lamb who was slain for our sins; (2) that He is none other than God Himself; and (3) That He truly died on that cross. 

As you consider these proofs about Jesus please consider also what it was that moved Him, who is God the Son to die in our place as our Passover lamb. Wasn't it His great love for us sinners? What was it that caused Him to endure the cross and all the shame and suffering that came with it? Wasn't it the amazing selfless love that the Lord Jesus has for you and me? How should we then respond to such love? We ought to respond not only by believing in Him, but also by loving Him in return. We ought to respond like the two disciples who are mentioned in the last part of our passage, namely Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, who became-

III. The Loving Providers of Christ's Burial (vv.38-41)

What they did shows us the third and final way in which God was glorified in in the burial of Jesus. First we need to know who these 2 disciples were. Nicodemus is not new to us. In John chapter 3 we had seen him visiting Jesus with a sincere desire to learn from Him, because he was personally convinced that Jesus was sent by God. And Jesus had told him, 'You must be born again.' Was Nicodemus eventually born again? Well, in John 7:50 he spoke up for Jesus to his fellow Pharisees when they showed prejudice against Him. And now in v.39 of our text we see him bringing myrrh and aloes to embalm the body of Jesus before laying it in the garden tomb. From all these we know that Nicodemus must have experienced the new birth after his first visit to Jesus, and became a secret disciple.

The other disciple mentioned in our passage is Joseph of Arimathea. He was a rich man and a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin council. But he had been afraid all this time to openly confess his faith in Christ until this moment, when he no longer wanted to remain a secret disciple of Christ. Joseph of Arimathea was moved very deeply when he saw how Jesus died. This gave him all the boldness he needed to openly confess his faith in Christ. How did he do this? By asking Pontius Pilate for permission to take the body of Jesus down from the cross and give it a proper burial. What about Nicodemus? Verse 39 tells us that he too was moved to come out in public and risk being criticized and even excommunicated by his fellow Jews, in order to prepare the body of Jesus for burial. 

The Scriptures do not record what happened to Nicodemus or Joseph of Arimathea after this, and we can only imagine the angry responses of all the unbelieving Jews against them. But the satisfaction they had of being able to serve Christ openly, more than compensated for all that they had to suffer. 

Let us learn from the way that these two disciples showed their love for the Lord. Firstly, if you truly love the Lord Jesus, you must not be afraid to let others know that you belong to Him. Don't be afraid of what people will say or think about you. Tell the world boldly that you are a Christian and share the Gospel openly with people around you. The Word of God in 1 Peter 3:15 tells us, 'But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.' 

Secondly, if you truly love the Lord Jesus, you must be willing to place everything you have at His disposal. Joseph of Arimathea placed the good standing he enjoyed with the Roman governor at Christ's disposal. He did this to obtain permission to take the body away. I am sure Pilate wouldn't have released the body to any Tom, Dick or Harry who would ask for it. But because Joseph of Arimathea was well-known as a wealthy Jewish leader in the community, Pilate granted his request. 

And Joseph was also willing to use his own tomb for the burial of Jesus. This was a new tomb in a nearby garden which he had specially constructed for himself and his family at great personal expense. The important thing is that it had never been used before. Why would Jesus need an unused tomb? Well, Matthew Henry has an interesting suggestion for this: 'He that was born from a virgin womb must rise from a virgin tomb.'

Let us now look at Nicodemus. He was just as willing as Joseph to serve the Lord in His burial. According to v.39 he provided a 'mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight.' These spices were used in burials to form a hard casing for the whole body as they were applied between the layers of linen that wrapped the body. As they dried the myrrh and aloes produced a nice fragrance which would help to overcome the stench of rotting flesh. The amount of spices that Nicodemus brought is about 34 kg. That would have been very costly because myrrh and aloes were imported stuff. Only a man of great means would be able to afford to buy this.

Are you as willing as these two disciples to let Jesus use all that you have - whether it is your position, your home or your wealth? If you are, then please make a commitment to the Lord right now to put all these things at His disposal. Let the Lord do whatever He wants with your life and let Him use everything you have in whatever way He sees fit. And let me tell you this: There is no better use for all these things than the Lord's use. 

Who can tell all the glory that He will bring to Himself by using them? Just look at how well the Lord has used everything that Joseph and Nicodemus provided for His burial. Since the tomb did not contain any body than that of Jesus, it became empty after His resurrection. This empty tomb became the most significant evidence that Jesus had truly risen from the dead - no one could produce a body out of it to show that He had not risen. And since this tomb had only one entrance which was closed by a large rock and sealed by Roman soldiers later on, no one could ever say that the body of Jesus had been stolen by the disciples. And since the grave clothes of Jesus with the spices in them were found in the tomb lying still intact like an empty shell (John 20:6-8) everyone who saw it would have no doubts that the body of Jesus had miraculously come out of it and the tomb. 

All these now stand as irrefutable evidence of the reality and power of the greatest miracle of all time - the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Joseph and Nicodemus could never have imagined that what they had provided for His burial would have such a far-reaching impact. What great glory it has brought to God by causing millions of people to put their trust in the Risen Saviour!

Will you now surrender everything that you have to Him? Will you let the Lord use you and all that you have for His glory? I hope you will. May the Lord be glorified in all that we do for Him and in all that we give to Him.

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