Day 30
John 19:38-42
38After these things Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took away his body. 39Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds in weight. 40So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. 41Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. 42So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.
Joseph of Arimathea (John 19:38-42)
We don’t know with any certainty where Arimathea was situated. Luke tells us that it was a ‘Jewish town’ (Luke 23:50). It is possible that it was another name for RamathaimZophim (1 Samuel 1:1). John tells us that Joseph was a secret disciple (verse 38), while Matthew seems to suggest that he had just become a disciple (Matthew 27:57); the other gospel writers tell us that he was ‘looking for the kingdom of God’ (Mark 15:43; Luke 23:51). So Joseph was either a secret disciple, a new believer or an 'almost believer’ to use one of the Reformers’ favourite descriptions.
With Pilate’s permission Joseph and Nicodemus take the body and prepare it for the grave ‘as is the burial custom of the Jews’ (verse 40). This involved a linen sheet and an ointment made from sweet-smelling spices. If the preparation was quite normal, the amount of spices certainly wasn’t. The measurement mentioned here is a litra which was 327.45 grams. So seventy-five of these would be a little over 24.5kg which was enough for the burial of a king (cf. 2 Chronicles 16:14). Perhaps that was the point that John was making; he certainly goes out of the way to emphasize the sovereignty of Jesus whenever he can.
The idea that Jesus merely fainted on the cross and was revived by the coolness of the tomb is finally put to rest here. There really is no possibility that Jesus survived the beating and the crucifixion, but accepting that he did for a moment, he would have been suffocated by that amount of burial ointment.
Think: What can we learn from the actions of Joseph of Arimathea?
