In the sermon titled 'Laid in a Tomb,' Scott Brown explores the significance of Jesus Christ's burial as described in Matthew 27:57-66. The sermon highlights Joseph of Arimathea's pivotal role in requesting and preparing Jesus' body for burial, emphasizing his courage and discipleship. Brown underscores the theological importance of Jesus' burial, explaining that it confirms His death, fulfills prophecies, and symbolizes the end of the Old Covenant. The sermon contrasts public disciples who fled with secret disciples like Joseph who boldly acted, and it reflects on the varied responses of individuals to Jesus' death. Brown also delves into the broader theological implications, such as reconciliation, the breaking of death's power, and the transition into the New Covenant. The sermon concludes with a call to remember and proclaim Jesus' death as foundational to Christian faith.

This morning our scripture text is Matthew chapter 27 verses 57 through the end of the chapter Matthew 27 verse 57 Now an evening had come there came a rich man from arimathea named joseph who himself had also become a disciple of Jesus. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be given to him. When Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his new tomb, which he had hewn out of the rock. And he rolled a large stone against the door of the tomb and departed.

And Mary Magdalene was there, and the other Mary, sitting opposite the tomb. On the next day, which followed the day of preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees gathered together to Pilate, saying, Sir, we remember while he was still alive how that deceiver said, After three days I will rise. Therefore command that the tomb be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night and steal him away and say to the people, He has risen from the dead. So the last deception will be worse than the first. Pilate said to them, You have a guard, go your way, make it as secure as you know how.

So they went and made the tomb secure, sealing the stone and setting the guard. Holy Father God, this morning we submit our hearts and our minds to the perfect word of truth, living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. Lord, we pray that you would pierce our hearts with the preaching of your word. Lord, may your name be made glorious before us this morning. Would you tune our hearts to truly worship you in spirit and in truth.

In Jesus' name, amen. Our journey through the Gospel of Matthew has taken us quite a distance from the Lord's Supper, from the Upper Room to the Garden of Gethsemane, to the cross and the Lord Jesus Christ suffering on the cross, And then now finally to the grave. These pictures sequentially ordered by the Gospel writer are here to declare the glory of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to give us a sense of what it means to have such a salvation so secured for us by the Lord Jesus Christ. Here we find ourselves in the tomb. We're in a grave.

We've been on a cross, we've been in an upper room, we've been on the streets of Jerusalem, and now we're in a grave. This entire passage of Scripture has its focus on the grave of the Lord Jesus Christ. It takes us back to that irreducible reality of life. Everybody ends up in a grave. No one in this room will end up anywhere else but some grave somewhere.

And here, the Lord Jesus Christ places himself at the will of his father in a grave. And death is a reality that we all need to deal with because of this fact of life. It was just recently I went to the funeral of a friend, the father of my friend, Doug Phillips. A couple of days ago I spoke with a young girl who was 16 years old just on her 17th birthday in the hospital with a life threatening cancer, Anna Heusven. There's someone else in the northeast that we're praying for, Connie Mello, who has a threatening life situation upon her.

And so the prospect of death is always in our contemplation. There's always someone that has this reality upon them. While the truth is we all have that reality upon us every day because while we're numbering our days, God has our days numbered. And what we find here is the truth of scripture is placed before us that it is appointed to man once to die and then to enter into judgment. But at the same time, the Lord Jesus Christ who entered the grave, entered that grave for a purpose.

And it is that He would taste death so that He would bring many sons to glory. This was the purpose of His tasting of death. This grave stands as a symbol of what Jesus Christ has done for every person who believes in His name. So we've turned from the cross to the grave, and all of the Gospel writers give an extensive treatment of the grave of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we shouldn't minimize this point of burial.

We more likely focus on the resurrection, but the grave is so important. So we stop at this grave. We don't advance to the resurrection until we understand what has happened in the grave. In the same way that you can't really contemplate the grave until you contemplate the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ. How On His body He bore all of our shame.

How He took the punishment for everything that we ever deserved. He took it upon Himself. Now He enters into a grave and there's a different meaning there. Because from the sufferings of the cross to the death in the tomb, and then to the rising from the dead. Each one of these form a particular aspect of the Gospel.

That's why in Matthew there are ten verses devoted to the grave, in Luke there are six, in John there are four, in Mark there are six verses. There are 26 verses in these narratives that focus exclusively on the grave of the Lord Jesus Christ. So we stop here now. First Corinthians 15.3 explains the importance of the death of Christ in the gospel message. He says, the apostle does to the Corinthian church, Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preach to you, which you also received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast to the word which I preach to you, unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received, 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." So when the Apostle Paul explains the Gospel, he emphasizes the fact that Jesus Christ was buried, that he was in a tomb, And he died. He didn't give the appearance of death. He died. And that's what we contemplate today. Of course, Muslims don't believe that he died.

Others believe that he just swooned and did not die. Others maintain that he was stolen and did not die. But this passage really serves as a death certificate for the Lord Jesus Christ, that he did die. And his burial symbolizes so much, which we'll get to later, particularly when we get to the end of this message. But it symbolizes our death to the old man, the former way of life.

And it symbolizes, more importantly, the whole end of the ceremonial law, the whole beginning of the New Covenant. If you read Hebrews 9, you'll see how absolutely clear this is, that Jesus Christ's death formed the death knell and His resurrection to the Old Covenant. That no longer will the people of God be involved in the matter of atonement with the blood of bulls and goats, but rather one sacrifice, one sacrifice for all, the Lord Jesus Christ. And this burial also becomes another symbol. We had the blood of bulls and goats, the tomb, and the resurrection.

And then we have a baptism, which is a representative symbol of our salvation. If you've been baptized, you know what you did. You were celebrating the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. You were identifying with it. You were actually reenacting what had happened to you spiritually, that you had died and you were risen with Christ in God.

And there's the whole matter of the breaking of the power of death in this symbol as well. It is very important that Jesus Christ died. Because you were once dead in your trespasses and sins. You were dead. You couldn't save yourself.

You couldn't figure it out. And you weren't simply sick. You weren't simply confused. You weren't simply in need of more education. You were dead.

You were like a corpse. And that's the miracle of salvation. That out of a tomb, God brings many sons to glory. He tasted death in order to bring many sons to glory. And so here we are contemplating this remarkable moment in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, His death.

The context is important to recognize. If you go all the way back to the beginning of chapter 26, the Lord Jesus Christ prophesies His death. And then a woman with an alabaster vial of perfume anoints Him, And the disciples criticize her for wasting so much money on him. And then the Lord Jesus Christ says, No, she was preparing for my burial. So at the beginning of 26 is an announcement of this moment that we're experiencing here in this text.

And this passage ends with the actual burial. So this is the context that we have here. We have the cross, we have the grave, and then next week we'll enter into the resurrection in Chapter 28. Now also I want us to recognize the people who are here in this part of the narrative. There are different responses to the death of Jesus Christ, which is always true then and now.

And first of all, you have the friendship of Joseph of Arimathea. He's really the focus of this first part of the narrative of what we learn about the tomb. And then you find the faithfulness of the women. And then you find the conniving and slanderous plans of the religious authorities and how they were scheming in order to try to destroy this whole idea of resurrection that Jesus Christ had been speaking about. And there's so many remarkable things here.

Here is one of the great ironies of this section of Scripture. On the one hand, you have the public disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, those who've walked with him. They have fled. They are nowhere to be seen. On the other hand, you have the secret disciples who were afraid to be thrown out of the synagogue.

They feared man and they are there now in the scene dealing with the body of Jesus Christ. And then you have the ones who have been forgiven much, who were there at the grave, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary. So there are these ironies. The ones who should have been there weren't there. The ones who didn't want to be there ended up there because of a work of God in their hearts.

He changed those men. He turned those women's hearts. The ones that never should have been there were there. And so it's such a beautiful story and it tells us so much about us together. Who of us ever could have been here without the work of the Lord Jesus Christ?

Who of us were so far gone? Who of us were so dead? Who of us were so unable? Who of us were so tormented like Mary Magdalene? Who of us were so afraid of man that we couldn't even breathe any word of loyalty toward Jesus Christ, and we didn't want to live for Him for fear of what might happen to us?

These are those who are here now. Isn't that amazing? So there's this great irony. And in the midst of it all is the one who is tasting death so that he might bring many sons to glory. So let's move into the text.

Verse 57. Jesus is taken to his tomb. Joseph of Arimathea is really the central figure here in this part of the narrative. And the first thing that's mentioned is the time in which this takes place. It is the evening of the same day that Jesus gave up the Spirit.

And so, because Jewish law required that he be taken down from the cross before nightfall. And the Sabbath prohibited burial on that day. This work had to be done on that same day that Jesus breathed his last on the cross. And here, the timing of his burial is emphasized. Now the Jews had two times that they called evenings.

There was the first evening, which was from three o'clock to six o'clock, and the second evening, which was 6 o'clock to the night. And this is a reference to the first evening, or what we might call the afternoon, from after 3 o'clock in the afternoon. It was part of the preparation for the Sabbath day. And Jesus here dies before the preparation of the Sabbath. And the Sabbath figures into this narrative as well.

We'll see it later on. But I just want to take note of the time frame that is identified here by Matthew. And there are many things that we could say about this. Here's one thing that we ought to say, and that is that God has ordered the world in such a way that there is a time ordained for them to die. And there is no untimely death.

No one will die as a result of some random force or some mistake. They will die according to the predetermined plan of God in the same way that the Lord Jesus Christ has died. No one should ever fear death. God has these things all in His hands. While He is teaching us to number our days, He has numbered our days.

Here what we find is that God the Father has sent His Son on a mission. And that mission is perfectly timed. In the fullness of time, these things have come to pass. And so, God the Father has ordained all things to happen in His time. He has said He makes all things beautiful in His time, but here He is bringing His own Son into a grave in a particular moment of time.

And he has ordered the lives of his sons and daughters in exactly the same way. If you are a son or a daughter of the Lord Jesus Christ, if you are a co-heir of salvation, recognize this, that he has tasted death to bring many sons to glory. Of course, he does that progressively over time, but there is a time when they will lie in the grave and he will bring them to glory. So here is this timing element that the writers enter into the testimony here. And then you find this explanation of the participation of Joseph of Arimathea.

Joseph of Arimathea is the central figure in the burial of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was a prominent member of the Council. He was a member of the Sanhedrin, which was the Supreme Court, and they were one of the decision-making bodies at that time. He was a very prominent member of the council. He was highly respected.

He was trusted. He was from a place called Arimathea, about 20 miles north, northwest of Jerusalem. It was the same place where the prophet Samuel came from. But there are a number of things that are said about him, and I think we should pause to contemplate who this man was. He first of all, he first of all is a disciple.

There are several things. He is one who had become a disciple of Jesus. He had become a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. This was his status now before God. He was a learner, someone who was desiring to learn from the Lord Jesus Christ.

So here we find a disciple of Jesus who is at the cross and taking the body of Jesus down. But what I don't want to submit is just Matthew's use of the word disciple, and to contemplate it just for a moment. What a wonderful word that is, to think that one could actually be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. Can you think of anything more valuable than to be a disciple of the most perfect man who ever lived? To come under his instruction.

To say to him, not my will, but thine be done. To look at him. To learn from him. To take His yoke upon you. There is nothing more profitable in life than to become a learner of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We're born into this world and we learn lots of stuff, don't we? We learn things from our parents, some of it's wrong. We learn things from this culture, some of it's wrong. We learn things from our friends, some of it's wrong. You can pick up most of the books that are written in this world and there's a lot wrong in them.

But you can become a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ and there is nothing wrong in Him at all. Think of the value of becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ to come and sit at His table, to come and drink of His wine and eat of His food, and to taste and see that the Lord is good. This is what happened to this man. He became a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. It says that He became that.

There was a process of time that was in operation upon him, and he became a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a blessing that is. We learn that he is also righteous. Luke chapter 23 verse 50 says that he was a righteous man. We learn that he was prominent in Mark 15, 43.

He was distinguished before the others. He was a standout in his profession. In Mark chapter 15 verse 43 we learn that he is waiting for the kingdom of God. He had seen the kingdom of God and his vision of the kingdom gave him courage, courage enough to go and meet with Pilate and ask for the body. It says he was an honorable counselor waiting for the kingdom of God and boldly he went into Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.

We also know that he was rich. He was a man full of possessions. He had resources beyond all of his companions. He had an abundance of worldly treasures. This was his status in life.

This is what God had given him. And this was to fulfill the prophecy in Isaiah chapter 53 verse 9, which says, They made his grave with the wicked, but with the rich at his death, because he had done no violence, nor was any deceit found in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him." So here we find this picture of the Lord, God Almighty is bruising His Son. He is bringing many sons to glory, but He takes a rich man and makes him bring his son down from the cross. He was a rich man.

Now, there are many in Scripture who were rich. Abraham, the great patriarchs, most of them were wealthy men. Joseph, who became the richest man in his region, Job, even long before that. So there are many pictures of rich men whose hearts have been gripped by the Kingdom of Heaven, what a blessing it is for the rich and the poor to be before God. And here we find really something that's often not seen among rich men.

Rich men often want to keep themselves from exposure. In their pride, they want to hold on to what they have. And that's not what happened with this man. He risked absolutely everything. It's for rich men, it is for rich men to try to keep hold of what they built.

But this rich man is not that way. So that's who he was. He was a disciple. He was an exemplary personality. He was responsible, and he was righteous, and he was rich.

But this is what he did. You can talk about what he was, and that's really remarkable to contemplate, but what did he do? Because who he was made him do something. And so we see that he went to Pilate to ask for the body, verse 58. This is an amazing, startling thing that he did.

This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. And then Pilate commanded the body to be given to him. Now this was a bold action. He went to Pilate. Now there were many of the rulers of the Jews like this man, who were afraid and they would not identify with the Lord Jesus Christ.

In John chapter 12, we read that many of them had impulses toward the Lord Jesus Christ, but they feared being put out of the synagogue. There we read, nevertheless, even among the rulers, many believed in him, but because of the Pharisees, they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue. For they love the praise of men more than the praise of God." So imagine Joseph of Arimathea coming out of this culture of fear of man. They had created this culture of fear, of crossing up what was appropriate, what would get you advancement in that little kingdom. And here he would actually do something that could have gotten him thrown out of the synagogue, destroying all of his business relationships, harming his family.

In doing so, by going to Pilate, he's really declaring that the killing of Jesus was wrong. We know that he believed it was wrong from another passage of scripture. And so he's distancing himself now from his colleagues in the Sanhedrin, and he's exposing himself to suffering, and he's risking his position in the community, and he's a courageous brother. He's an example of what men must do to put at risk that they might lose everything for Christ. I was speaking with a young man who had experienced early success in his life, and he asked me a question.

He said, How do you keep the dulling of riches from your spiritual life? How do you keep from losing your soul?" And he was asking that question because there was a struggle going on. And I said, you at least ought to make sure that you make it your habit to be with men who are willing to die, who are willing to lose everything. If you make your companions only those men who are trying to protect their way in the world, you will become like them. But here this man, he is willing to lose everything in courage and faithfulness to the Lord Jesus Christ.

But what we see here is when Joseph goes to Pilate to ask for the body of Jesus, we find Evidence that Jesus did die. Because Pilate is inquiring whether he died. Pilate is actually surprised that he would have died so early. But because he has died, Pilate says, yes, go take the body. So the very taking of the body was one of the evidence that he did die.

Pilate acknowledged his death. Now what we find here, just stepping back, is that God is taking care of His Son. He sent His Son. He sent His Son to suffer and to die. And His Son is on a cross, and the Father sends a man to take His Son off the cross, and then to carry Him to His tomb.

God is taking care of the body of His Son. This is true for every son who is being brought to glory. God takes care of the body of His sons. Your body may be mangled in death, but God will take care of your body. You don't have to ever worry about your body.

God will take care of your body. He gave it to you, and then He will take care of it until he takes your soul. So not only did he go to Pilate, the second thing he did was he prepared the body. Verse 59, when Joseph had then taken the body, he wrapped it in a linen cloth. This is the second thing that Joseph did He prepared the body Mark says that he went out he bought a cloth, but he took the body down from the cross Himself maybe he maybe he had servants who did it, who knows.

If he did, he would have become ceremonial and clean. He may not have done that, quite likely did not. But he took a cloth and he began to roll the body of Jesus in the cloth. The Lord Jesus was not cremated, his body was treated with respect and care. This is a Christian view of the handling of a body at death.

There's this gigantic revolution moving through our culture today among the funeral homes. It began in the hearts of people who decided that the body means nothing. In Christianity, the body means something. You take care of the body. In paganism, you burn a body.

You destroy it. And we have to recognize that this is the culture that we live in. We live in a culture that does not understand the body or the grave. But here we see how one ought to treat a body, and that is with respect and with honor. Joseph does this before nightfall to keep the Sabbath.

The Apostle John tells us that he was also joined by Nicodemus. Remember Nicodemus in John chapter 4? That ruler who came in the night because he was afraid? Another one of those men who was afraid to be put out of the synagogue. And he came to the Lord Jesus Christ at night to ask him questions.

And the Lord Jesus Christ said, you must be born again. Nicodemus joined him. And the Bible says that he had purchased 100 pounds of spices in order to anoint the body, myrrh and the various kinds of burial spices that were used. And then the third thing that he did after treating the body, He laid His body in the tomb. Verse 60, And He laid it in His new tomb, which He had hewn out of a rock.

This is very significant. Here, Joseph of Arimathea has a tomb for himself, and he gives that tomb to the Lord Jesus Christ. So the Lord Jesus is now going to be buried in his tomb. And this is The following of the pattern that we have seen many times already in the Gospels, where the Lord Jesus Christ uses a borrowed boat, a borrowed donkey, a borrowed room, and now the Son of God, who has no place to raise His head, is buried in a borrowed tomb. Here he is humbling himself, becoming poor that we might be made rich.

It was a new tomb. John Gill says it was a new tomb because he's making all things new. He also says that he replaced Joseph of Arimathea in his tomb. Think about that for a minute. It's your tomb and somebody else is in it, and he's going to rise from the grave.

And this is the truth of the burial of the Lord Jesus Christ, that in His death we also have died, and in His resurrection we are also raised up. We were buried with Him in baptism. So when Jesus is in Joseph's tomb, The message for us and for Joseph of Arimathea is this, that Jesus Christ is going to take His place in your tomb. Jesus Christ is with His sons and daughters in their tombs. And Joseph places Jesus in his tomb, and Jesus is raised from the dead, and Joseph is there with him in his death.

Joseph will die, and he will enter into that very same tomb spiritually, and he'll be raised into glory. Because the Lord Jesus Christ came to taste death to bring many sons to glory. Joseph of Arimathea had material wealth, but he didn't have treasures in heaven until this time. And he had it, by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then the fourth thing that he did is he rolled a stone, a large stone, against the door of the tomb.

And then he departed. That's the fifth thing that he did. He left that tomb. It was the Sabbath and he would go and perform his duties. And then the next thing that we see at the tomb is the women, verse 61.

And Mary Magdalene was there and the other Mary sitting opposite the tomb. Now just picture this for a moment. Can you picture this in your mind's eye? Here you have Nicodemus, and you have Joseph of Arimathea, And they've been taking care of the body. And of course, the women were also helping with that.

But in this scene, they are sitting opposite the tomb. And there they are, they're watching the men who used to be their enemies, who are now their brothers. Can you imagine the astonishment it must have been for them? They'd been walking with the Lord Jesus. They'd been loving His words.

But did they know what was happening in the hearts of those men? How could they know? They were secret disciples for so long, and now they had come out, and they're there at the tomb. Think of the astonishment that must have gripped the hearts of these women as they saw these two enemies, former enemies of theirs, The ones who sent their Savior to the cross, and they're sitting across from the tomb. Now, after the resurrection, we'll see the very same thing happening.

They will be there at the tomb again. But who's there? It's Mary Magdalene, and then there's the other Mary. It speaks of, again, how women played a key role in the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Matthew 27, verse 59, as we considered last week, and many women who followed Jesus from Galilee, ministered to him, were looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, the mother of Zebedee's sons.

So, here in the previous scene in the crucifixion, the women are looking on from afar. The disciples have fled. John was at the cross, we know that. Where the rest of them were, from all we can tell, they fled. But the women are there.

And the women have had a significant ministry. And particularly as we learn more about them, we can see what that ministry might have been. First of all, there's Mary Magdalene. Now, she's mentioned by all the gospel writers. She was the very first person that Christ revealed himself to after the resurrection.

She got her name from where she was from. She was from the village of Magdala, hence Mary Magdalene. And there are many fanciful tales about this woman that have been told and that are in tradition. Dan Brown, the author of the Da Vinci Code, says that she was married to Jesus and they had children. There are many very corrupt and wicked things that are spoken of this woman.

But The real story of her life is that she was delivered from seven demons. You can read about it in Luke chapter 8. And she was so taken up with these demons that she sought refuge in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, one of the things that you notice about demonic possession is that in the incidences of demonic possession, There's no portrayal of immorality, but rather torment. Most people, when they hear the word Mary Magdalene, they think of immorality, don't they?

Now, but there's no indication that was really part of her life. But she was demonized. And demon possession in Scripture is always characterized by some form of agony, some form of self-destructive behavior, loneliness, a dark, anxious, joyless, painful existence. But interestingly enough, as far as I can tell, while the work of demons, I'm sure does lead to many forms of debauchery, including immorality, In the Bible, it's really torment that is the focus of demon possession. So, let me just propose to you, what we know about Mary Magdalene most explicitly from scripture is that she was a tormented woman.

That she fits the patterns of demon possession that we read about. It's interesting as well that she had seven demons. But you can imagine the self-destructive, anxious, horrible existence she had lived. Think about that for a minute, what had happened to this woman. And now, here she is, at the grave of the Lord Jesus Christ.

How did she get there? It says here that she had seven demons in Luke 8. Now remember when the Lord Jesus Christ told the story of the man who had cleansed himself, had swept his house clean, and then seven demons came back. Remember that? Is it possible that this is what happened to this woman?

That she had cleaned up her life. We don't know this for sure, but she does have seven demons, according to the pattern that Jesus spoke earlier. But whatever happened to her, she had been relieved of her demons. And she so insisted on staying close to the Lord Jesus at his death. And here you see an example of a woman who had been filled with anxiety, disappointment, hardship, probably self-destructive thoughts and behaviors.

And now she's with a heart of longing for her Lord. What a blessing it is. She's an example to every woman who has ever been in that kind of situation and who can be delivered and who can find themselves with their Savior who tastes death in order to bring them to glory. That's what we find here. And then there's Mary, the mother of James, and the mother of Zebedee's sons.

So these are the women that are there. We see the women's obedience to the Sabbath, as noted by Mark and in Luke. They were godly followers of Jesus. They were not casting off the law of God. Jesus did not teach them to quit observing the Sabbath.

He taught them to observe the Sabbath, and they were doing what he had taught them to do. And they recognized that they could only conduct their preparations after the Sabbath was over. So they made their preparations before, and then they observed the Sabbath, and then on the next day they were at the grave. And so their obedience to the Sabbath made them able to discover an empty tomb rather than a guarded tomb. While at the same time their leaders were unwilling to keep the Sabbath.

And then we find the sealing of the tomb. And this whole resurrection prevention program that the religious leaders try to engage in, in verses 62 to 66. The next day, So this is now the day after the Sabbath, Resurrection Day. The chief priests and the Pharisees, they gather to conspire against the Lord Jesus Christ in His grave. Now, it's important that we see that the next day, the day after the day of preparation, this is the Sabbath day.

So here what we find is that those who were chastising Jesus and His disciples for not keeping the Sabbath are now breaking the Sabbath. They're hypocrites to the core. They say, keep the Sabbath, but they don't do it themselves. And so they're actually breaking the Sabbath. They only keep the Sabbath when people are looking.

That's the deal. And their chief concern was the resurrection, verse 63. Sir, we remember while he was still alive how that deceiver said, after three days I will rise. So they continue with their diabolical testimony, calling Jesus a deceiver. They call him a demon.

They're speaking the same way of him again. And then you find Pilate who remains consistent with his character. He wants to please everyone. He's as slimy as slime gets. He says yes to whoever he can say yes to who will promote him.

And so he says yes to Joseph of Arimathea, and he says yes also to the Jews. And he tells them to secure the tomb as they desire. So they went and made the tomb secure, sealing the stone and setting the guard. So This was a Roman guard under the supervision of Pilate. And the stealing of the tomb was to warn those who wanted to tamper with it, not to tamper with it, on pain of death.

There's some indication that Roman law was that if you stole a body out of a grave, you would be put to death. So this would just heighten the level of scrutiny upon this grave. So they sealed the tomb, in the same way that you would seal like a letter, like a love letter. You take wax and you melt it in to the letter. It was the same type of sealing so that if it were ever broken, you could tell that someone had been in it.

Matthew Henry says this about their ceiling in the tomb, there was all the power of earth and hell combined to keep Christ a prisoner, but it was all in vain. It was all in vain. It would not work. It did not work. They didn't realize that all of their plans would have the reverse effect.

And it would actually prove His resurrection. And so in the next chapter, in Matthew 28, we learn that they needed bribery to try to secure the story. And they gave lots of money to them to keep the story. So he was buried with a rich man. This is the first step of the exaltation of Jesus Christ.

So there's the narrative. Christ. So there's the narrative. Now, this passage is focused on a grave. It is focused on a burial.

And so I want us to Just continue to think about what Scripture says about this burial. And so, this meaning of the tomb is what I'd like to focus on. And I would like to give you a number of meanings of this tomb. Number one, He reconciled us through His death. Colossians 1, 21 and 22.

His death, His tomb, is connected to reconciliation. And you were once alienated in enemies in your mind by wicked works. Yet now, he has reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and blameless and above reproach in His sight. This tomb means that you can be reconciled to God and be made holy. That's the first meaning of this tomb, that through death you were reconciled so that He would present you holy and blameless.

So His grave is an announcement of our holiness. Secondly, He hides us in His death. Colossians 3.1. For You died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, appears, then you will also appear with Him in glory.

Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth." He hides us in His death In the same way that Jesus Christ was in Joseph of Arimathea's tomb. And Joseph's life was hidden in that tomb. And He was raised with Christ. Our lives are hidden with Christ in God through His death. Number three.

I've already repeated this several times on purpose this morning. He tasted death. Hebrews 2, 9-13. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting for him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." So he tasted death for his children, taking the sting of death away.

Number four, He abolished death in His death. 2 Timothy 1, 2, Our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel. His death puts the death, death. He put the death, the last enemy, which is death. That's what the Bible teaches.

In 1 Corinthians 15 verse 13, we see it. In Revelation chapter 1, we read that He has the keys to death. In Revelation 20 verse 14, there will be a day when He will take death in Hades and he'll cast it into the lake of fire. All of this to take those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ to that place that's explained in Revelation 21, And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying.

There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away." So he puts death to death by abolishing it in his own death. And then number five, he is a mediator by means of his death. Hebrews 9, 15. Now Hebrews 9 is such a pivotal passage on this because it speaks of the nature of the Old Covenant and that the way that the sufferings and the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ forms the replacement of the old covenant. It's really a critical passage for this matter of death.

But in verse 15, we read this. And for this reason, He is the mediator of the New Covenant by means of death. So you have a mediator because of death. For the redemption of the transgressions under the First Covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance." So, in that grave is the story of your mediator. He became your mediator as he was in that grave, and then rose from that grave.

That mediator who is our advocate, that mediator who prays for us 24 hours a day. 24 hours a day the Lord Jesus Christ is praying for his saints. He's interceding. It was his death. It was this grave that gave us an mediator.

Number seven, his Death was an expression, a demonstration of His love. Romans 5.1. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Paul is painting this picture of redemption, of being justified, where you're standing in grace. It's like you're standing in the shower of grace, and you're just being saturated and covered in His grace.

And then he says in verse 7, For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, Yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His love toward us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. His death is an act of love so that we can stand in grace and one man died for it. Number eight, His death teaches us how to live every day. Romans 6, 1.

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death.

Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him.

For the death that He died, He died once for all. But the life that He lives, he lives to God. Likewise, you also. Reckon yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your moral body, that you should obey its lusts.

And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. So while the death of Jesus Christ is meant to teach us that He tasted death to us, it doesn't end there. It also requires a moral obligation of us that we walk in newness of life, that we no longer present the members of our bodies to unrighteousness. His death should remind us not that we care nothing about the way we live, but that we care everything about the way we live. That we care about what we do with every single member of our body.

His dead body in the grave should remind us that He suffered that death so that we might live and that the members of our bodies would be committed to the works of life and that we would not do the things that contradict what He has told us to do. So His death teaches us how to live every day. His death teaches us to deal with our members, because we've died, we've been hidden with Christ in God, and we should no longer give the members of our bodies to unrighteousness. Number nine, His death made us a family, made us fellow citizens of the household of God, bringing the Gentiles, us, into the fold, making peace, being made into a building, into a temple, into a family, into a body. Ephesians 2.13.

Now Christ Jesus, but now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off, had been brought near by the blood of Christ, or not to the death yet. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one. He has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, that is the law of commandments, contained in ordinances, so as to create in himself one new man from the two, making peace, verse 16, that he might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, therefore putting to death the enmity." It was through his death and the power of God working upon him to raise him that made us a family. Verse number 10, We are conformed to his death. Philippians 3, 7.

But what things were gained to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet, indeed, I also count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings being conformed to His death." So we are conformed to his death. We died with him. Number 11. His death is a sign of our deliverance.

2 Corinthians 2, 3. Yes, we have the sense of death on ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us, in whom we trust that He will deliver us. And that is deliver from death. His death is a sign of our deliverance. Again, no need to fear for our body.

What anyone might do to our body, what any persecution, what any accident, what anything might happen. The fearing for our body, here the Lord Jesus Christ, gives us His own death as a sign that God raises the dead. Number 12, His death brings life. 2 Corinthians 4, 10, always caring about in the body of the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always being delivered to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

So then death is working in us, but life in you." His death brings life. Number 13. His death shows the secret of usefulness of life. Philippians 2, 8. He, being found in appearance as a man humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death, on the cross.

Therefore, my beloved, as you've always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation in fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life. It's the secret to our usefulness. That He was obedient to the point of death, and therefore that we ought to work out our salvation.

The death of the Lord Jesus Christ is here before us. Thomas Watson gave us nine evils that the death of Christ puts an end to. Death will put an end to the believer's sins. Death will put an end to the believer's temptations. Death will put an end to the believer's fears.

Death will dry up the believer's tears. Death will put an end to all our natural imperfections. Death will put an end to the imperfections of grace. Death will put an end to a weary pilgrimage. We have to think rightly about death.

And the death of Jesus Christ helps us to get our thoughts right about it. Because in His death we learn so much about our own lives, we also learn about that ultimate death that will someday overtake us. Thomas Watson said, though death is a bitter cup, There's sugar at the bottom. It's the believer's best friend, for it brings him to Christ, which is far better. Which is why Paul said, I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.

So there you have it, the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why are we here? Why are we at the death of the Lord Jesus Christ? Last week as we gathered, together we were at the cross. And before that we were in the garden.

And before that we were in the garden. And before that we were in the upper room. But here today is a different day. We are in the tomb with the Lord Jesus Christ. And so my question for us today is, why are we here?

Why are you here? What does this death need to teach you today? Is there anything that maybe you've forgotten? Is there anything that you've lost touch with? Is there anything that you need to recover through just contemplating this death of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In just a few moments, we are going to proclaim His death. And we're going to keep doing that until He comes as we gather together as a people. So this matter of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, it forms the heart of why we gather. Because our Savior died, and He was raised from the dead. And when we gather, The pinnacle of what we proclaim is that He died and that we drink a cup of blessing, that we remind ourselves of the greatness of His salvation, of the beauty of His holiness upon us, of the fact that we were buried with Him in baptism, that we died and our lives were really hidden with Christ in God.

And there's no reason to fear anything in this world at all. Not even one thing really. Because God is sovereign over all of these things. And so, we will do what the Lord Jesus Christ said we should do in the upper room. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes." And that's why we're gathered here today.

Would you pray with me? Oh Lord, your son, your only son whom you sent, your only son who took upon all of our shame, every shameful thing that we deserved a punishment for, He was punished for. Every lie, everything we've ever done, O Lord, you have covered in your Son. Lord, you brought Him to death so that we would see how impossible our salvation is without You. Oh, thank You, Father, for so great a salvation.

And Lord, I pray that as we gather together in this church, that we would be a people who would so beautifully, so happily, so soberly, all at the same time proclaim your death until you come. And this would be the heart of all that we are and all that we do as a church. Make this, O Lord, our legacy. Amen.