The Lord's grave.
I. THE BURIAL.
1. Joseph of Arimathaea. He was a rich man and a counsellor. Like Nicodemus, he believed in Christ; but, like Nicodemus, he had not had the courage to avow his convictions. His rank, perhaps, and his riches had kept him back. It was hard for a man in his position to espouse the cause of the despised Prophet of Nazareth. He had, perhaps, absented himself from the council at which the Lord was condemned. He would not take part in that awful crime, but probably he had not dared to oppose it openly. Yet, notwithstanding his timidity, he was a good man, and a just; he waited for the kingdom of God (Luke 23:50, Luke 23:51). God judges more tenderly than men. We are apt to condemn a man wholly when we see one great fault in him. God sometimes sees sincerity, a real yearning alter truth and goodness, where we refuse to see anything save the one obvious defect. And now Joseph shook off his weakness. The Lord's majesty in suffering confirmed his wavering faith. He was ashamed of his cowardice. He had not done his best to save his Master. He would at least honour him now, cost what it might, he went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus. It was a brave deed. Friends of martyred Christians again and again brought the death of martyrdom upon themselves by doing the like. But Pilate commanded the body to be delivered, he had washed his hands before consenting to the Saviour's death. Perhaps he thought that respect for the lifeless body might help, like that poor outward form, to atone for his guilt.
2. The sepulchre. The holy body was to receive no more indignities. It was not thrown, as the chief priests had probably expected, into some dishonoured grave with the two malefactors; it was not left to the eleven, who could provide only some poor interment. He was "with the rich in his death." Joseph and Nicodemus, both rich men and honourable, cast aside their shame and their fears. They took the sacred body from the cross with reverent care, wrapped it in clean and fine linen, with the costly gift of myrrh and aloes brought by Nicodemus, and laid it in Joseph's own tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock. Thus they confessed Christ before men. While the eleven were still overcome with terror and despair, these two men, who had been so fearful, shook off their fears, and showed openly their reverence for the Lord. They feared neither the fierce anger of the Jews nor the ceremonial defilement which would keep them from the Passover rites. The cross of Christ could make the timid brave. He was laid in a tomb hewn out of the rock. The rocks about Jerusalem are full of tombs. The whole world, indeed, is one vast cemetery. Countless multitudes of the dead he everywhere around us. Christ hath hallowed the grave by himself resting there. We may be well content that our poor bodies should be where his sacred body lay. Only let us seek first to be buried with him by baptism unto death; let us seek to realize in our inner souls that burial with Christ of which holy baptism is the token and the pledge—a burial out of the reach of the defiling touch of sin, in the rock where the allurements of sin cannot penetrate, if that spiritual burial is with Christ.
3. The women. Mary of Magdala and the other Mary were sitting over against the sepulchre. "Seest thou the courage of these women?" says Chrysostom; "seest thou their affection? seest thou how they continued faithful unto death? Let us men imitate these women, and let us net desert the Lord in the hour of trial."
II. THE SEALING OF THE TOMB.
1. The fears of the chief priests. The awe of the last hours of the Crucifixion was still upon their souls. The Lord was dead, but they could not rest, not even on the sabbath. Even on that holy day they came with the Pharisees to the Roman governor; they shrank not from telling him their fears and from asking his help. They knew of the Lord's prophecy of his resurrection on the third day, though they perverted it for their own ends. Some of them were present when he said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." They may have heard from Judas or others something of his more distinct predictions; they would prevent the fulfilment. The body was safe, hidden in the rock; they would keep it there.
2. The guard. Pilate haughtily dismissed them. it was their business; he would do nothing more for them. They had a guard. Probably there was a small body of soldiers put at their disposal to keep order during the Passover celebration. "Go," the governor said sternly, "secure it as you best can." "So they went and made the sepulchre sure, scaling the stone, and setting a watch." So all through that sabbath day, and all through the night that followed, the Roman sentries paced up and down before the sealed stone. And now the chief priests felt secure. The Lord's body lay still and. lifeless in the sepulchre; his own followers had laid it there. They had tended it with reverent care; but they had me thought, no hope of a resurrection. They had forgotten the Lord's words; they understood them not. They never seemed able to realize what he told them from time to time of his approaching sufferings and death, and of the glory that should follow. They laid the sacred body in myrrh and aloes; they rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre. The chief priests completed the work; they sealed the stone; they set there an armed guard; they knew that the Lord's disciples, few and. terrified as they were, would never dare to encounter those dreaded Roman soldiers. They had succeeded in accomplishing their awful sin; and, if their consciences allowed them to sleep, they slept that night securely.
LESSONS.
1. We must not judge men hastily. Joseph, once so tearful, showed holy courage at last.
2. The Lord was buried. Let us not fear the grave.
3. His burial has a lesson for us. We are buried with him by baptism unto death. "How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein"?
4. The wicked may exult in the seeming success of their designs; but the Lord reigneth.
HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY