Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2390
“And 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 ga ve him leave. He came, therefore, and took the body of Jesus. And there came, also, Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pounds weight. Then took they the body of Jesus and wound it in linen strips with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. Nowin theplace where He was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulcher, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus, therefore, because of the Jews’preparation day; for the sepulcher was near at hand.” John 19:38-42.
LET US go to this grave, but not to weep there—no, not to shed so much as a single tear! The stone is rolled away, our Lord’s precious body is not there, for Christ has risen from the dead! It may be that, like Mary at the sepulcher, we shall see a vision of angels, but if not, we may behold a company of comforting Truths of God which still linger about the empty tomb of our ascended Lord!
We are expressly told, in Holy Scripture, that our Lord was buried. It was evidently not sufficient for us merely to be told that He died—we must also know that He was buried. Why was this? Was it not, first, that we might have a certificate of His death? We do not bury living men and the Lord Jesus would not have been buried if the Centurion had not certified that He was certainly dead. The Roman officer had probably seen Christ’s heart pierced by the soldier’s spear, when blood and water flowed forth from His side. At any rate, when his men went to execute the coup de grace, which finished the lives of the other two, by the breaking of their legs, they were so certain that He who hung in the middle was really dead that they broke not His legs. Christ’s being given up for burial was Pilate’s certificate that He had not merely pretended to die, but that it was a real death and that His body had no life remaining in it. This is an essential point, for if Jesus did not die, He has made no Atonement for sin. If He died not, then He rose not—and if He rose not, then your faith is vain, you are yet in your sins! The sepulcher, therefore, occupies a very important place in the story of the death of Jesus.
Again, was He not buried to fulfill a type which He had, Himself, chosen? Like as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, in the heart of the sea, even so was the Son of Man to lie for that time in the heart of the earth. The casting of the runaway Prophet into the sea quieted the angry waves—the tempest fell asleep when he was given up as a victim—and Christ’s being cast into the sea of death has quieted the storm of almighty wrath! We sail, today, as on a sea of glass because Christ was buried in those awful billows. He must fulfill the type of Jonah, or else He spoke not aright concerning Himself when He said, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the Prophet Jonah.”
Further, was not our Lord buried to make His battle with death and His triumph over it more complete? He has conquered death, but He has also burst open the castle of death, that is the grave. He has bearded the lion in his den, the Douglas in his hall. In this matchless duel, He has set Himself to fight not only with death, but with death and the grave combined—and hence the paean of victory is not merely, “O death, where is your sting?” but it is also, “O grave, where is your victory?” Christ’s victory is altogether complete. He has led captivity captive, because He became a captive. He has vanquished all death’s allies, as well as death, itself, by going down into the grave and rending its bars asunder.
Beside all this, did not our Lord die and condescend to be buried, to sweeten the grave for His people? Rightly did we sing just now concerning the tomb—
“There the dear flesh of Jesus lay, And left a long perfume.”
Unless the Lord should speedily come, as He may—God grant that He may!—we shall fall asleep and these bodies of ours will be committed to the silence of the grave. We must not dare to dread the sepulcher—where Christ has been, we may safely and honorably go. As I told you, the other day, He left the fine linen to be the furniture of our last bed. He left the napkin rolled up by itself, that weeping friends might dry their tears thereon. He also left the myrrh and aloes, about one hundred pounds’ weight, which Nicodemus brought. I never heard that they were taken away from the tomb—Jesus left them there and they still shed their sweet fragrance throughout the graves of all His saints! We are not going to a noisome vault, but to a perfumed chamber hung with the fine linen sheets that encompassed the Christ, and odorous with the spices that shed their sweetness upon Him! To die is now our gain—to sleep in Jesus is to be blest, indeed!