the red pill forum: holy week: Christ's intentionality in His burial

the Messiah is dead. it is day seven of holy week. the disciples are in hiding. judas is dead. the chief priests and elders are gloating. the romans are going about life as usual. just another dead criminal to keep the jews in their place. all looks to be lost. but even in His seeming defeat, Jesus has orchestrated everything according to His divine plan. this applies even to the details of His burial.

Jesus is dead. make no mistake about that. there are those that say that He merely passed out from shock or exhaustion, but scholars and scientists have refuted this fact time and again based on both Scripture and historian accounts. but this is just the setup to the climax of history. as i've repeatedly mentioned, everything that is included in Scripture is important (yes, even the "begats" in the old testament!), and this is even true in the details of His burial. first, we see that Scripture says, "He was dead and buried." this seems like an odd statement to us today. after all, when referring to people who died, we don't say they died and were buried, unless it's in an obituary giving the reader a location of their grave. but in everyday conversation, we don't say, "my grandmother died and was buried." we simply state, "my grandmother died." so why did Scripture include this statement? there are a few reasons. in documents from the ancient near east, and throughout Scripture, we see that statement included, and it was meant to signify that the person really was dead. in those days, they didn't have autopsies or coroners to verify death, and there were no death certificates drafted to verify that a person really was deceased. burial was meant to affirm the death of someone. so when Scripture says that He was dead and buried, it was meant to verify to the reader that Jesus was truly dead. after all, you don't bury someone who isn't dead. the writers of Scripture included this statement to counter ahead of time any arguments that Jesus didn't truly die. they realized that people would be skeptical, so they wanted to be sure and leave no doubt that Jesus actually died and subsequently rose from the grave.

the second detail in the account of His burial is that He was placed in "a new tomb in which a body was never laid." in order to understand the reason for this detail, you have to look at the burial practices in first century palestine. in those days, a body would be prepared and laid in a family tomb, which was cut out of the rock. it would be prepared with fragrant oils and spices to cut down on the smell during the decomposition process, and then left in the tomb for a year. stones would be piled in front of the entrance to keep scavengers away, and after a year, the family would go in and collect the bones into a limestone box called an ossuary, and would be either relocated and buried, or if the tomb was large enough, collected in the back of the tomb. if multiple people died in a family within a year, there would be multiple bodies in a tomb at one time. so by the gospel writers saying that there were no other bodies within the tomb, it was also giving credence to the resurrection. it was not a case of mistaking His body for another within the tomb. it was also due to Jewish ceremonial laws. anyone that came in contact with a dead body would be considered unclean. the Messiah would have to be placed in a tomb with no other dead bodies for Him to be considered ceremonially pure throughout His burial and resurrection.

the other reason for the gospels mentioning He was buried in a tomb, was to establish that He had a designated burial place. in those days, criminals who were crucified were usually taken down from the cross and thrown into a ravine and left for the animals. if a family came and requested a body, they were allowed to take the body and bury it, but they were not allowed to have a funeral or mourners. Jesus had all of these details pre-ordained ahead of time to make sure that every detail was taken care of to refute any possible argument against His resurrection.

have you ever felt like you were defeated, like things couldn't get any lower? this appeared to be the lowest Jesus could get, having just suffered the most painful and humiliating death, and then having to be buried in a borrowed tomb with no one around to mourn His death. but even in despair, God had a plan, and that plan is always perfect. so remember, when things look to be hopeless, and you think that God has all but forgotten about you, even in those moments when you are at your lowest, He is already working the details to take care of you when you come out of the low.