Luke 23:50-56

Transcript

00:00:00:21 – 00:00:16:30
Clint Loveall
Friends, thanks for being with us. Thanks for closing out the week with us and the Gospel of Luke as we also come to the close of kind of a a a scene in the narrative, the penultimate how how’s that word the next to last?

00:00:16:31 – 00:00:19:34
Michael Gewecke
It’s great. I love scene Ultimate. That’s good.

00:00:19:39 – 00:00:48:19
Clint Loveall
Today, the burial of Jesus. We have been walking this week through the crucifixion narrative that concluded yesterday with the death of Jesus and the words into your hands. I commit my spirit. And now Luke gives us the follow up, the aftermath. Some interesting stuff in this. Again, in Luke in style, well written, dense and short, but some stuff that I think is interesting.

00:00:48:19 – 00:01:11:03
Clint Loveall
So read through it and then we’ll discuss it when we come back. Now, there was a good, righteous man named Joseph who, though a member of the council, had not agreed to their plan in their action. He came from the Jewish town of Matthew and was waiting expectantly for the Kingdom of God. This man went to pilot and asked for the body of Jesus.

00:01:11:07 – 00:01:33:02
Clint Loveall
Then he took it down, wrapped it in a linen cloth and laid it on a rock hewn tomb where no one had ever been laid. It was the day of preparation and the Sabbath was beginning. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments.

00:01:33:07 – 00:02:09:57
Clint Loveall
On the Sabbath day, they rested, according to the New commandment. So this is a character in Joseph of Arimathea that shows up in the Gospels who though ties to the religious leaders, is not among them in terms of their work against Jesus. Whether he is a follower of Jesus or friendly to Jesus is not completely clear, though certainly this act of service in this act of generosity would would tend to tip the scales, I think, in favor of a follower.

00:02:10:06 – 00:02:44:46
Clint Loveall
And he goes to pilot, he makes a case for the body. He puts that body in a place where no one had ever been a new tomb or an unused tomb. There is interesting Lee here. There is no mention of the stone when we get to Easter there, that will be mentioned. But Luke doesn’t in his sort of sparse telling of the story, doesn’t even mention that part.

00:02:44:51 – 00:03:23:40
Clint Loveall
And really Michael, you know, fairly anti of here Jesus body is left on the cross there is this man who comes and gets it the women are there again because as we’ve we’ve had that conversation this week that’s important to Luke and they are important to the story and then there’s some other details we’ll get to. But I think you know, this man, Joseph, they’re Matthew like Simon of Cyrene shows up, dropped into this story, plays this pivotal role, important for some reason to Luke that he so important that he names him.

00:03:23:45 – 00:03:32:10
Clint Loveall
I don’t know that we know anything about him or what happens to him following this. But an interesting twist in the story.

00:03:32:15 – 00:03:54:34
Michael Gewecke
I think that I was going to go directly to Simon as well. I think that it’s important that we recognize that in the story of Jesus’s death, it is at this moment an unexpected moment, to be honest, that we have the introduction of new characters. It would not have surprised us if Peter made an appearance, as we’ve seen Peter multiple times throughout the Book of Luke.

00:03:54:34 – 00:04:17:00
Michael Gewecke
But now we’re going to have Simon, who I think as we mentioned in that text, in that story, I’ll maybe drop that in the description in the event that you’d like to learn more about his part in this story. But, you know, he came from a foreign land. He would have represented a group of people who would not have been first on the list of notability at the time.

00:04:17:00 – 00:04:35:11
Michael Gewecke
So I think there was an emphasis that would have appealed to Luke. And that I think is fascinating. Clint, as we turn to a text like this here today, that the individual who is a good, righteous man and there’s almost this is almost like a disclaimer, though he was a member of the council, he hadn’t agreed with their plan of action.

00:04:35:11 – 00:04:58:57
Michael Gewecke
The idea being he was someone in the inner circle, but he was someone who stood outside of their intention, someone who had seen Jesus for who he was. And and I think that this is a really notable turn the story because the person that we just had previous, if you remember the study from yesterday, the people at the cross, we have the idea of the crowd.

00:04:58:57 – 00:05:20:34
Michael Gewecke
Who knows what they’ve done. We’ve got the Romans, Centurion. We’ve noted so many times how the religious leaders are the ones implicated for this rising action against Jesus. I think it’s really, really notable that even amidst all of this, the first introduction that we have following Jesus’s death is a member of the council who had not agreed to their plan.

00:05:20:34 – 00:05:43:37
Michael Gewecke
And actually, I almost think that this is Luke pointing out that even in the midst of the leaders that we’ve been looking at this whole time, there were those who stood on the side of the kingdom of God. There’s even in Luke’s telling of this story, there’s room for every single circle. There’s there’s someone from every vantage that saw the truth of who Jesus was.

00:05:43:37 – 00:06:07:43
Michael Gewecke
And I just think how quickly Luke transition into this good and righteous man who was a member of the council, but yet he didn’t stand with the council. That that to me speaks volumes of who Luke is and what he wants us to know that the gospel really is universal. Even the people seeking to kill Jesus had people in their rank who were good and righteous and stood outside of that.

00:06:07:48 – 00:06:44:55
Clint Loveall
Yeah, and I don’t think you can credit Luke alone for this, because I think this is some extent this is built into the gospel itself, but it is almost in these last several chapters, whoever we least expect to see, that’s who shows up. A Simon of Cyrene, a centurion who proclaims Jesus innocent and now a member of the Council of all of the guesses you might take about who’s going to come and be responsible for Jesus body and who’s going to procure a tomb.

00:06:45:00 – 00:07:18:29
Clint Loveall
And take care of those details. A member of the Jewish Council would be your last guess. There’s just no way you can see that coming. And again, that’s not Luke. Luke doesn’t do that. But I think I do think Luke is drawn to those details. I think Luke loves the outsider. I think Luke deeply appreciates the Gospels, tendency to involve surprising people and I think we see a highlight of it here.

00:07:18:34 – 00:07:46:46
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, I agree. I think that there’s a sense too, in which as we turn our attention to the text, I think we also see here that pilot and this is, as you’ve said, this isn’t the only excuse me, this isn’t the only place where we see the story go this way. But it says something about pilot that he’s willing to allow Jesus to be buried in a place of honor.

00:07:46:58 – 00:08:11:13
Michael Gewecke
Jesus’s death is not one of honor. And that’s notable. But the fact that when Joseph comes to pilot a pilot sees no problem in allowing Jesus to be buried in a in a way that is respectful of both the Jewish tradition as well as respectful, of course, as Jesus is the son of God. That that’s the lens that Luke has us looking through into a story like this.

00:08:11:18 – 00:08:35:43
Michael Gewecke
And the idea that when it comes to Jesus, his burial, it is here into a tomb that no one has ever been laid. This is maybe a strange detail for those of us who live in the 21st century where we are comfortable with the idea of a person being buried and we have a whole set of processes that happen, you know, when you have to dig the space for that.

00:08:35:43 – 00:09:00:54
Michael Gewecke
And then there’s the vault in which the tomb is placed and all of these things. In the ancient world, it was not uncommon, especially for those who would be of lower economic status, to be buried in a place with many different people. That that happens in many different cultures and times and places. And so the idea that no one’s been laid in this place is a symbol, a sign of reverence, of honor, even a status.

00:09:00:54 – 00:09:15:57
Michael Gewecke
And in this case, Jesus is a for that to a afterlife status as it relates to his body, that he clearly was not given at the last moments of his life. He was executed as a criminal, and now he’s going to be buried in a place of honor.

00:09:16:12 – 00:09:41:33
Clint Loveall
I don’t think we know this, Michael. So I want to be I want to be clear this involves some speculation, but in in Jesus day, the idea is that contact with a corpse makes one unclean. And there’s a period of on cleanliness that has to be waited out. It is it is possible. And again, this is speculation. I think people argue both sides of it.

00:09:41:38 – 00:10:09:30
Clint Loveall
It is possible. Then in doing this for Jesus body, Joseph sacrifices his Sabbath day the next day. In other words, he may not have been able to do some of the things that like go to the temple, for instance. He may have had to go through the period of cleanliness in order to do that. And and that, yes, maybe that mattered for Joseph, maybe it didn’t.

00:10:09:43 – 00:10:44:33
Clint Loveall
But what is fascinating about that is that, again, we see this idea that by Jewish law, serving Christ may have given the ritual designation of unclean and the banter we’ve had between clean and unclean, between Jewish and the religious leaders, between this this full faith that Jesus tries to enact and this kind of more ritual mystic application of it from his enemies.

00:10:44:33 – 00:11:16:16
Clint Loveall
And I think is very interesting here. And then speaking of Sabbath, I’ve always been I’ve always been struck by this this last phrase on the Sabbath. They rested according to the commandments. And I think it is amazing here that given the situation that they follow the law after execution and without exception, to some extent, that’s their ritual, that’s their pattern.

00:11:16:17 – 00:11:48:50
Clint Loveall
To some extent, they believe in it. And they they they put their faith and trust in it. But how painful it must have been to want to do this ministry for Jesus body, this work for Jesus body, and and have to be separated from that by the practice of their faith and the it has always struck me the discipline by which they they set that aside for another day and waited.

00:11:48:52 – 00:11:59:33
Clint Loveall
I think I don’t know what it does or doesn’t mean, other than they were very devout. But it is a it’s a it’s a fascinating part of the story to me.

00:11:59:38 – 00:12:18:31
Michael Gewecke
As is, I think, per your your your skill set. I think you see the very deeply human aspect of it. I’ve always read this section of the text as being another example of Yeah, and this is why you can know they didn’t steal Jesus’s body. I’m sure you know, it’s this sort of evidence that these are people of conviction.

00:12:18:36 – 00:12:44:33
Michael Gewecke
They stayed home on the Sabbath like they were supposed to. They weren’t out there doing some tricky thing, stealing Jesus’s body and burying it somewhere else so that they could conjure up this religious idea. And yes, I understand you say, hey, you’re a pastor in the Presbyterian Church, you’re reading these scriptures, your your bias to read that as evidence in their favor that’s completely granted that they are the ones who wrote this book.

00:12:44:33 – 00:13:08:01
Michael Gewecke
This is the story that they’re telling us. If you are want to disbelieve that, you’re free to do that. But there’s a sense in which the earliest generation of Christians, I think, did both from that very deeply human aspect. You just shared, Clint, the idea of look at these men and women who are faithful to execute God’s law in their life, even at the very death of Jesus.

00:13:08:06 – 00:13:41:29
Michael Gewecke
That’s the same kind of inspiration, of course, that they would share with the earliest generation of Christians who are facing real martyrdom and and really being sought out on the Sabbath and yet still taking time to go to worship, still putting themselves in harm’s way. And then I think there’s also a kind of a faith confidence building element to this to say that, hey, you can trust and have confidence in the witness that you’ve been given because the people who have wrote it and the people who are delivering it to you are people of faith.

00:13:41:29 – 00:13:57:54
Michael Gewecke
There are people of tradition, there are people of character. And you can see that even at the at the moment of Jesus’s life and death, they’re going to care for him as best as they can, but they’re also going to keep God’s will. They’re going to do what’s right, and they’re the kind of people, therefore, that you should be able to trust.

00:13:57:59 – 00:14:27:56
Clint Loveall
It brings us to an interesting part in the story, Michael. This is a false distinction because, Luke, I don’t think writes it this way. Keep in mind, there aren’t numbers in versus in the original. We added that later. That was not part of the original texts, but it from an interesting perspective, this is a dividing line. If you ask historians and people who aren’t of the faith, this is the part of the story.

00:14:28:01 – 00:14:59:17
Clint Loveall
This is the line that divides what everybody would believe and what it means to be a believer. Okay, The miracle stuff that Jesus does, the nonbelievers are going to have some difficulty with that. But the fact that he live, the fact that he preached, the fact that he had disciples, the fact that he moved around as an itinerant, the fact that he fought with religious leaders, the fact that he ended up on the cross, that’s only disputed by a few people.

00:14:59:22 – 00:15:24:59
Clint Loveall
I mean, realistically, most people are going to agree to the facts of that part of the story, or at least that those parts of the story are not. Even people who are not faith people are going to say, yeah, we can see that, that those kind of things happened, but this is the dividing line. This is the last part of the story that everyone could agree.

00:15:24:59 – 00:15:25:31
Michael Gewecke
On, right?

00:15:25:44 – 00:15:57:37
Clint Loveall
That that Jesus was dead and went into a tomb, that that is a dividing line. And it’s and it’s interesting, you know, that that’s 90% of the gospel. Right. And the 10% that comes next is what happens on the other side of that line. And I think, you know, just from a narrative standpoint, it is a significant moment to realize that we are now at the last part of the story that virtually everyone would agree on.

00:15:57:37 – 00:16:16:00
Clint Loveall
And what comes next is very much a dividing line. Yeah, that belongs to people of the faith. And that’s not a criticism of anybody. It’s it’s just it’s inherent in the way that the story unfolds. And this is the last thing which everybody would be on the same page.

00:16:16:04 – 00:16:43:39
Michael Gewecke
There’s something that I want to really emphasize in that, and that is that proportion. Let’s use 9010, whether that’s the exact number or not, it is certainly the majority of the text comes before the resurrection turn one thing I think we have to learn from that is that the nature and truth of the resurrection Luke does not believe needs to be contained in words following the resurrection.

00:16:43:39 – 00:17:19:17
Michael Gewecke
He believes that you need to be introduced to who Jesus is and who he was. Luke’s conviction is very clearly that if we understand the person Jesus, if we understand his teaching rightly, if we are able to see with eyes of faith the works that he did. Luke’s argument throughout this entire passage, this entire book has been to make the case that if you see who Jesus is, then you will know that He is not only the Son of God, but He is the called one whose came to be the turning point of history.

00:17:19:28 – 00:17:40:58
Michael Gewecke
If you see that in Jesus’s life, if you see that in his work, then at this moment, at this pivotal crossroads, you will be able to make the choice of whether you can take the journey or not. If you believe the first 90 of Jesus’s life as Luke presents it, then you’re prepared to take the step into the verse that comes next.

00:17:40:58 – 00:18:06:13
Michael Gewecke
And if not, I think it’s telling. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment. That may be the last point that you could travel with us along the journey and say, Yep, to this point you have religious people who are doing their religious duty, and that was the end of Jesus. Of course, those within the faith, those to whom Luke is writing and those to whom Luke is hoping will receive the book and be compelled by it.

00:18:06:18 – 00:18:20:12
Michael Gewecke
They see in it an invitation in their own life to take that step into through Sabbath and into the day that will follow. And of course, the question that lives there is what will you do when you get to that other day?

00:18:20:16 – 00:18:48:52
Clint Loveall
Yeah, and just very quick just to unpack that word so there’s no misunderstanding. When it says they rested, it meant it means they refrained from doing work. It doesn’t mean they were at peace. It doesn’t mean they were comfortable. All of the things that you would expect them to be feeling in the aftermath of Jesus being crucified within a day’s time, they are feeling shock, anguish, anger, all of the rest.

00:18:48:57 – 00:19:10:32
Clint Loveall
When it says they rested. That’s not talking about the character of their day. That’s talking about the Jewish restriction that those funeral tasks were not to be done on the Sabbath and they follow those things. So an interesting transition that Luke gives us to the next part of the story.

00:19:10:37 – 00:19:31:21
Michael Gewecke
That’s where we’ll leave it for today. We certainly glad that you would take the time to join us for a study like this, like this video, if it’s been interesting, thoughtful, helpful to you, that helps others find it in the future in the midst of their own study, of course, subscribe because we have a lot to come in the Book of Luke and then in studies afterwards until we see you next Monday.

00:19:31:33 – 00:19:32:07
Michael Gewecke
Be blessed.

00:19:32:15 – 00:19:33:01
Clint Loveall
Thanks, everybody.