Luke 23, this is the story of
the burial of our Lord's precious body. That's what I entitled
it, a precious body buried. Psalm 116 verse 15 says, Precious
in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. Every one
of them, very precious to Him. And their death is precious to
Him. How much more? How much more
the precious death of God's Son? The Father never spoke aloud
for all to hear. He always spoke to the fathers
through the prophets. But, when His Son walked this
earth, not once, not twice, but three times, The Father could
not contain himself. So wonderful, so pleasing was
the Son to the Father. He shouted for all to hear, this
is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Everything about
the Son of God was precious to God, the Father. His heart, mind,
soul, and his body. A body, Scripture says. God gave
him. A body hast thou prepared me. Flesh and bones. Flesh and blood. Flesh of our flesh. Bone of our
bones. Yet a sinless body. No outward beauty in his body. None. No outward beauty. But he was altogether lovely. That tells us that beauty is
not really in the flesh. But it's in the spirit, or that
is, the character of the one who wears the flesh. His heart
was pure, large. It's said of Solomon, God gave
him largeness of heart. How much more? Our Lord Jesus
Christ. Meaning Solomon loved many people,
embraced many people, and called many people to himself. How much
more? Our Lord Jesus Christ. Loving,
merciful, pure, largeness of heart. His mind His mind, a pure
mind. Always thinking thoughts of mercy
and love and grace and thoughts of God and God's glory. Thinking
on others. Always. Never thinking of himself. Always. We're told to think on
things of others. That's what our Lord did. He
lived His whole life. Mind, heart, body and soul. for the glory of God and for
others. His hands, He had clean hands. I imagine at times His hands
were as dirty or dirtier than anybody else's hands, but they
weren't dirty at all. Dirt's not dirt. Sin's dirt. But our Lord's hands, were they
calloused? I'm certain of it. No one worked
harder than He did. But oh, those hands, always doing
good, always serving others. His feet. How beautiful were
his feet, though I imagine they were dirty as well, and calloused. But oh, those feet, always walking
in paths of righteousness for God's name's sake. So he was
well pleasing to the Father. His body, everything about him
was precious. Now when the Scripture says it
pleased the Lord to bruise him, It does not make that God took
any pleasure in seeing that body beaten and battered. You know,
we couldn't bear, we couldn't stand the thought of one of our
dear loved ones, that husband of yours, that dear wife of yours
being tortured and beaten, neither could the father. Was he angry? You know he was. However, when it says it pleased
the Father to bruise him, meaning it was God who purposed it all,
God who allowed it all, directed it all, though he himself did
not smite the blow, men were his whip, because God was making
his son to be sinned. punishing his son by his stripes
were healed. And it was the Father who had
men beat his son. But what it means by pleasing
him means the son's love and willingness and his sacrifice
to do such a thing for God's honor, to fulfill God's purpose,
pleased the father, highly pleased, highly pleased. So his body was
broken. That precious blood was shed
for the remission of our sin. That precious body was beaten
by whose stripes were healed. And then, after 33 years of hard
toil and labor and suffering, after being beaten and battered,
mocked and ridiculed, Our Lord, the Son of God, hanging
on that cross in one last great show of love and mercy and grace
and glory, praying for the ones who just tortured Him. Praying,
pleading, pleading for others, providing for those at the foot
of His cross while He hung there in pain. Calling on the Father,
crying unto the Father, my God, my God. And then, lastly, crying
with a loud voice, it's finished. And he bowed his head and laid down his life. He laid
it down, willingly, lovingly, voluntarily, victoriously. Finished transgression. The father
was satisfied, well pleased with such a sacrifice, well pleased. And the father, in great love and honor and respect
to the son, said, that's enough. He's done enough. I'm satisfied. It's enough. He's done enough
and enough has been done to him now. Do you know that crucifixion
was the worst form of death? Romans were cruel people. And it was the worst form of
death reserved for the worst criminals, for the worst, the
most wicked men and women on earth. Their bodies were mistreated
terribly, like they did our Lord. And then afterward, they would
often hang there for a while and mock and mocking and ridicule
for others to scalp and the bodies decayed. And then they were further desecrated
by throwing those bodies in a common grave. You know that? That's
why Calvary was called the Hill of the Skull, because there's
so many bodies buried. They were just these worthless
criminals The off-sky ranch society, they would further desecrate,
completely desecrate those bodies by throwing them in a common
grave and just burying them without any memorial, without any headstone,
without anything like that. But our God is not going to let
that happen to His son. That's what they did. He said,
it's enough. They've done enough. After our
Lord said, don't fear man, after they've killed the body, there's
nothing more they can do. Well, that's what He said. It's
over. It's over. They're not going to desecrate
this precious body. No, no, no. He's going to be
buried in honor. He lived in honor to the Father. He died in honor, though men
tried to put Him in shame. The nakedness and the shame that
he bore was really to his honor, wasn't it? He bore our shame. What an honor. How he honored
God. He lived in honor, he died in
honor, and the Father is going to see that he's buried in honor. An honorable death. He honored the Father with his
body all through his life. You know, we are given bodies
and we are told not to dishonor them, to not desecrate them. Don't you turn with me. Look
at 1 Corinthians 6. Go over there. 1 Corinthians
6. We are told not to desecrate
these bodies in any way. Romans 1 talks about people who
God gave over to uncleanness, to the lust of their own hearts,
to dishonor their bodies. He said he gives them over because
they don't glorify God, they're not thankful, they're vain in
their imagination, their hearts are darkened. They change the
glory of God and to change the truth into a lie of God gives
them over. to a reprobate mind and they
dishonor their bodies and do all manner of things. You see
what's taking place in our society. It's all, may I say it, as hell
has broken loose. It says they received this recompense
in themselves from dishonoring their bodies. 1 Corinthians 6
tells God's people to do differently. 1 Corinthians 6 verse 18. Flee fornication. 1 Corinthians
6 verse 18. Every sin that a man doeth is
without the body. Committed fornication, sinneth
against his own body. What? Know ye not that your body
is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have
of God, a body? You're not your own. Bought with
a pride. Mind, body, heart and soul, right? You're bought with a pride. Therefore
glorify God in your body and in your spirit. They both belong
to God. Don't desecrate your body. Don't do it. Our Lord didn't. He had a sinless body, precious
to the Father. Literally, without spot or blemish. Literally, he didn't desecrate
it, he honored God with his body. People ask about cremation all
the time, and the fact that God buried his son answers the question,
doesn't it? Do we need to talk about it anymore?
Every saint in the Old Testament was buried, right? Cremation
is a heathen practice. It desecrates and dishonors the
body. Every saint in the Old Testament
was buried. When the Lord took Moses, he
personally had a private burial. The Lord privately buried Moses'
body. There was contention evidently.
Satan wanted the body of Moses. What was he going to do with
it? Defile it and desecrate it. All through the Scriptures, men
I've got to go on, but evil men would take the bodies of believers
and behead them. And one time they did it to Saul
and Jonathan. And some men in Israel broke
through at night and got their heads and joined their bodies
with them and gave them an honorable burial. John the Baptist said,
Paul possibly cut his head off. God's not going to allow them
to do that to his son. No, he can't be desecrated. He
can't be defiled. In life he was not and in death
he's not going to be. So, that should answer any questions. No more questions about that.
There should be no doubts in our mind about that. Just the
fact that our Lord was buried is enough. And that's symbolic.
We're buried with Him. And, you know, the practice has
always been to lie on our backs, face it up. Why? Because we're
looking up, looking for Him to come. Lord, his body was precious to
our God, and our God said he would not see corruption in any
way, shape, form, or fashion. Now, our Lord died. He did. He
was made sin, and when God saw the travail of his soul, he was
satisfied, and that sin was put away, John, okay? His body, in
him, was no sin. His body would not have rotted
if had it laid in that grave for three years. It would not
have corrupted. We're going to see in the next
story that a woman came to bring spices, didn't need them. And
I won't get ahead of myself here, but when they rolled back the
stone, a sweet smelling savor came out of it. He didn't need
spices, but he didn't see corruption. His body was precious. Our bodies,
these bodies, the bodies of those we know and love are precious
too. Right? That's my wife for 42 years. 45 years we've been together.
I've known her since she was a child, 17. That's her. That's part of her,
isn't it? That's what I've known. I know
her mind, something of her heart. But this is the body that I've
held and embraced and loved, and that's the face I wake up
to. Right? All of it. These bodies are precious
to us. They're precious to us. The faces,
the hands, the feet, the bodies. That's what we look on. That's
the hands we hold. The bodies we embrace, they're
precious. So we lay these precious bodies. When we go to put our loved ones,
when the Lord takes them, we handle them with great honor,
don't we? Don't we? And a preacher years
ago, I remember he said something about a cemetery being a place
to throw the bodies. Oh no, no, no, no. No, no, the
Lord's coming back. And all those graves, the bodies
are going to come out of those graves. The same body, yet glorified. And don't ask me to explain that.
That it's going to be me. The same person you've looked
on. Perfect. We're all going to look just
like Christ, but we're going to be us. Going to be the same
person that you hugged and spoke to and talked to. These bodies
are precious, and when we lay our loved ones to rest, we do
it in honor, we do it in dignity. How much more would God do that
for His Son? His precious body, broken. Now
look, go back at our text here, Luke 23. Now here's the fulfillment
of a prophecy. There's a rich man named Joseph,
verse 50. Behold, a man named Joseph. When
Scripture says behold, it means stop. Stop, look, listen, consider,
wonder with amazement at this. Behold, there was a man named
Joseph. Matthew and Mark say he was a rich man. A rich man. Now this is a fulfillment. This rich man took a sepulcher
that he had purchased for himself. He had had it dug out for himself.
And the finest sepulcher. And he had it reserved for himself.
He's a rich man. And in prophecy, Isaiah 53 says
that he's buried with the rich in his death, right? That's a
prophecy of this man. Isaiah 53 says that. Well, verse
53. It says that this man took the
body down, wrapped it in linen, laid it in the sepulchre, kewn
in stone, where a never man before was laid. He laid it in his own
tomb, laid to rest and honored by a rich man. Not only is this
a fulfillment of Scripture, but consider with me, behold, another
sinner saved at the cross, just like the thief. hanging there
with our Lord on the right hand, no doubt about it, every son
that was blessed on the right hand. Why would anybody argue
about that? Christ is called the son of the right hand. This man, like the thief on the
Lord's right hand, like the centurion At the foot of the cross, behold,
a rich man, a counselor, meaning he stood, he sat, verse 51, he
was in on the council, the Sanhedrin. He's a Pharisee or a scribe or
something like that. He's one of these counselors
in the pharisaical Sanhedrin, all these counselors that got
together that hated Christ and got together a council against
Christ, God's anointed, to put him to death. And here this man
sat. How many years did he sit in
on those councils? How many years did he sit in
the seat of the scorner? That was him. This was Joseph
of Arimathea. Okay? Rich. How hard is it for
a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven? Give something that
belongs to him to somebody else. Behold, this rich man, this counselor
sat on this couch. All of a sudden, John, inexplicably, all of a sudden
has a change of heart, a change of mind. All of a sudden they're
plotting the Lord's death. He said, No, I don't want it.
No. This is amazing. A man that sat
in this council, God smote his heart, smote his
conscience. And others hated Christ. This
man now all of a sudden loves Him, admires Him, wonders at
Him, believes on Him. And though quietly, for a while,
quietly, like Nicodemus. Nicodemus was with him. In John's
gospel, this account is given in all four gospels, a little
different aspect. But Nicodemus was with him. Nicodemus
was another one of these Pharisees. Scripture says, doesn't say not
any, but not many. Saul of Tarsus is glad about
that. Nicodemus is glad about that. There were lots of Pharisees.
Lots of scribes, most of them hated Christ. But this man, why
did he all of a sudden love the Lord? God chose him out of that
counsel. Turned his mind, turned his heart
like Nicodemus. Now, God calls him good, doesn't
He? You see it? Look at it, verse
50. He was a good man and just. What does that mean, he's a good
man? That means he's a good man. What do you mean, what's a man?
What's a good man? It's the opposite of evil. You
know, God called Barbas a good man, didn't He? Oh, He says,
none good, no, not one. No, not in our self. Paul said,
I know that in me, that is, in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. Romans 3, it says there's none
good, no, not one. It goes all the way down through
there and describes people that don't know God. unregenerate people in whom the
Spirit of God does not dwell. People who don't have Christ
in them. That's who that's talking about. They're no good. And before
Christ was put in us, we're no good. Good for nothing but God. See, this is the salvation
of the Lord. To take a no good and make you
good. Only God can turn a bad apple
into a good apple. Right? He's a good man. That means exactly what it says.
So don't be hesitant to call God's people good people. God
does. And their goodness is not of themselves, their righteousness
is not of themselves. You don't have to say that every
time. But this is the glory of God to make a man a good man. Say it about yourself. Say, I'm
no good, but don't say it about God's people. God rebuked Simon
Peter when he said, don't you call common what I've called
clean. Don't you do it. Jews were in the habit of calling
Gentiles dogs. God said, don't you call my people
a dog. They're my beloved. They're black, yeah, but they're
coming. They're sinners, yeah, but they're good. He said, the
world's not worthy of them. That what he said? Just. Upright. Now who can do that but God?
Who can make a man upright who was crawling on all fours but
God? See, this glorifies God. It's
not glorifying Joseph. It's glorifying God that made
him, that justified him. The Savior is waiting, I like
this, verse 51, waiting for the kingdom of God. Before this he
was probably just waiting for a paycheck or something. Like
most people on earth. Now he's waiting for the Kingdom
of God. What does that mean? Does that sound familiar? You
know how Luke began? You know the Gospel of Luke began
in chapter 2? There was an old man in the temple.
His name was Simeon. You know what he was doing? Waiting. Waiting on the consolation of
Israel. But what's the consolation of
Israel? Ian walks a woman. She has a body in her hands.
He said, let me hold that body, that precious body. Give him to me. He craved that
body. He desired that body. Give that child to me. And she
gave him to him and he held that body, that precious body in his
arm. He said, now I can depart in
peace. I've seen thy salvation. And here in the end, another
man is waiting. And he has this same body, the
body of a man now, and he and his arm, and it's all over. The king and his kingdom waiting. It says in verse 52, this is
wonderful. He went in the pile and begged, begged the body of Christ. Mark, I believe it's Mark, yeah,
Mark 15 says he craved the body of Christ. Now, people, this
is wonderful. This is salvation. This is what
salvation means, you know? Right here in our lives. It's
to beg the body of Christ. It's to crave. It's to want nothing
more than the body of Jesus Christ. Are you with me? Do you understand
where we're going with this? This is how you know God's true
people. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness. What's that? That's Christ. He
begged. He's a rich man begging. Now
all of a sudden a rich man is begging. What's he begging for?
He doesn't need money. He's rich and increased with
goods, but he has need of one thing. He has everything, but
he wants one thing, and he's turned, this rich man has turned
beggar. And all of God's people would
have. He turns all of God's people into beggars. For what? David,
who had it all. David the king, who had it all.
Everything at his disposal. Kingdom of Israel. Everything
at his disposal. He said, I'm poor and needy. What do you want,
David? One thing. Have I desired of the Lord? And
that's what I'm going after. That I may dwell in the house
of the Lord all the days of my life. And behold, the beauty
of the Lord. The choir. He begged the body
of our Lord. Prayed. Do you? Are you eating right now? Do
you find this savory? Do you find His body meat indeed? His blood drink indeed? This
man, bad man made good, this is salvation. A bad man made
good, an unjust made just, a sinner turned believer, a rich man made
a beggar. A man with everything wanting one thing, this is salvation.
And he does it to every single person that he saves by Christ
being crucified. This all happened through Christ
being crucified. So he begs the body of our Lord.
And now here it is, this precious body embraced by this man, wrapped
up, laid to rest. Verse 53, he took it down. First
he went into Pilate, and openly, if he had been a private or a
quiet believer before, he's not now. He can't. You can't stay
quiet very long. Out of the abundance of the heart,
that's what I'm speaking. You can't be a secret disciple
of our Lord very long. Like Nicodemus, he came at night.
You see, these men stand to lose everything, don't they? They're members of the Sanhedrin.
They're rulers, spiritual rulers. If they side with Christ, if
it's known that they're one of Christ's disciples, they're going
to lose everything. What did Paul say? I have suffered
the loss of all things, but he said, I'm so glad. It was just
done. It was lost. Now I have everything. For Christ. And they knew that. But now, seeing Christ crucified,
they're going to confess Him openly. Isn't that baptism? Nobody's really, really seen
the Lord crucified, never really appreciated what He's done if
they haven't confessed it in a believer's baptism. That's
what it is. It's coming out publicly and
saying, just bury me. Let me lose everything. I'm a
nothing to nobody. Just kill me. I want to confess Christ who
died for me. So he took this precious body
down. Pilate gave the command. He went
ahead and craved the body, begged the body, and Pilate gave the
command. Who gave the command? God did. Like he warned Pharaoh not to
touch Abraham's wife. But he did that this time. Gave
the command. And so Joseph took it down. Now I might try to imagine how
he treated his body. Mary didn't have his body in
her arms. That's Catholic propaganda. He
never, that statue at Michelangelo, that's idolatry. Of a dead Christ laying in Mary's
arms, and Mary's alive, and he's dead. No, sir. He was never in
her arms like that. Joseph had him in his arms. Nicodemus
had him in his arms. I'll tell you who else's arms
he was in. They were all three in the arms of the Father. But
not in Mary's arm. And I tell you what, Mary, when
Mary died, the Lord's mother died, I tell you, he came and
got her in his arm. He carried her in his arm. But
Joseph, nevertheless, Joseph held our Lord's body in his arm. Did he embrace that body? He
was blood-soaked. That bloody body, that face,
did he caress that face? Many of us have done just that
with our loved ones, that we've held their dead bodies. Most
recently, my father, I kissed his lifeless head and held his
lifeless hands. He'd sleep, he liked to sleep
with his feet, his feet would get hot under the covers and
he'd always kick his socks off his feet and be sticking out.
You know, I do the same thing. But I covered up his feet, you
know, kissed him one last time. Those hands, I held those hands
that had served me all those years, that held me in his arms
when I was a child. Those feet that walked so many
places to preach the gospel. You've done the same. Precious
to it. How much more? The precious body
of our Lord Jesus Christ. What a precious head. Did He
kiss that face? One man kissed His face in betrayal.
This man kissed His bloody face in great admiration. Those hands pierced those feet. He took him down and wrapped
him in linen. Why linen? Because that's what
the high priest wore. That's the priestly garments.
All through the scriptures tells us that the linen was, in fact,
you know that every single curtain and door in the tabernacle was
made of linen. You know that? Every single thing
has linen as its undergarment. What's it come from? Plants.
It grows up. And every part of that flax,
read it up you tree huggers, read it. Every part of that plant
is useful. They say that it has healing
qualities. Well, I don't doubt that. Our
Lord is that tender plant that grew up in every part of him.
Beneficial. Healing by myrrh. That's what
they wrapped him in. A hundred pounds of myrrh and
aloe. They wrapped him in this linen,
which is a high priestly garment. And then verse 53 says, He laid
him in a sepulcher and hewn stone. He put him in the cleft of the
rock. That's where he belongs. That's where the same Lord put
Moses. It was a prophet who put Moses
into the cleft of the rock and came down and stood with him
there. And so did this man. And he rolled a stone, Matthew
and Mark says he rolled a stone over the heap, a huge stone that
couldn't be put over that grave by one person. It took many to
roll that stone over that grave's mouth. And they did that. It says a grave, a sepulcher
wherein never man was laid. Never man was laid. An unused
tomb. This was the first man buried
in this tomb. How fitting. How fitting. Because soon he's going to be
the first man to come out of it. First born from the dead. And clearly, it's going to be
known by all, everyone observed that he's put in his tomb, where
in never man laid, everyone is going to clearly see that there's
one body within there. So when it's empty, if you go
in there and find bones, you know it's the bones of one person.
But if there's no bones in there, and there's only one man being
in there, he's alive. Everybody knew that. But our
Lord used a borrowed tomb, didn't He? As in the beginning, now
in the end. He borrowed a womb. He didn't
stay there long. Now He borrowed this tomb, a
loaned grave. You know, everything we have
on this earth is loaned to it. It's temporary. Things are the
same. Our Lord didn't come to this
earth to stay. He stayed a little while, 33
years. He didn't come to stay, He came to save. He came to die. To be buried and rise again and
go back to the Father and ever live forever. We're not here
to stay, you know that? We're not here to stay. We have
here no continuance in it. We look for one who's builder
and maker is God. We're not here to stay, we're
here to be saved from it. To be taken out of it. Our Lord
didn't need His earthly body long. Doesn't it amaze you that
he lived only 33 years? He chose to live only 33 years.
That's it. Oh, what did he do in 33 years?
What did he suffer? But he didn't need his earthly
body long. He had an eternal heavenly body
waiting. And so do we. This tabernacle. The flesh is temporary. We have
an eternal body waiting on us, an incorruptible body. We have
an inheritance incorruptible, and we have a body that's incorruptible. 1 Corinthians 15, I was going
to have you turn there, but it says that this body is sown in
corruption. That is, in sin did my mother
conceive me. It's going to be raised in incorruption. It's sown in dishonor. We dishonor
our bodies, don't we? We sin with our bodies. But one
day we're going to have a sinless body, going to be raised in honor.
And that body will never sin. Ever. Isn't that something to
look for? That flesh will have some kind
of flesh, whatever, glorified flesh, it will not lust against
our spirit. There will be no war. Won't that
be wonderful? Body and soul in one, sinless
person. That was our Lord. Our Lord didn't leave the tomb
for long, just a few days, and neither do we. He's coming out,
so are we. He's coming out, so are we. So
they laid Him in a grave. Look at this. And the day was
the preparation of Passover. How did He? The Lord was killed. So He arranged His own death
to be at the Passover, because He is the Passover. Christ, our
Passover. was crucified for us. The Sabbath
drew on. The women, verse 55, here's the
body viewed and anointed. The women also, which came with
him from Galilee, followed after him. They held the sepulchre
and how his body was laid. You know, we come to a funeral
of a loved one And we view the body, if it's an open casket,
or we greet the loved ones. Our Lord came to Lazarus' home
to comfort his two sisters. And we come, we view the body,
and these ladies, who followed Him, came with Him. Well, I'll
tell you who it is. It's Mary Magdalene. And over
in Matthew, it's called her name three times. Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene.
So who's the first person the Lord's going to appear to? Mary
Magdalene. To show us that He really did
come for the chief of Saturday. And they had been forgiven much. Since the Lord saved Mary, she
has never left His side. Didn't she have a job? Didn't
she have a home? Maybe, but our Lord meant more
to her than life itself. And He means that to every one
of us. His bride. So they came, and they beheld
how He was laid. They watched Him being buried
in honor. And they returned, verse 56,
prepared spices and ointments. As we said, when they came back
with the ointments and spices, they realized they don't need
them. There's no body to anoint. They rested. They rested. It was a Sabbath day. Oh, John,
they just didn't know, did they? Oh, the one laying in that grave
on the Sabbath is their Sabbath, is their rest. The one whom God
laid to rest, laid their sins to rest, and now they're resting
in Him. What a story. Amen. Okay.