FROM THE BURIAL OF JESUS TO THE EMPTY TOMB.
Luke 23:50-56; Luke 24:1-12.
As we drew to the end of Luke’s account of Jesus’ sufferings, we read that Jesus’ acquaintance, and the women who had followed Him from Galilee, stood afar off, beholding these things (Luke 23:49).
LUKE 23:50-53. It is at this point that we meet Joseph of Arimathea, “a good man and a just” (Luke 23:50); no doubt like Zacharias and Elizabeth who ‘were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless’ (cf. Luke 1:6). We read of this Joseph that he was a counsellor who had not consented to the counsel and deed of them, “who also himself waited for the kingdom of God” (Luke 23:51); one like Simeon, who was ‘just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel’ (Cf. Luke 2:25), and Anna who ‘gave thanks to the Lord’ and spoke of Jesus ‘to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem’ (cf. Luke 2:38).
This man having gone to Pilate begged the body of Jesus. And having taken it down he wrapped it in a linen cloth and placed it in “a tomb hewn in a rock in which no one was ever yet laid” (Luke 23:53).
LUKE 23:54-56. That day was the day of preparation, and “the sabbath drew on” (Luke 23:54). The Jewish Sabbath begins in the evening. “Sabbath” speaks of rest, and now that Jesus had died for the sins of His people (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:21), ‘there remains a rest for the people of God’ (Hebrews 4:9).
The women who had ‘followed’ Jesus from Galilee (the word is the same as in Luke 5:11, where the disciples ‘forsook all, and followed Him’) now followed Joseph as he took the body of Jesus to the tomb, noted where the tomb was, and went away to prepare spices and ointments; “and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment” (Luke 23:56).
LUKE 24:1-12. After the Sabbath, early in the morning, they, and others with them came to the tomb bringing the aromatics which they had prepared (Luke 24:1), no doubt wishing to further embalm the body of Jesus.
What they found was not what they expected. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb. They went in but “they found not the body of the Lord Jesus” (Luke 24:2-3).
At first, they were just perplexed: but then the appearance of two men in shining garments filled them with fear. The women bowed their heads in awe, no doubt perceiving that these were heavenly messengers. The message the visitors bore began with a question: “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” (Luke 24:4-5).
Why would the angels say such a thing? It was because the death of Jesus did not confine Him to the tomb, for ‘it was impossible for death to hold Him’ (Acts 2:24). “He is not here but is risen!” the angels continued: “REMEMBER how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee,” (Luke 24:6).
Jesus had spoken of His forthcoming betrayal, His suffering, His death, and His subsequent resurrection (cf. Luke 9:22; Luke 18:32-33). When He had predicted all this, Jesus’ disciples had ‘understood none of these things, this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things that were spoken’ (Luke 18:34). Remember, then, how He said that these things “MUST” happen (Luke 24:7).
Whatever the women had heard of these earlier conversations they now recalled: “And they remembered His words” (Luke 24:8). At the time of leaving the tomb faith was already active in them, and they became the first evangelists. They bore the good news “to the eleven and to all the rest” (Luke 24:9).
That is what we must do, who have heard the words of Jesus, who have received the good news: we must ‘go tell’ (cf. Mark 16:7). That is what Mary, Joanna, Mary, and the others did. They went and told these things to the Apostles, no less (Luke 24:10).
No matter that our hearers will not hear at first, that they are sceptical. According to Doctor Luke, the women’s words seemed like the insane babblings spoken of by the Greek medical writers of the time (Luke 24:11). Any excuse not to believe the gospel!
We do not (should not) preach to impress people. Even if there is just one, like Peter impetuously setting off toward the tomb to check things out (Luke 24:12), ‘our labour is not in vain in the Lord’ (1 Corinthians 15:58). Peter departed from Tomb-land wondering, marvelling, perhaps not yet believing - but as with many to whom we witness, God had not finished with him yet.
Easter is a morning to remember. Remember the things that Jesus predicted concerning His forthcoming betrayal, suffering, death - and resurrection (Luke 24:7). Remember these things as also predicted in the Old Testament - which becomes a motif throughout the rest of the chapter (cf. Luke 24:26; Luke 24:46).
