An unmarked grave

And they made His grave with the wicked--but with the rich at His death, because He had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in His mouth. (Isaiah 53:9)

Have you ever heard of Richard Trevithick?  This British-born mechanical engineer and inventor, born in 1771, should be a lot more famous. Instead, he’s more likely to pop up on an episode of Jeopardy.

For the record, Trevithick constructed the first steam locomotive, an invention which made him a very wealthy man. Unfortunately, dubious business decisions cost him dearly — though others managed to make a pretty penny off his genius ideas — and he would die penniless in 1833 and was placed in an unmarked grave.

Probably more familiar to us is musical composer and conductor Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He passed away in 1791 at the age of 35 from rheumatic fever. Although he performed for kings and princes, he died penniless and was buried in a pauper's grave.

When Jesus died, He did not leave behind wealth or riches. He was the son of a carpenter, and tradition tells us that his father had died some time before Jesus was crucified. Instead of taking over the family business, Jesus became an itinerant preacher, going from town to town and village to village, presumably relying on charitable gifts of His followers for living expenses. This may explain why his brothers resented Him so--because it was left to them to support their families and their widowed mother.

By all rights, Jesus should have been buried in a pauper's grave (if He was buried at all).

The Romans that crucified Him would have been content to leave His body on the cross. Only criminals and enemies of the State were sentenced to die in this way. Their bodies were generally left hanging as a form of crime deterrence.

The Jewish leaders did not want their Passover celebration marred by the sight of crucified criminals left in public places. They wanted to take down the bodies, not to honor the dead, but so that their city would not be desecrated during the high holy week. Charles Spurgeon wrote, “Their consciences were not wounded by the murder of Jesus, but they were greatly moved by the fear of ceremonial pollution. Religious scruples may live in a dead conscience.”

The friends of Jesus were poor and needy. They would not have had the means to give Jesus a proper burial. However, John's gospel gives us a surprise account of two secret friends who came forward at the last minute.

After this, Joseph of Arimathea, being 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 the body of Jesus. And Nicodemus, who at first came to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. Then they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in strips of linen with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury. 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 there they laid Jesus, because of the Jews' Preparation Day, for the tomb was nearby. (John 19:38-42).

Both Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus were wealthy members of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish counsel. They had been dissenting voices at the trial of Jesus; when the Sanhedrin sentenced Jesus to death, these two men defended Him. Now that He was dead, their desire was to honor Him as they would honor royalty.

NT Wright points out the extravagant amount of sweet-smelling spice that Nidocumus brought. "A hundred pounds of spices: a hundred times the amount that Mary had poured over Jesus in Bethany (12:3), and that had caused people to grumble at the extravagance. It was the kind of quantity (and quality, for that matter) that you might use for a king."

Think about that for a minute. These men were described as secret followers of Jesus, yet they asked to take down His body so that it would not be desecrated, either torn apart by wild animals or mauled by men who rejected His message. 

Not only that, but they were willing to forego their ritual purification for the most important Jewish celebration of the year. Touching a dead body would make them ceremonially unclean, unfit to take the Passover. This did not matter to them. Honoring Jesus was more important than their ritual purification.

They were willing to get their hands dirty.

By all accounts, these rich men had many servants. They could have ordered others to take down the body and prepare it for burial. The Jewish custom at the time was that the body would be washed and then wrapped in linen with the spices in the folds of the cloth to cover the smell of decay. This was normally women's work. However, there is no indication that these men ordered servants to do this task for them. They appear to have done it themselves.

Nicodemus brought the extravagant gift of spices with which to wrap the body. Joseph offered an extravagant gift of a brand-new tomb that had never been used. Wiersbe points to John's gospel where it said the tomb was nearby to theorize that he'd had the tomb specially made just for Jesus. He speculates that since Joseph was wealthy, he could afford a tomb anywhere he wanted; so why would he want a tomb in the shadow of Golgotha (The Place of the Skull)? Aside from having to leave the city, Wiersbe says, any visitor to the gravesite would potentially be overwhelmed by the sight, sound, and smell of a public execution.

Another problem with this theory is that Joseph and Nicodemus were under time constraints. They had to hurry to get the body buried between 3 p.m. when Jesus died and sundown, which would begin the Jewish Sabbath. Unless Joseph hurriedly purchased a tomb already hewn out of the stone, there would not have been time to buy and build a new sepulcher.

What we do know is that the tomb was owned by Joseph and offered to Jesus. Many sermons are spoken calling this a "borrowed tomb." Jesus didn't own it, it was supplied to Him, and He didn't need it for very long, so He could give it back when He was done with it. 

There was a significant reason that the tomb had never been used. The Jewish rabbis would have been familiar with the Scriptural account of a dead man being revived when he came into contact with the bones of the prophet Elisha. We read about it in 1 Kings 13:20-21. 

If Jesus had been laid in a tomb containing ossuaries with bones of people who had died before Him, and come back to life, some Jewish mystics might have argued that those bones had belonged to a great prophet who came before Him. They would have denied the deity of Christ, saying that He had not raised Himself, but that He had been raised by another. Jesus Himself said in John 10:17-18 that He had the authority to lay down His life and to take it up again.

There will be more on the resurrection of the dead in future posts, God willing. For now, we must focus on the care that these two men bestowed, the cost to their reputation, and the confirmation that Jesus was in fact dead.

The care with which they treated the body of Jesus was on display for all to see. No longer could they be secretive in their devotion to Jesus. When Jesus had shed tears at the grave of Lazarus, the people said, "See how He loved him." Anyone who saw the actions of Joseph and Nicodemus would have said the same of them, that their love of Jesus was on full display.

The cost that these men incurred in this activity went beyond the extravagant purchase price of the spices and the tomb. There was a cost associated with following Jesus. They almost certainly forfeited their position in the Sanhedrin. They would have been shunned from the synagogue. As we saw with the blind man that Jesus had healed, their own families may have disowned them because of their devotion to Jesus. 

The confirmation of Jesus' death was of secondary importance, but was important, nonetheless. Having handled the body, these men confirmed that Jesus had in fact died. People don't bury live bodies. You don't throw someone you love in the ground and walk away. These were religious leaders of their day--they would not lie.

So, what can we take away from this passage? How can we apply it to our lives today? 

First, I think it is important to point out that we must be "all in" when it comes to our relationship with Jesus. We cannot long remain "secret saints." Eventually someone will call our hand on this issue, and we must come clean.

Second, I believe that we must be ready to roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty with the work God calls us to. Obedience is where the rubber meets the road. We can't delegate the work of Christ to someone else.

Finally, I think it is important to realize that everyone has blood on their hands. The blood of Jesus stains us all, for good or for bad. Either you had a hand in His crucifixion and death, or you will embrace Him for all eternity. Either you spat upon Him, lashed Him with whips, and drove the nails in His hands, or you knelt in obedience at the foot of the cross, asked for His forgiveness, and were covered by His blood.

"Thanks be to God for His inexpressible gift!" (2 Corinthians 9:15).