The Man Who Honored The King’s Son - Mark 15:40-47 Series

Mark 15:40 Some women were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. 41 In Galilee these women had followed him and cared for his needs. Many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem were also there. 42 It was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath). So as evening ap-proached, 43 Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus' body. 44 Pi-late was amazed to hear that he was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he asked him if Jesus had already died. 45 When he learned from the centurion that it was so, he gave the corpse to Joseph. 46 So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took him down, wrapped him in the linen, and placed him in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. 47 Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jo-ses saw where he was laid.

Introduction

Transition from Humiliation to Glorification

Let’s start with another trivia question you can use to stump your friends. We all under-stand the pattern of Philippians 2—Jesus humbled himself, then God super-exalted him to the highest place. Here’s the question: When was the transition? When was the shift from humil-iation to exaltation?

If you asked me that two weeks ago I would have said, “That’s easy—his resurrection.” But that's wrong. His exaltation began with his burial. The transition began the moment he died. Think about it—from that moment on, nothing dishonorable happens to him. God im-mediately vindicates Jesus by tearing the curtain of the temple. The man in charge at the sce-ne affirms he is a righteous man and the Son of God. And he given an honorable burial—which is remarkable, because a major component of crucifixion was to deprive the person of that.

The whole point of crucifixion was maximum degradation, and that didn’t end at death. In that culture, if you really wanted to punish someone, you wouldn’t just kill him. You’d kill him and let his body be eaten by dogs. Or let him be buried in a place he despises. That would punish his descendants for generations to come.

So when the Romans crucified someone, they would just leave them hanging cross and just let all their friends and family watch their body decompose and see the birds picking at their eyeballs until the flesh became so rotten in fell to the ground and became food for mag-gots and filthy scavengers. And they made it illegal to bury crucifixion victims without spe-cial permission.

In the vicinity of Jerusalem, leaving bodies on crosses could be politically volatile, so sometimes they would often throw all the bodies in a shallow mass grave.

And yet as determined as they were to inflict the worst possible punishment and humilia-tion on Jesus, he ends up with an honorable burial. Why? If the humiliation aspect was such an important part of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, why didn’t all that happen to Jesus?

It almost did. Verse 42 brings Jesus right to the brink of that fate. But things turned at the last minute—why? Because when Jesus said, “It is finished,” it was finished. The Father said, “That’s enough,” and he put an end to the dishonor.

We usually don’t give much attention to Jesus’ burial, but if you look at how much space the gospel writers devote to it, that clues us in to the fact that it’s important. When Paul sums up the entire gospel in a single sentence, he includes the burial.

1 Corinthians 15:3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day.

The burial is important, so we’re going to look at that today. Mark’s going to tell us ex-actly what happened, but first he wants us to know about the man who did it and the women who witnessed it. He starts with the women.

The Unconventional Witnesses

Loyal Followers Keep Their Distance

Mark 15:40 Some women were watching from a distance.

Who were they? They were some of Jesus’ most loyal disciples.

41 In Galilee these women had followed him and cared for his needs.

They ministered to Jesus the same way the angels did after his fasting in the wilderness (same word). They supported him financially and made his whole ministry possible.

Female Disciples

They were long-term followers, going all the way back to Jesus’ Galilean ministry.

41 In Galilee these women had followed him.

That’s remarkable because rabbis never had female disciples. But Jesus didn’t care about cultural taboos when they were in conflict with God’s will.