Mark 15:42-47 The Grave
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: May 8 & 9, 2018, Mark 15:42-47
Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
And when evening had come, since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate was surprised to hear that he should have already died. And summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he was already dead. And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph. And Joseph bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was laid.
(Understanding the Text) Mary Magdalene was not allowed to be close to Jesus as He died, but she refused to leave Jesus in death. She stayed and watched as the two rich men and maybe their servants took down Jesus’ body from the cross. She stayed close by and followed them as they carried Jesus’ body to the tomb. She watched as they rolled a stone over the tomb. She believed that they had not had time to properly prepare Jesus’ body because of Sabbath, so she made plans to return on the morning after Sabbath to make sure that his body was taken care of. That Sabbath she went home with Martha and Lazarus and felt a pain deeper even than when her brother had died, but her grief was shared by her two siblings who loved Jesus as much as she did. (Note: I believe that Mary Magdalene and Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus was the same woman, but I am not trying to convince you of this. Remember, this was my personal devotion with God, not an essay for the public. I am sharing an actual devotion, not a made up example.)
Not every Jewish leader had become corrupted by greed for power and control. There were some on the council who had served God sincerely for years. Joseph and Nicodemus were two of these men. They had watched Jesus’ ministry, and the conviction had grown that He was the Messiah, but they had seen no need to resign from their positions of power. Maybe they felt that they could do more good for Jesus where they were; maybe they still had a few doubts; or I think most likely that they expected a miraculous transformation of the hearts of the other men on the council so that they turned to Jesus also. They never expected the council to be able to kill the Redeemer of Israel, and yet it did. They were faced with the eye-opening truth that they were part of an organization that was rejecting their beloved God.
This was a turning point for Joseph of Arimathea. Where before, he had held back and kept his opinions to himself, now he knew that something had to be done for Jesus. Once the Roman machinery that led to the crucifixion was engaged, there was nothing that he could do but hope and pray for a miracle. However, no angel came and struck down the Romans. No light from heaven shone down. Instead, darkness covered the land and he heard Jesus say with confidence to a thief that he would be in heaven. He heard Jesus tell His Father to forgive His enemies, and Joseph felt conviction that even as Jesus died, somehow, Jesus was still in control. Somehow, this was not a failed or false Messiah. Instead, Jesus was the real deal and somehow what was happening was supposed to be. The conviction grew in Joseph’s heart that there would be no rescue from death and that soon there would be a dead Messiah hanging on the cross. His competent mind started thinking about details. What would happen to Jesus’ body? He looked over at the women gathered around with only young John as an escort and knew that they would be powerless to deal with the details that came next.
The overwhelming belief filled Joseph with the knowledge that he needed to take charge, and his mind began planning out the details of what needed to be done. He had his own tomb where he could put Jesus’ body. There would be only time for the simplest of preparations before the Sabbath stopped them. Either Nicodemus was there beside Joseph or he saw Nicodemus also in the crowd watching. Somehow, either from prior discussions or there at the cross, the two men bonded. Joseph knew that he had more political power, so the two men divided up their duties. When Joseph was sure that Jesus was dead, he hurried to Pilate’s home to gain the permission that he needed to take custody of the body.
When I think of evening, I think of the actual sunset that starts Sabbath, but I believe Mark’s meaning here is more along the lines of it was obvious that evening was coming. Jesus died at 3:00. Sunset would have been around 6:30 or 7:00. Today, sunset was at 7:24 in May, but I am in a different location. However, based on my own experience, Joseph had at most 4 1/2 hours to accomplish his task. He may have waited a while after Jesus’ death on the hope that something more would happen. Maybe, he even heard about the temple curtain ripping before he moved. I would predict that he did not leave the cross until at least 3:30. Then, it takes time to make preparations. Just to walk from Golgotha to Pilate’s residence would have probably taken about fifteen minutes. Then, Joseph would have had to wait for Pilate and taken time in a conference to get permission, which would have eaten up the time. All these preparations would have taken anywhere from 1/2 to 1 hour. The body would not be brought down until all the men were dead. The soldiers broke the legs of the other two men, but it would still take a little more time for them to die. Thus, when Jesus’ body was finally taken off the cross, sunset was not far away.
Between them, Joseph and Nicodemus organized the method of carrying Jesus’ body, got the men together to do it, and transported Jesus’ body to the tomb and performed the preliminary preparations that they could for the body, but then they ran out of time. As the two men walked home, they spoke of what they had seen. Joseph must have asked Nicodemus if the scriptures had said anything about the Messiah dying. Did they spend their time together discussing the corruption of the Sanhedrin or their experiences with Jesus, or did they look through the scriptures to try to understand what had happened? Maybe, they spent the Sabbath in an unbelieving daze of confusion. This was one Sabbath where it seemed that God was not with His people.
Pilate was surprised to hear that Jesus was already dead. This is because the cross was designed not to give a quick death. It was designed as an instrument of torture that prolonged the agony of death for days. If Romans wanted to give a quick death, they would simply cut your head off or stab you, but they wanted to have a public torture session to give a warning to anyone who might defy them. Many people have the same attitude toward punishing people today. They want strict sentences in order to deter criminals, yet it seems to have failed. We have more prisoners than ever before, and people are still committing crimes. The problem with trying to deter behavior with punishment is that the punishment has to get more and more severe as time goes on because of the law of diminishing returns. As a result, the punisher becomes not bent on prevention but simply on inflicting vengeance. This had happened in the Roman world where the cruelty of the cross was the result of failed prevention by punishment. Control was kept, but it was routinely challenged also. Ultimately, the Romans’ cruelty led to Nero’s games in the forum where the crowds cheered as they watched people die. In some ways, I fear that we are hardening our hearts in this present generation to the point where we will become as cruel as the ancient Romans.
Pilate confirmed the death by summoning a centurion. This would have taken time as the centurion would have to go get the information from the scene or send a messenger, or else Pilate sent a messenger to get a centurion from the scene to come in to report. Pilate had displayed his ambivalence all along. He had not wanted to crucify Jesus yet had yielded to the Jewish pressure. He then defied the Jews by placing a sign that said King of the Jews above Jesus’ head on the cross in three languages. He stood firm against the Jewish leaders when they protested. Now, he granted permission for a leading Jew to honor Jesus in burial. The Cambridge Bible commentary says “he gave the body to Joseph] The word translated ‘gave’ only occurs in the New Testament here and in 2Pe_1:3-4; ‘according as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness;’ ‘whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises.’ It means more than simply to give, and ‘to give freely’ ‘largiri.’ The word appears to be used designedly by St Mark, implying that Pilate, who from his character might have been expected to extort money from the wealthy ‘counsellor,’ freely gave up the Body at his request, placing it at his disposal by a written order, or a verbal command to the centurion.” I had not thought about the fact that Joseph probably went to Pilate expecting to have to bribe him for the body. He went to Pilate willing to pay whatever price was needed to obtain Jesus’ corpse. This is another reason why it needed to be Joseph and not Nicodemus who went to Pilate. Joseph was the one with the money to pay the bribes necessary to get things accomplished. However, no bribe was necessary. Pilate freely gave the body to Joseph. Either Pilate was still defying the Jewish leaders or, I think it more likely, he was salving his conscious for the wrong that he knew that he had done. Would Pilate forever be haunted by his choice this day, or would he go on with his life forgetting that he had been instrumental in killing the Son of God? We are never told.
Joseph had a linen shroud which he brought with him to the cross. They carefully took Jesus’ body down. Did they lift up the cross beam and bring the body down that way? Or did they unnail the body as it hung? How did the Romans remove the nails? Did they simply rip the hands of the dead man through the nail? Or did they pull out the nails? The All About Jesus website says that “Jesus’ nails would have been made of heavy, probably square, iron material, 7-9 inches long.” (From <https://www.allaboutjesuschrist.org/jesus-nails-faq.htm>). I just can’t imagine them being able to pull out the nails, so I think maybe they ripped the hands and feet off over the nails making the wounds bigger. The Romans probably did this part of the procedure with brutal efficiency. However, once Jesus’ body was lowered into the arms of Joseph and his helpers, He was treated with respect as they wrapped His body in the shroud and carefully carried it to the tomb. There, only a basic preparation took place, again respectfully, before the tomb was closed up for Sabbath.
Did Joseph and Nicodemus talk with the women or John as they prepared Jesus’ body and rolled the stone over the entrance? Were the Roman soldiers and Jewish leaders there watching one of their own defy them by honoring the dead Messiah with a place in his own tomb? I think the Jewish leaders probably stared in amazement as Joseph and Nicodemus broke ranks with them and began honoring Jesus as a fallen hero. Some of them probably followed along behind to see what the two traitors to the Sanhedrin would do next. As they watched in shock, they may have remembered the prophecies that Jesus had made about rising from the dead. If two of their own could be made to believe in the Messiah after He was dead, might He not also rise? Or maybe someone would pretend that He would rise? Thus, they requested the Roman guards. These people who were so careful about the Sabbath for themselves and not having the dead men on the cross, did not mind asking the Romans to work on the Sabbath guarding a tomb. It seems to me that the burial of Jesus must have had many witnesses: Joseph, Nicodemus, and their servants; the women; the Pharisees: and maybe curious onlookers who wondered what other shocking event would happen next.
(Application / Revelation of God) My application for myself is that God has plans and timing that I know nothing about. We do not hear about Joseph of Arimathea until this specific time when God called him to serve God’s purposes. Then, the perfect man for the job was drawn forth. Joseph had the money and power to approach Pilate. His apparent change-about in loyalty drew attention so that there were many witnesses to Jesus’ dead body, the preparations made, Jesus’ body being laid in the tomb, the sealing of the tomb, and the location. Through this one man, God drew attention to the details that could not be denied later of where, when, and how Jesus’ body was laid to rest. God does not predetermine our choices, but He knows how to manipulate around the barriers that Satan puts in front of God’s will. All things work together for good for them that love the Lord. This does not mean that we will not be the victims of Satan’s actions and this sinful world, but that God sets limits on what Satan is allowed to do to us and manipulates the situations so that the end result is good for us because we have placed ourselves within the protection of His care. By loving God, we allow Him to protect us in certain ways so that even the bad gets twisted into good. He cannot protect us from every bad result because of free will and the limitations of the battle going on; however, He can ensure that everything works out for the best.
(Prayer) I do not know what You want me to do most of the time, but I pray that when You do call me to service that I will be courageous and willing to sacrifice in order to show my love for You. Give me hope when the world seems dim and death seems to rule. Give me joy in the middle of my trials, and give me faith to trust in You when the world is going crazy. Thank You that You gave me life and help me to always know that You love me.