Devotional #41

Question 41: Why was he also “buried”?

Answer: Thereby to prove that he was really dead (a).

(a) Matthew 27:59-60: And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away.

Luke 23:52-53: This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down and wrapped it in a linen shroud and laid him in a tomb cut in stone, where no one had ever yet been laid.

John 19:38-42: After these things Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took away his body. Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds in weight. So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.

Acts 13:29: And when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb

For your personal reflection:
There are offered, by some who disbelieve the resurrection story, theories of what “really happened.”  ”Christ did not die, He simply swooned,” says one theory.  The disciples, in their grief, confused the tomb in which He was entombed, says another.  The eyewitness testimony, though, is that Christ, in fact, died.  It was necessary for Him to die so as to satisfy the consequence of human sin.  It was also necessary for Him to die so that He might become the firstborn from the dead.  Because He died – and rose – so, too, will we die; and if we are in Christ we will rise again.  

Do you fear death?  Why?/Why not?

We experience many deaths in our lives: loved ones, dreams, relationships.  What “deaths” have you experienced?  What hope does Christ’s death offer you?