Turn in our Bibles to Isaiah 53, Isaiah 53, and then on to John chapter 19. Let's stand and hear the word. Isaiah 53, again, we return to this chapter, which is a prophecy of the sufferings of Christ, beginning in verse 7. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before a shearer's silence, so he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment. And who will declare his generation? He was cut off from the land of the living. For the transgressions of my people, he was stricken. And they made his grave with the wicked, but with the rich at his death. Because he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Now we turn to John chapter 19. We begin at verse 38, the narrative of the burial of Christ. 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 100 pounds. And 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. The grass withers, the flower fades, the word of our God endures forever. This morning, we continue on. John chapter 19. Next week, we'll be taking a break, turning to the Gospel of Luke, chapter two, to study the narrative of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. And we'll turn back to John, actually, I'll be away for a week, and Dr. Ryan McGraw will be preaching. Next week, Pastor Ian Hamilton. And then we'll pick up again in the Gospel of John on January 13th, I believe. January 13th. So it's going to be a bit of a break. And we're at the moment of the last part of the humiliation of Christ. It'll take a little while till we get to the narrative of the glory of the resurrection of Jesus. But the Lord willing, we will get there. Before we turn to this text, a little reminder about preaching and what it is and how to listen. Particularly the foundational idea of narrative preaching. God gave us stories. He has communicated to us in the Scriptures, and very often in the Scriptures, by capturing in narrative form, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, historical events. And sometimes we have a tendency to want to do the following. What we want to get to very quickly is the spiritual lessons that those events might hold for us. Now, we can never divorce the spiritual lessons from the events. But we want to sometimes, as it were, get around Jesus himself and get some life lessons. But we should be thinking this instead, that these things were written so that you might believe. And where we need to begin is with the events in the text. Today it's going to be the burial of Jesus, the historical reality that Jesus' body was buried. and to gaze upon Christ for the sinner, because he's the one we need. And as we go on in the series, we'll look at Christ risen for us. And God gives the details of all these events for a reason. They're inspired details. And here in the burial of Jesus, that we would gaze upon Jesus dead and buried for us. And the main reason for the Word is that you would know, and knowing that you would believe in Jesus. And as John says in John 19 and verse 35 and 20 and verse 31, and then in 1 John 5, 13, he says particularly, these things are written that you may believe and keep on believing. You need the regular preaching of Christ and Him crucified. You need the Word. You need the narratives. You need these words To be implanted in you, you need to know the Scriptures. Again, sometimes we want to move on too quickly, make this relevant for me, but we never stop to gaze at what God actually has said first to us. And here's the thing. If we don't understand the plain narrative, and if it does not to some degree move us deeply, then it will be unlikely that we will be changed later. The power of the gospel comes in knowing the gospel, in knowing Jesus Christ and what he has done for us. The word needs to get in you. It needs to be hidden in your heart again. You need to receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your soul, James writes. And the word is these words on the page, John, today John, 19, 38 to 42, the burial of Jesus. and you need to get this word in you and to understand it. And this is the first step, and this is the first goal in preaching. And only then, when the history of redemption is deeply rooted in you, then only then will you be able to live out of what you have learned concerning Jesus, live out of your union with Christ, to learn the implications. And so our outline's gonna be simple, the burial of Jesus Christ, and then the implications for disciples of Jesus Christ. The event, and the implications, particularly implications for your discipleship, what it means to follow Jesus Christ, and then for your own burial one day. Because unless Christ returns, you too, like Jesus, will be buried. Well, the burial of Jesus Christ. It's clear that Jesus died, that is the testimony of the Gospels. Verse 18, they crucified him. We read of his crucifixion, verse 30, We read that Jesus received the sour wine. He said, it is finished, and bowing his head, he gave up his spirit. Verse 31, the bodies could not remain on the cross on the Sabbath day. And when Jesus was examined by the soldiers sent by Pilate, when they came to Jesus, the soldiers, they saw that he was already dead and they did not break his legs. For one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. The drumbeat of John chapter 19 is that Jesus died. And it's recounted to us again and again in detail. The detail is such that John says, and he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you may believe. Jesus died. He died for our sins according to the scriptures. Truly and completely dead is the eyewitness report. And dead for sinners, John would have you say, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. But the events immediately following the death of Jesus cement and further communicate that Jesus really died. In verse 38 and verse 39, first we are introduced to two characters and their interest in Jesus. The first one is Joseph of Arimathea. So after this, after Jesus bowed his head, he gave up his spirit, he was found to be dead, his side was pierced, blood and water came out, John testifies. After this, Joseph of Arimathea, Being a disciple of Jesus, he is interested in something. Now, he comes from Arimathea. It's a town mentioned in secular history. It's mentioned here in the Scriptures. It is some distance from Jerusalem, but this man, Joseph, we know that he was a prominent member of the Sanhedrin Council. He was a man who was deeply rooted in the promises of the Old Testament Scriptures. The other Gospels tell us he was waiting for the kingdom of God. We also know from the other Gospels that when the Sanhedrin made their final recommendation to have Jesus executed, that he had not consented to their decree, that he believed Jesus to be innocent. Now this man, Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy man, secretly, out of fear of the Jews, did something, in a moment that he'll show you, That fear did not consume him completely. He quietly went to Pilate. He apparently, because of his stature, had some access to Pilate. He asked that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So he came. And think of this. He took the body of Jesus. This is a profound statement. That means he went to the cross. And he extracted the nails from his hands and his feet. And he took the limp, lifeless, bloody body of Jesus of Nazareth down from the cross. That's what he came to do. Second character is Nicodemus. And yes, it's the same Nicodemus from chapter three who came to Jesus by night You ever have someone that was in your life, and then you lose contact, you lose touch, and you wonder what happened to them? There's a sense in which the Gospel of John, Nicodemus is that person. He does show up again in chapter seven, and we have some sense that he's interested in defending Jesus. In chapter three, we know that Jesus spoke to him concerning his need, his deep spiritual need. You must be born again. He was the first human being ever to hear the words, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Nicodemus was the recipient of this message. But in John chapter three, we don't know what happened. Where did he go? Do we know if he believed? Now here in John chapter 19, the answer comes. Joseph of Arimathea, together with Nicodemus, knowing that their city and their council and their Roman rulers had crucified and condemned Jesus, both as a competitor against Caesar and as an imposter and a blasphemer, now they publicly identify themselves with Jesus Christ. And Nicodemus also comes to help Joseph take Jesus down from the cross. Nicodemus also came. He brought a mixture of myrrh and aloe, about 100 pounds. And he helped Joseph, surely together perhaps with some of their servants, prepare the body of Jesus for burial, wrapping him with fine linen cloths, interspersing those cloths with the expensive spices in order that what would soon begin to happen, or so they thought, for Jesus was preserved from corruption, They expected him to decay in the grave. So they buried him. They buried him in Joseph's new tomb. They buried him with a rich man in his death. This is staggering. Jesus is still fulfilling prophecy, even though he is dead. And they buried him in order that we would know again from the Scriptures that he was truly dead. that they handled his lifeless body. They shrouded him in his grave clothes and they brought him to the grave. And so there Jesus was. The grave was nearby because they had not much time before the sun would set for the Sabbath. In the strange providence of God, the interesting providence of God, buried by two men, Nicodemus also thought to be a member of the same people. Two members of the Sanhedrin gently, quietly take the body of Jesus. They bring him to a garden, which will be important later. Reminds us of the first garden where God said in the day that you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will surely die. And the second Adam is laid to rest in the garden in a new tomb with a rich man in a rich man's tomb. fulfilling all prophecy, truly dead and now buried. Why the scene? So that you would understand your salvation in Christ. The fullness of it. The irony is that Jesus suffered the full spiritual realities of death and separation from God on the cross. When he said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus there as the sin bearer was experiencing, the one who became sin for us, separation from his Father as the mediator on our account, for us. And so he suffered there all the spiritual realities of the sentence of death. And when he said, it is finished, it was finished, he completed that. And when he died, Father, into your hands I commend my spirit, his spirit went to glory. He said to the thief on the cross, today you will be with me in paradise. But his body goes to the grave. His body goes to the grave. And so Christ, as a true man, suffers all the realities of death, the full realities, the physicality of the end of a heartbeat, of the end of respiration, and of his body being taken up by others, limp and lifeless, and carried to the grave. We confess this regularly. He was crucified, dead, and buried. Remember, Bobbitt writes, the state of death in which Christ entered when he died was essentially as much a part of his humiliation as his spiritual suffering on the cross. And in both, together, he completed his perfect obedience for us. Now, what are the implications of this simple scene? The discipleship implications of Christ buried The first thing is that it helps you think about the radical nature of conversion, what it means to be a Christian. The Apostle Paul in Romans chapter six tells us that we, he talks about there the doctrine of union with Christ. And he says that we, actually throughout his epistles, there's this sort of language, that we were crucified with him. that we were buried with him in baptism, and that we were raised with him to newness of life. He actually says this twice. He writes both to the church at Rome and to the church at Colossae, Romans chapter 6 and Colossians chapter 2. Dead and buried. The Apostle Paul believed this to be an important part of Christian meditation, both on the finished work of Christ and its impulse to be in union with Christ. And some people think that conversion, and this is popular, it's very popular right now in American evangelicalism, it has been for decades, that you can be in Christ, you can believe in Christ, that you can be converted, but there is no necessary change of life. That life could look the same before you profess Jesus and after you profess Jesus. That there's no massive change in conversion. And often, sadly, the lives of many who profess faith in Jesus Christ bear the evidence that there hasn't been a change. That there hasn't been a change. But how did Paul understand this scene? Again, if we turn to Romans chapter six for a moment, he understood it to be worthy of the believer's profound consideration. He says this. Do you not know that as many of us, Romans 6, 3, as we're baptized into Jesus Christ, we're baptized into his death. Therefore, we were buried with him through baptism into death. Just that just believers, they're important to their understanding of their union with Christ in his work for us and on our behalf. Now, if you read Romans chapter six and you keep going, there's two parallels. There's our union with Christ and his death and burial. And then there's our union with Christ in His resurrection. And we're going to focus more on that theme as we come to the resurrection of Jesus. But I want to focus and zero in on this idea of union with Christ in His death and His burial. There's an argument here. It says that the law condemns us all because we're sinners. It declares you deserving of death, and every sin you commit reminds you of this connection. But when you consider the burial of Jesus, and you stop to consider that you were buried with Him in baptism, and I don't think Paul is first here talking about water baptism, but he is talking about our union with Christ, with the language of baptism, pointing to regeneration, the work of the Holy Spirit. When you see Christ and consider Him, crucified, dead, and buried. As you meditate on the reality of Him fully and completely bearing the penalty of sin for you, it should help you understand that in His full and complete bearing of the full penalty all the way to the grave, that He has set you free completely from both the penalty or the condemnation that is due to you for sin, and the power of sin, in that he drank the full cup. He experienced the full penalty in your place, all the way to burial. And so you see him there, Christ dead for you, the one who became sin for us, completely identifying with sinners. That's what Paul goes on to say in verse six, knowing 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. In other words, the reality that Jesus was crucified, dead, and buried, that he pays the full penalty in his flesh, means the full liberty of the believer through the Lord Jesus Christ from all the penalty of sin. And he's saying that when you come to Christ by faith, your old sinful self, what Paul also calls the old man or the old self, has been crucified, dead and buried. Your old self, your old identity, what you once were outside of Christ is dead and buried, disposed of, gone six feet under. The old self, tied to the first Adam, is buried. Again, verse 11. Likewise, you also reckon yourselves, meditating on the death and burial of Jesus, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to Christ. And this is where the resurrection parallel comes through Jesus Christ, our Lord. The burial of Jesus for the apostle is the signal, the signpost, the ground for which the believer gazes upon and considers himself or herself to be dead to sin. That sin's dominion, the old self, is gone, crucified, dead, and buried with Christ. James Boyce, a true believer in Jesus Christ, has died in him to his past life and his past self, and has been permanently removed from the dominion of sin and death. And the burial of Jesus is the seal on this reality, and you were buried, Paul says, with him. And you see the finality of the death of Christ. The certainty of the death of Christ is for you the certainty of the death of sin in you, the dominion of sin over you, the penalty of sin against you. He was crucified, died, and was buried. If that's true, your life should be different. after you come to Christ than it was before. Not only that you can reckon yourself dead to sin, but that means that the dominion and power of sin has been broken by the sin bearer, Jesus Christ. And by necessity, Paul goes on to say, he goes on to say, how can we who died to sin live any longer in it? So when you think of your conversion, think of the death, the crucifixion, the dead, and the burial of Jesus, and be assured of the finished work of Jesus Christ in crushing sin's power and removing its penalty. Now, a second thing, a second focus, a second implication. You're gonna die one day unless Christ returns first. Children, You're gonna die one day. All of us will die. Again, unless Christ returns first. In America, we don't like to think about this. We really don't. And it's actually, there's a certain proud stubbornness about this. We don't give up. You ever hear someone says, you hear someone's diagnosed with cancer, and everyone says, you're gonna beat it. And I always think, the statistics aren't great. you're probably gonna die from it. You may be cured, there's more and more medical advances, and in the kind providence of God, people sometimes live many years after cancer break. Particularly, sometimes there's cancers we know, pancreatic cancer, liver cancer, brain cancer. Again, God in his mercy, some people are healed, but very often when you have that, it doesn't matter how many people say you've been treated, it could be that God is saying it's time for you to come home. We can't beat death. We're fools to think we could. In our nation, we spend more on healthcare per person than any nation in the world. Don't have the highest life expectancy. Not even close, interestingly. But it doesn't matter how much we spend, we all still die. We die. The wages of sin is death. It's coming. We die old, we die young, we die in car wrecks, we die in cancer, we die in our sleep. And you're gonna die. What will happen to you when you die? Well, the Lord willing, well-meaning friends and family will take your body. After it shuts down, whether that's suddenly or slowly, The Bible says that your soul will depart, it's appointed for man once to die, and then the judgment, and you will immediately be in the presence of God. But your body, your body will need to be taken care of. What will happen to it? Well, it will be buried. Now, a little aside here, against the practice of cremation. Cremation is rooted in paganism. Christians who follow Christ from the very beginning of the Christian church. As a matter of fact, the ancients wondered at Christians because of how they cared for the dead. That there was a care for the body. It was strange to a pig. They're dead, why does it matter? Now, if somebody is cremated, or I say this quickly, or died in a fire, or was drowned at sea and their body was lost, surely they'll also come to the resurrection. That's not a problem. We're talking about best practice, not what God can do in His gracious resurrection power. Christians followed Christ when they were buried. They followed the example of Abraham who buried Sarah. Abraham himself who was buried, and Moses who was buried by God, and David who was buried in a tomb. And they did so in the hope of the resurrection, believing that the body that was laid to rest in the grave and burial would rise again from the dead. And they followed the example of Joseph and Nicodemus and Christ himself in his own burial. And in 2,000 years of church history, one of the marks of Christianity was simple burial, not extravagant, not the tombs of the pharaohs of Egypt with all these things, hoping that in the afterlife you can take them with you. You won't take anything with you. But the reality that God made you and gave you a body, and that body bears the image of God, and that is to be buried. Westminster Shorter Catechism has this great phrase, what happens to believers after their death, and it says, our bodies, still united to Christ, do rest in the grave until our resurrection. That's how we think about burial. What will happen to your body? Well, friends, family, or maybe strangers will wash you. They will also wrap you in some sort of grave clothes. They'll dress you. They will put you in a nice box or a plain box. And then you, too, will be in a grave. And it's likely that I might be there speaking, or maybe the Lord will take me first. And we will all gaze upon another burial. And this often makes us afraid. We think of the horror of the grave. We think of facing eternity. And the world is increasingly trying to, you know, you go to funerals and they call them now celebrations of life. There's nothing you can do to paper over the last enemy, which is death. And in our consciences we are hardwired because we're made in the image of God. to know that there's something that is intruded, which is the curse and the penalty against it, which is why when people die, we weep. Even people we love, even people who have gone in Christ. You ever had the death of a loved one? I remember when my father died years ago now, sitting in the front pew with my children under my arms, just looking at them, realizing he was gone, and you weep. You don't even know where it comes from. powerful reaction to the reality of death. We're wired to live, to pursue life, to plan, we want to save for the future. But lurking in the shadows, no matter who it is, how rich you are, Steve Jobs died of liver cancer. With all the money and the technology in the world, death would come. The grave comes. And all know that that is a dark day. The remarkable truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ is this, that Jesus went there for us. He went to the grave, that his body was buried. The writer of the Hebrews says, but we see Jesus, and this is the importance of knowing the narrative. 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. And he tasted it in the grave. He continued under the power of death for a time, having been buried. And so for you, the believer, Christ died your death. Amen. And Christ was buried. for your burial, your burial. And he took the full bitterness of death, the whole thing. You ever hear that little phrase, sleep in Jesus? You walk through a graveyard near where my father is buried, there's actually the grave of a little boy who died when I was in first grade. He was a friend of mine. And you often see on children's graves, sleep in the arms of Jesus. Why can we use that language? Why can we look at the grave and all of its natural horrors and say these words, which are just thrown around, rest in peace, only the believer can? Why can we say rest in peace? Because we, by faith, are united to one who was crucified, dead, and buried for us. And he took the fullness of the curse, every bit. So that when we die, we can say I'm asleep in Jesus. And my body will rest in the grave till the resurrection. Parents, you've had children, you know this happens, you're on a long, busy day. And maybe a long trip home and the kids, you're talking with them, your little ones, and then they finally fall asleep, maybe in the car while you're carrying them. And what happens? They wake, you get home, they don't even wake up. You take them on their shoulders, on your shoulders, and you carry them to their room. And you might even change them into another set of clothes. And then you might tuck them in, and they never knew. And then when the sun rises again, you go into their room, and you might say, it's time to wake up. It's time to wake up. Your father's here. Now this is what it means to be united to Christ in your death and your burial with the hope of a resurrection. Again, this is why you need to know the details of the stories God gave, the true stories concerning his son Jesus Christ and everything he has done for us. One writer, he drank the cup of suffering to the last drop. tasted death and all its bitterness in order to completely deliver us from the fear of death itself. We jump off into the resurrection and we say, oh grave, where is your victory? But when you say that, remember Christ buried for the sinner. Let's pray. Lord our God, we have gazed upon the burial of the one who conquered the grave. We pray that as we do so, We would both recognize what it means to be set free from the penalty and power of sin through the finished work of Jesus Christ. And then, Lord, as we either through the passing of years or by sudden sickness or calamity find ourselves either gazing upon the grave of another or soon contemplating our own passing. Lord, we give you thanks and praise. for a savior who has done it all for us, who was crucified, dead, and buried. And then he arose again from the dead. Lord, we pray that you would assure us, even now, of our union with him. And then, Lord, we pray that if there's anyone here that is facing death alone, would no one who's gone before to take its sting or bitterness. Well, we pray that if anyone here is yet in unbelief, that even now they would close with Christ, the one who died, was buried, and rose again for sinners. We pray in his name. Amen.