Friday, April 18, 2025

Good Friday, April 18th, anno + Domini 2025,
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, SD
A Rich Burial - Isaiah 53:9

     He assigned his grave with wicked men, but with a rich man in his death…

 

   The final honor bestowed on an important person is a rich burial. The pharaohs of ancient Egypt built the pyramids for their tombs, lined them with gold, and filled them with provisions for the afterlife. Napolean’s tomb in Paris is grandiose, as is the Medici chapel, where the magnates of that family are buried, in Florence, Italy.  And, even if he isn’t really dead, Elvis’s gravesite in Graceland is a very popular tourist attraction.   A towering tombstone or a granite mausoleum give tribute to the one whose remains rest there. 


    On Good Friday, Christ’s shameful death was in the company of “wicked men,” but according to God’s plan He received the honor of a burial as “a rich man”.   Joseph of Arimathea gave Christ a tomb that was suitable for an upright man, even a relatively wealthy one – he gave Christ a rich burial.  But the greater truth hidden in that Good Friday tomb is the promise that all baptized believers are buried with the limitless riches of God’s grace in Christ.  Jesus’ burial promises resurrection and the priceless inheritance of eternal life.

    Our Good Friday text from Isaiah is a careful, detailed prophecy about the end of Jesus’ earthly life. Tonight we hear it in a bit more literal translation, which conveys even more clearly the specific details uttered by Isaiah some 700 years before the death of Jesus.

     Verse 9 begins “He assigned His grave with wicked men”. God the Father is the He, the unnamed subject, the one who “assigned” to Christ His grave. The circumstances of Good Friday are not unplanned accidents of history. No, everything took place according to God’s detailed, pre-ordained plan. Part of that plan was for Christ’s grave to be among “wicked men”. That sounds like Jesus would get a dishonorable burial, a pauper’s grave, shameful treatment suitable for a common criminal. Yet, our verse continues, “but with a rich man in His death.”  This second line predicts an honorable, rich burial. 

     So which is it?  How was Christ treated - shamefully, or honorably?  As poor, or rich? As Jesus Christ died and was buried on this day nearly two thousand years ago, He fulfilled both lines of our verse.  Jesus was assigned a grave with wicked men and with a rich man in His death.  Most importantly, His burial holds great promise for each of us.

    The first part of God’s plan made use of the scheme of Jesus’ enemies.  They plotted to kill the King of the Jews, even though His kingdom was not of this world.  They paid Judas to betray Him.  Jesus was arrested and led though a series of sham trials before Jewish leaders and the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, who unjustly condemned Jesus to what was known in the ancient world as mors turpissima crucis, “the most vile death of the cross.”

     A violent criminal appears in the narrative of Jesus’ death, someone who might remind us of today’s Muslim terrorists.  Barabbas had taken part in an insurrection, an attempt to violently overthrow the Roman government.   Instead of freeing Jesus, Pilate complies with the crowd’s demand, and frees Barabbas, a murderer. (Luke 23:19, 25).  On Christ’s right and left the Romans also crucified two evildoers.  And so we see that Jesus “was numbered with the transgressors(Isaiah 53:12). The sinless Son of God suffered beside wicked men, “although He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth.”  Such was the death planned for Jesus by His enemies.  In this way, the first line of our verse was fulfilled: God “assigned His grave with wicked men.”

Jesus’ death in the company of notorious sinners was a fitting conclusion to His earthly ministry.  Christ was derisively known as the “friend of sinners(Luke 7:34), because He associated with tax collectors and prostitutes, the poor and the lowly, the unclean and the sick.  Jesus happily received and spent time with people who were despised, those avoided and scorned by all “upstanding, good people.”  So also in His death, Christ identifies with sinners, executed as a criminal in the company of wicked men.  

 Our Lord was poor, too.  His only fine possession - a tunic woven in one piece, with no seams at all, became the soldiers’ gambling prize. Forsaken, stripped naked and robbed of all outward dignity, Jesus’ had no earthly possessions.  He dies in utter poverty, in keeping with God’s plan to give us heavenly wealth.  Jesus’ death in the place of poor sinners procured the richness of the forgiveness of sins for all humanity.

As Isaiah prophesied:  He was pierced for our transgression, crushed for our iniquities.  The punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)

     His death brings us peace.  His wounds heal us.  By grace alone, through Baptism into Christ’s atoning death (Romans 6:1–4; Colossians 2:11–14), God takes away our sin and clothes us in the robe of Christ’s perfect righteousness.  He died in abject poverty to give us a share in the victor’s spoils, the riches of eternal life, a free gift for all who believe in the Crucified.  And Isaiah foresaw this, too:

My Servant will justify the many so that each is righteous, and He will carry their     iniquities.  Therefore I will give to Him His portion while He is among the many, and He will divide the spoil with the numerous. (Isaiah 53:11–12)

 

     Jesus' accusers, the scribes, Pharisees and priests, leaders of the Jewish people, plotted to destroy Him.  They had no desire to see Him honored in death.  For their part, the pagan Romans often left crucified victims on the cross for days, unprotected from the elements and scavenger birds.  They did this to inflict humiliation even after death, as a warning to others who might think to challenge Roman authority.  Later they would throw the desecrated remains into a common grave.  Such was the burial that the world had planned for the Son of God.  

  

    But God the Father would not permit such disgrace to mock His Son in death. When Jesus prayed, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit(Luke 23:46), and breathed His last, He completed the redemption of all humanity for all time.  The Father’s will was fulfilled.  It is finished; Jesus' goal is achieved.  His time of humiliation is over.  Rich glory awaits.

  God’s plan was that after Christ died in the company of “wicked men,” He was to be “with a rich man in His death.”  Joseph of Arimathea was “a good and righteous” Jew  (Luke 23:50) who had become a disciple of Jesus Christ, although secretly for fear of the Jews.  On Good Friday he took a bold step of faith.  The Holy Spirit moved him to ask Pontius Pilate for the body of Jesus.  Joseph thought to give Christ His final honors.

    As a Jew, and a member of the Council, the Sanhedrin, burying the body of Jesus meant Joseph was throwing away his honored place in society.  Under Roman domination, it took a brave man to request the body of a criminal.  Pilate could think that Joseph was declaring his allegiance to the one who had been executed.  This could easily draw suspicion from the Roman governor.  Joseph could be next.

   Joseph of Arimathea was “a rich man(Matthew 27:57). One sign of his wealth was his ownership of a tomb in a garden near Golgotha.  Joseph had gone to the expense of having a tomb hewn out of solid rock.  This was the best and the most secure type of grave in the ancient world, although it would not be able to hold the risen Lord.

    It was a new tomb, no one else had ever been laid in it.  Joseph had prepared it to be his own resting place (Matthew 27:60).  Out of love for the Lord who had taken his place on the cross, Joseph gave Jesus his costly tomb.

    Into the virgin tomb was placed the Virgin’s Son.

     The sin of the first Adam caused humanity’s expulsion from the garden paradise (Genesis 2–3).  In another garden, the second Adam, Jesus Christ, leads humanity back into paradise through His burial and resurrection.  By Christ’s rich burial, God honored His Son, the Lamb of God without spot or blemish, the acceptable sacrifice, of unlimited value.

    The pharaohs of Egypt filled their pyramid tombs with gold and every precious commodity.  They did this in the false hope that their wealth could secure a blessed afterlife.  But most of their gold was long ago plundered by grave robbers.

    No one can rob us of God’s priceless riches in Christ, which do secure a blessed afterlife for all who trust in Jesus.  The forgiveness of sins is ours through Christ’s crucifixion “with wicked men.”  God considers baptized believers in Christ to be Christ-like: to have done no wrong, nor to have any deceit in our mouth, because Christ has taken away all of our sins, burying them in His own body.  And the promise of resurrection is ours, because His stay with “with a rich man in His death” was only temporary.

    It is necessary for you and me to contemplate Good Friday, and wrestle with the knowledge that our sin is part of the cause Jesus' suffering and death.  He suffered because we are sinners.  He went to the tomb in our place. 

    And yet, we do not despair.  Rather, we rest in the peace of God, the peace that knows that Jesus’ death is our forgiveness, and His rest in the tomb is our gateway to new life.   

Rest in Jesus.  Amen

No comments:

Post a Comment