Dead and Buried: End of Story?

Let's open your Bibles this morning to the Gospel of Luke.

Guess you knew we'd be there, and we've been there a while. Getting close to the finish of the Gospel of Luke, I'm trying to time this perfectly so that we can get just to the right passage on Easter Sunday.

And we're going to do that. So we're focusing on the cross, of course, did last week and will be this morning. So Luke chapter 23. And our text for this morning will take us all the way to the end of that chapter.

So starting with verse 44, I want you to follow along or listen as I read all the way to the end of the chapter. Now it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.

Then, that is during that time, the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn in two. And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, he said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

Having said this, he breathed his last. So when the centurion saw what had happened, he glorified God, saying, Certainly, this was a righteous man.

And the whole crowd who came together to that sight, seeing what had been done, beat their breasts and returned. But all his acquaintances and the women who followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things.

Now behold, there was a man named Joseph, a council member, a good and righteous man or just man. He had not consented to their decision.

Indeed, he was from Arimathea, city of the Jews, who himself was also waiting for the kingdom of God. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.

Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen, laid it in a tomb that was hewn out of the rock where no one had ever lain before.

This day was the preparation, and the Sabbath drew near. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed after, and they observed the tomb and how his body was laid.

Then they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils, and they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment. All right, so we have come to the part of the story that, quite frankly, ought to give us pause.

We're really on worship ground here. This is awesome. It's hallowed ground that we have come to. And, by the way, even the people who were there that day suddenly, I mean suddenly, realized this.

This is something very serious, very somber. So those who had been mocking Jesus, they suddenly stopped. And those who had been sneering at him, and scorning him, and ridiculing him, and scolding him, well, suddenly what they were doing just seemed so unimportant.

And those who had been poking fun at him, his claim to be king, and joking about that, and poking fun at him, suddenly they stopped.

They stopped what they were doing, and they shut their mouths. And why? I mean, what had happened? Well, a certain person had arrived on the scene at that very moment.

A certain person. Now, you know, last week I highlighted the various people who were there present at the crucifixion. Some had followed him all the way to Golgotha, the place of the cross.

And many of them were surrounding Jesus, and are surrounding the cross, and saying different things, and doing different things. And we kind of highlighted that last week. You know, the women who were professional mourners, and the soldiers who were very cruel to Jesus, and the Jewish leaders, leadership there, the priests and such, and the other people, some of them passing by, and some stopping and looking and watching and gawking, and some of them even speaking things.

And there was Simon, of course, Simon the one who carried the cross for Jesus, and some others. So we've kind of highlighted those people. But I have not yet said anything about one other very important person who was there at the cross, who had been there all along.

And we haven't mentioned him because he had not yet manifested his presence until now, until we get to this text.

And when he did, when he made himself known, his presence known, everything changed. I mean, literally. And forever.

Immediately, no more laughing, no more joking, no more mocking, no more sneering. At Jesus. According to verse 48, if you'd look at that again, the whole crowd, and this is kind of after all of this had transpired, the whole crowd, all of them, who came together to that site, to Golgotha, and saw what they saw, seeing what had been done.

They were beating their breasts, which is a sign of grief, grief, and mourning, and really guilt, and fear.

So they're walking away, returning. That's what verse 48 tells us. All right, so who was this other person at the cross? Well, it was God.

God the Father. And in a very, very real sense, God the Father showed up at the cross of Jesus Christ. God the Son.

God the Father showed up. Now, he'd been there all along, of course, but he had not manifested himself. And so in that sense, he showed up at the cross, and what he did there changed everything.

Forever. What he did that day made Jesus' crucifixion unique from all other crucifixions, and there were countless thousands of them performed in that day.

The Romans loved crucifixion as a form of execution. But what made Jesus' cross unique was what God did. there, that day.

You see, it is when God showed up at Calvary that it became the saving event that it is still today.

Making it unique from all other crucifixions. And so, today, we can glory in the cross of Jesus Christ. Why? Because of what God the Father did that day to his Son.

That's why we can glory in the cross. And so, that's what we want to focus on this morning, along with a few other things, as we make our way through to the end of this chapter, and through the story of the crucifixion of Christ, and not just his crucifixion, but also his burial.

So, the first thing I want you to see this morning is this, the wrath of God the Father. That's what we see here. Actually, we don't see it. It's obscured.

It's hidden from us. But this is what's going on here. It's the wrath of God the Father. See, we need to understand, for three hours, it was actually, not just literally.

You know, sometimes you can use the word literally, and it's not really literal. And so, I don't want to use the word literal. I say, for three hours, actually, in reality, it was hell on earth.

For three hours. In fact, I had thought about entitling my sermon, Three Hours of Hell on Earth. I thought that'd be a good title, but I decided something different. You see, some Bible scholars teach that Jesus actually went to hell after he died.

I mean, you've heard that teaching before. I don't happen to agree with it. And one of the reasons is for this. Because the truth is, Jesus didn't have to go to hell.

Hell came to him. In those three hours. So, look at verse 45 again. Now, it was about the sixth hour. This is how Luke records this.

Give us some exact timing. So, it was about the sixth hour. What would that be on our clocks? Twelve noon. Noon. Just in case you don't know. Twelve noon.

So, about the sixth hour. Or at noon, twelve noon, there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour, which, do the math, would be three o'clock.

Till the ninth hour. Then, the sun was darkened. Not the ninth hour, but just a reference to what happened during those three hours. The sun was darkened. And some other translations, the ESV, for example, translate this even more literally.

It says, its light failed. The sun's light failed. All right, so, let's get this straight in our minds. It's Friday. We call it Good Friday. Okay. It's Friday.

It's Friday. And at 6 a.m. on that Friday morning, early, Jesus is standing before Pilate. And Pilate, based upon the influence of the crowds, has passed judgment upon Jesus that he would be crucified.

And at 9 a.m. that morning, just three hours after that, after he was condemned, Jesus is crucified. Three hours later.

And then, for the next three hours, as Jesus is hanging upon the cross, in agony and dying, the people are mocking him, laughing at him, ridiculing him.

And after that, after those three hours, at 12 noon, darkness. Suddenly. Darkness. And it will last for three hours.

Interesting, the three-hour increments. I'm not going to tell you that that has any significance, but it's interesting. You know, Pilate judges. Three hours later, he's crucified. Three hours later, it's darkness.

And three hours after that, light comes again. All right. And this is how it took place. Now, the sun then, is at its apex in the sky.

It's high noon. And everybody knows, that that is the brightest time of the day. Unless, of course, you've got clouds, like we do today. So it's a very bright part of the day.

And at that very moment, instantly, without any warning, without any prior notice, instantly, as if somebody flipped the switch, off, the sun just goes out.

It's pitch black. Everywhere. And that's how we're to understand the description of this. The words that are used. Describes pitch black.

We're talking about not seeing the hand in front of your face kind of black. It's dark. You know, they didn't pull out their cell phones and turn on a little light to see their way.

It's dark. It's dark. No street lamps on, you know, that would pop on because the sun has gone out. It's just pitch black. And Luke says here, if you notice, all over the earth.

Over all the earth, he says. Now, honestly, the word earth here in the Greek text is the word gay. I know that has a different connotation for us today, but that's how you pronounce the word.

Just two letters, G-A in English, or gamma, eta, gay. And it is translated, and rightfully so, earth. But it has a couple of different meanings.

Depends on how you use it. It could refer to the earth in the sense of the soil upon which you're standing. So it was pitch black right there.

So that would make then possibly that the darkness was more localized, more regional. Perhaps it was just there over Gagatha. The place of the skull.

The place of the crucifixion. Maybe it was just around the cross there. Perhaps it was all of Jerusalem. Maybe it spread out even further than that to that region. Judea. Maybe it was even further than that.

Judea and Galilee. Kind of the nation of Israel at the time. The confines of Israel. Maybe all of Palestine. You know, the Middle East. So it could refer to a more, you know, confined area.

The soil on which you're standing. It went black. Dark. Or, it could refer, you could use it, in this sense, the entire earth.

The entire earth. Still the word earth. Or perhaps, I guess reasonably speaking, just the eastern hemisphere. You know, that part of the world upon which the sun was shining at the time.

And Luke does say, in verse 45, he says, the sun's light failed. So what is it?

Which is it? Well, we don't know. And it's okay that we don't know. Because it doesn't matter. You say, it doesn't matter what the Bible says.

No, it doesn't matter what sense the Bible, the meaning of this word gay here, what the Bible is talking about. That doesn't matter. And why is that? Because the darkness was not there for the Jews.

The darkness was not there for the Romans. The darkness was there for Jesus. That's what we need to understand here.

And not only that, but this was not the darkness of Satan. Alright? It was not wickedness. The darkness of wickedness. Or evil.

This was the darkness of God. He said, it just doesn't, I can't reconcile that in my mind, but that's what it was. God the Father showed up at the cross at that moment for those three hours, showed up in a manifest way, and he showed up as darkness rather than light at the cross.

God is the darkness here. So what does that mean? Well, it means wrath.

Judgment. The judgment of God upon the Romans for nailing Jesus to the cross? No. Not immediately.

For the Jews, perhaps, they're the ones that cried out, crucify Jesus. No. Judgment upon Jesus. God's wrath poured out upon Jesus manifested in darkness.

darkness. The darkness of punishment. Of judgment. In a sense, this is the day of the Lord kind of darkness.

You understand that phrase in the Bible, that concept? Joel prophesied a lot about that. Joel chapter 2, verse 30, the sun will be turned into darkness, the moon into blood before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.

Amos also wrote about it, prophesied it. Amos 5.20, will not the day of the Lord be darkness instead of light? Amos 8.9, it will come about in that day, declares the Lord God, that I will make the sun go down at noon and make the earth dark in broad daylight.

That sounds familiar. And yet, understand that the day of the Lord, the eschatological day of the Lord, that is, in the sense of the end times day of the Lord, that has not yet occurred.

It's not come. I mean, these prophets are not describing what happened at the cross, not specifically, not explicitly. So the day of the Lord is something yet to come.

It is, and it will be the wrath of God poured out upon unbelievers at the end of the age. It is divine judgment.

It is final judgment. It's God coming not as light, but rather as darkness.

Darkness. God coming in wrath and judgment. That's the day of the Lord. All right, so that's yet to come, and it will come one day.

But, the cross is all about Jesus Christ taking the final judgment that I deserve. And you deserve.

All believers deserve. Well, everyone is deserved. The cross is all about that. final judgment. Jesus taking God's final judgment.

Jesus taking the wrath of God for sin, my sin, your sin, that have been placed upon Jesus. So the cross is Jesus taking my day of the Lord judgment.

And he did. Listen, the cross is Jesus taking my hell. Do you understand that?

and it would be completely accurate to say that God brought hell to Jesus at the cross. Jesus didn't have to die and go to hell to experience that and pay my hell, the price for my hell.

Hell came to him. Three times in Matthew, Jesus called hell outer darkness. Other places, the blackness of darkness.

The place of darkness. Someone has said that hell is the ultimate black hole where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth in the eternal unrelieved blackness.

What a description. Hard to even imagine. Listen, like it or not, that blackness, that darkness that hell is, you know what that is?

That is God's presence in judgment. Eternal presence in judgment. Hell is God's punishing presence.

Is God present in hell? And yes, of course he is. He is omnipresent. He is everywhere present.

Nowhere absent. Of course God is in hell. Present in hell. But, you say, isn't hell a place of separation from God? Doesn't the Bible speak of it being a separation from the presence of God?

And yes, it absolutely does say that. But it's separation from his loving, comforting, presence.

But not from his punishing presence. That's what hell is and will be for all eternity. God's punishing presence.

But someone will say, isn't Satan the punisher of all lost souls in hell? No, he is not. Contrary to, you know, what many say and how Satan is portrayed.

He's not this guy in a red suit with a pitchfork making people shovel coal in hell or something like that. He's not. Satan is not the Lord of hell.

God is. I'm sorry, but he is. In fact, Satan is not even in hell yet. But one day he will be given a one-way ticket to hell.

where he will be in torment, suffering all eternity in the blackness of darkness forever.

Jude 13. But here's the point of all of this, really. This is what we need to get to. God the Father shows up at the cross and he gives his son eternal hell and Jesus takes that hell in behalf of all those who will believe in him.

And he did that in those three hours on the cross. So how can you do that in three hours? Because he's infinite, eternal. See, understand, the infinite son of God suffered for three hours what takes an eternity for finite man to suffer.

So you can choose. Let Jesus spend your hell on the cross for three hours or you can spend it for yourself for eternity. That's the darkness at the cross.

Jesus taking my place. Jesus taking my sin. Jesus taking my hell.

the wrath of God the Father. Second, the words of God the Son.

The words of God the Son. When you put all of the gospels together, the four gospel accounts together, Jesus spoke seven times from the cross. And all seven times are significant.

And let me just run through the first few of them, not spend so much time on those, even though they're very important. Some of these we've already looked at, talked about. The first two are given to us in Luke's gospel.

And we saw these last week, Luke 23, verse 34, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do. It's a great saying of Jesus on the cross.

A lot of significance there. A few verses later, in Luke 23, verse 43, to the third one, the third thing that Jesus spoke from the cross is found in John's gospel, in John 19, verses 26 to 27.

Jesus, he's hanging on the cross, and he looks down, there's his mother, Mary is there. And so the Bible says, Jesus said to his mother, woman, this is your son, not this is your son, but the guy standing next to you, because he's referring to the apostle John there.

And he goes on to say, this then he said to the disciple, that would be John, this is your mother. Now this is not some Catholic view, it's just simply Jesus having John his disciple, his beloved disciple, take care of his mother for the rest of her life.

That's all there is to the compassion of Jesus taking care of his family. Now those are important and significant but I want to focus more on the remaining words spoken by Jesus from the cross and the reason is because these words were spoken immediately following the three hours of darkness.

And we've already talked about what happened and what happened to that darkness and what it was for and so these become very significant. In fact Jesus fourth word from the cross according to both Matthew and Mark occurred at the ninth hour.

Right at the ninth hour. Meaning with God's wrath completely spent on Jesus who was bearing my sin with his holiness and his righteousness completely satisfied by the blood of Christ.

The darkness of judgment was withdrawn. And so at that ninth hour Jesus spoke these words again both in Matthew and Mark both Matthew and Mark record this.

Here's Mark's version Mark 15 34 L-O-I L-O-I L-O-I L-O-I L-O-I which is translated my God my God why have you forsaken me?

We're very familiar with that. Now we'll come back to that a little bit later but I want to go on from there and see the remaining three times that Jesus spoke and by the way all of these four things Jesus spoke he spoke pretty much in rapid succession not a lot of time in between and so again John records the fifth thing that Jesus said in John 19 verse 28 two words I thirst actually in the Greek it's one word I thirst and this is so precious isn't it at the very least we see that how human this is he's in agony and he's hanging upon the cross hasn't had anything to drink probably since his trial and he says I'm thirsty and John goes on to tell us that they filled a sponge with sour wine and they lifted it up probably on a stick and lifted it up and gave him a drink so he could just suck that liquid out while he was hanging on the cross right but this is the amazing thing about it you might recall that

Jesus was offered a drink earlier and he refused it earlier in the sense of before God's judgment was poured out upon him and Jesus is in agony and suffering he was offered a drink and he refused it why you see now he'll take the drink because it's over the suffering is all over now and the greatest amount of that suffering the judgment of God that's that's done so and so prior to that Jesus is willing to take the full brunt of the suffering for you and for me even of course and most significantly the suffering of being separated from God the father and in and taking upon himself his full wrath for sin but now that's over it's done so now the way of salvation is now open to those who will believe it's all finished and that's why

Jesus says almost immediately I think in John 19 30 it is finished that's the sixth thing Jesus spoke from the cross it is finished completed finished meaning there is nothing left to be done I've done everything that is needed for salvation so then we turn back to our passage in Luke to see the seventh and final words Jesus spoke from the cross and really this is quite amazing verse 46 Luke records that Jesus cried out with a loud voice now don't pass over that too quickly this is amazing now think about it everything we know about crucifixion this would be impossible for Jesus to cry out with a loud voice see we need to understand that death by crucifixion did not come so much from the trauma to the hands and feet that would be relatively minimal as trauma would go to a body death did not come from that from the nails in the hands and nails in the feet usually death by crucifixion came by asphyxiation not getting oxygen and lungs filling up with carbon monoxide and eventually liquid because you know your hands are nailed above your head and your body is just kind of hanging there now your feet are nailed think about the excruciating pain of that and what would happen is the body the weight of the body would begin to fall and constrict the lungs and you couldn't get a deep breath and with each breath you took they became more and more shallow and you would basically suffocate to death on the cross now at first you could prop yourself up you know so that you could get a deep breath but think about the pain of that the nails through the feet now they didn't do this to

Jesus but generally and they did to the other two they would come by and break the leg so that you couldn't keep propping yourself up and that would hasten your death but but listen how could Jesus have managed to cry out with a loud voice here at the last there's no oxygen no strength think of the blood loss starting with his his scourging and they even stuck a you know a spear in his side and the crown think of all the blood I mean no strength no oxygen a normal man would barely be able to even get out a whisper but of course you know Jesus was no normal man he was fully human don't misunderstand me he was no normal man and the death he died was no normal death look again at what he said in verse 46 he said father into your hands

I commit my spirit I do that see Jesus was strong here in the end victorious in the end this crucifixion wasn't going to take his life no man could take his life in fact isn't that what he said in John 10 in verse 17 I lay down my life no one takes it from me no one not the Jews not the Romans not anyone but I lay it down of myself I have he said I have the power to lay it down and I have the power to take it again and he did didn't he and so Luke adds having said this I mean just like this he breathed his last other gospel writers say he dismissed his spirit he's the only one who ever chose to die because he was the only one who never had to die he chose to die and what happened after that what happened immediately after

Jesus said first my God my God why have you forsaken me it is finished father into your hands I commit my spirit and he gave up his spirit breathed his life what happened after that well a series of events happened after that and these events were the answer to Jesus prayer on the cross he prayed a prayer on the cross he made a request of God on the cross my God my God why have you forsaken me and so we get to the third thing I want you to notice out of this passage the witness of God the father the witness of God the father so we have the wrath of God the father poured out upon the son we have the words of the God the!

son and now we his prayer to grant his request and he did profoundly powerfully here again is what Jesus prayed Luke does not record this in his gospel so we have to go outside of the gospel of Luke we do have what comes next some of what comes next after this request but Matthew 27 46 and Mark 15 and verse 34 tell us what Jesus said Luke mentions the answer part of the answer so what did he pray this time I want to quote it from Matthew 27 46 Eli Eli lama sabachthanai and it's a question it's in the form of a question actually it is a request it's a request my

God my God why have you forsaken me now if you're familiar with Psalm 22 you know that David prophesied that the Messiah would say these very words and he did all right but here's the big question what really was Jesus asking what was he asking did Jesus really not know did he not know why God had forsaken him did he not know why the judgment fell upon him and why God effectively after pouring out his wrath upon him turned from him did he really not know why that would be pretty hard to believe what you think did he mean something else well the answer comes in the meaning of the word lama that's a key word here lama now in the

English it's translated y and rightfully so that'd be the only way you could translate it in English at least in one word grammatically speaking it is an interrogative adverb for you grammarians out there and in the Hebrew language there are two common interrogative adverbs that would be both both of which would be translated with the English word why but it means something slightly different the words are the Hebrew words are madua and the other one is lama that we have in our passage here the word madua always looks backward looks backward and it asks why in the sense of for what cause for what reason familiar example would be Exodus chapter 3 verse 3 when Moses turns aside to see the burning bush remember and it's burning but it's not being consumed and so

Moses said I will now turn aside and see this great sight why the bush is not burned up that's madua it seeks to look behind the event or prior to the event to see what caused this thing and how it could be burning and not be consumed madua now if both David in his messianic psalm psalm 22 and Jesus in his prayer upon the cross if both had used the word madua then we would have to say that Jesus was somehow confused or unclear about his current treatment from God the Father because that's what the word madua would mean you know somehow that he did not understand why he was being forsaken so he's basically asking my God my God for what reason have you forsaken me but neither David or Jesus used that word rather they used the Hebrew word lama the word lama unlike madua always looks forward and it asks why in the sense of for what purpose for what end in a sense and so he's basically asking for a demonstration lama seeks a demonstration so Jesus is asking

God the Father what is to be accomplished by your forsaking me what's to be accomplished by you pouring out your wrath upon me and forsaking me give a demonstration of it and say see Jesus is not asking for himself I mean he knows how could he not know he knows so he's not asking for himself Jesus is asking making this request of God for the sake of those there and for us and all those who will read this in the gospels that's why he's asking and so does God the Father answer Jesus prayer his request does God the Father give a demonstration of why Jesus was forsaken on the cross and the answer is yes profoundly and these are the witnesses the witnesses of God the Father to what the cross of Jesus accomplished and here's the first one the first witness points to access to God that's what was accomplished

Jesus died upon the cross was forsaken by God the Father so that you and I could have access to God and the witness comes in verse 45 and the veil of the temple was torn in two now chronologically this might be a little confusing in Luke but when you put all the gospels together some are giving a summary some are giving detail chronological descriptions chronologically this tearing of the veil the rending of the veil occurred immediately after the death of Jesus Matthew tells us that Matthew 27 and verse 50 and when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice Luke and John tells us what he said he gave up his spirit and at that moment the curtain of the temple was torn into from top to bottom are we familiar with that but we thought about what a profound witness that is to the cross of

Christ what the cross of Christ accomplished the way is open access to God is now made available to those who will believe in fact you know the Jews they so stupid they didn't get it at all they sewed up the veil put it back in place and continued with the sacrifices for 30 some odd years and God finally had to destroy the temple just to get them to stop it it marked the end of the temple end of the priesthood end of the sacrifice old testament sacrifices because all that was just a shadow of Christ and now he has come and the way is now open to us and so Jesus said give a demonstration of what this cross has accomplished and the veil is ripped from top to bottom Ephesians chapter 2 verse 14 for he is our peace who has made both one and has broken down the middle wall of partition between us having abolished in his flesh the enmity between us between us and God

Hebrews chapter 10 verse 19 therefore brethren having boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way which he consecrated for us through the veil that is through his flesh second witness points to life after death it witnesses the reality of life after death the resurrection Matthew chapter 27 verse 52 gives us this after Jesus breathed his last the veil is rent from top to bottom and then Matthew says and the graves were opened and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep that means they died were raised and coming out of the graves after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many and why why this as a profound witness to what the cross of Christ has accomplished the promise of the resurrection

John 6 39 Jesus said this is the will of the father who sent me that of all he has given me I should lose nothing but should raise it up at the last day John 6 and verse 40 this is the will of him who sent me that everyone who sees the son and believes in him may have everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day John 6 44 no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up at the last day Jesus he's on the cross you've forsaken me now give a demonstration of what this is all about what this has accomplished and he rinsed the veil into access to God that's what the cross has accomplished and he raises a few dead saints to witness to the resurrection and then the third witness is faith that saves saving faith how did he demonstrate this well

Matthew Mark and Luke include this one in their accounts but let me read Luke Luke 23 47 so when the centurion saw what had happened he glorified God saying certainly this was a righteous man in Matthew's account he said the centurion feared greatly saying truly this was the son of God now folks listen this centurion was the very first person to believe in Jesus Christ after Jesus death the first one many countless thousands of millions have come sent a profound witness to what the cross of Christ accomplished faith that saved so you have the wrath of God the father the words of God the son the witness of God the father and then finally quickly the worshipers of God the son look at your

Bibles again we'll just kind of read through this very quickly starting with verse 50 now behold there was a man named Joseph Joseph a council member that means he was a member of the Sanhedrin probably a Pharisee a good and just man in fact Matthew I think Matthew and Mark both tell us that he was a believer he was a disciple he had not consented to their decision indeed that is the decision of the Sanhedrin he was a descending boat I think also Nicodemus was as well so he did not consent he was from Arimathea a city of the Jews who himself was also waiting for the kingdom of God similar words Luke used to describe Simeon and Anna remember after Jesus birth they were waiting for the consolation of Israel waiting for the salvation the redemption of Israel waiting for the kingdom to come and this man went to

Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus then he took it down wrapped it in linen laid it in a tomb that was hewn out of rock where no one had ever lain before and we're thinking well of course yet they did reuse tombs in those days but not this one just like Jesus was going to ride on a donkey into Jerusalem a donkey that had never been ridden on before he's going to be laid in a tomb that had never been used before either that was the preparation the day of preparation and the sabbath drew near it it did matter of a few hours it would be officially the sabbath and so all this had to be done before the beginning of the sabbath you can't work on with him from Galilee followed after and they observed the tomb and how his body was laid which by the way dispels the notion of some that they went to the wrong tomb on resurrection

Sunday because they didn't know where it was well they did know they'd been there already then they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils and they rested on the sabbath according to the commandment these are the people who love Jesus and they followed Jesus and many of them ministered to him all throughout his ministry these women and other disciples and even some disciples who were you know very wealthy and like Joseph and like Nicodemus gently taking the body of Jesus down from the cross and very gingerly and reverently and lovingly are wrapping him in linen cloths to some extent preparing his body for burial and they place him in the tomb very carefully and very worshipfully they loved him and adored him and now he is dead and that's it that's it

Jesus is dead and buried end of story Thank you.