As always, Alfred Edersheim’s pious reflections on the burial of Jesus are edifying.
This is a great Holy Saturday reading for you and your family. Thanks for sharing!
The proximity of the holy Sabbath, and the consequent need of haste, may have suggested or determined the proposal of Joseph to lay the Body of Jesus in his own rock-hewn new tomb, wherein no one had yet been laid. The symbolic significance of this is the more marked, that the symbolism was undersigned. These rock-hewn sepulchres, and the mode of laying the dead in them, have been very fully described in connection with the burying of Lazarus, we may therefore wholly surrender overselves to the sacred thoughts that gather around us.
The Cross was lowered and laid on the ground; the cruel nails drawn out, and the ropes unloosed. Joseph, with those who attended him, ‘wrapped’ the Sacred Body ‘in a clean linen cloth,’ and rapidly carried It to the rock-hewn tomb in the garden close by. Such a rock-hewn tomb or cave (Meartha) had niches (Kukhin), where the dead were laid. It will be remembered, that at the entrance to ‘the tomb’ – and within ‘the rock’ – there was ‘a court,’ nine feet square, where ordinarly the bier was deposited, and its bearers gathered to do the last offices for the Dead. Thither we suppose Joseph to have carried the Sacred Body, and then the last scene to have taken place.
For now another, kindered to Joseph in spirit, history, and position, had come. The same spiritual Law, which had brought Joseph to open confession, also constrained the profession of that other Sanhedrist, Nicodemus. We remember, how at the first he had, from fear of detection, come to Jesus by night, and with what bated breath he had pleaded with his colleagues not so much the cause of Christ, as on His behalf that of law and justice. He now came, bringing ‘a roll’ of myrrh and aloes, in the fragrant mixture well known to the Jews for purposes of anointing or burying.
It was in ‘the court’ of the tomb that the hasty embalmment – if such it may be called – took place. None of Christ’s former disciples seem to have taken part in the burying. John may have withdrawn to bring tidings to, and to comfort the Virgin-Mother; the others also, that had ‘stood after off, beholding,’ appear to have left. Only a few faithful ones, notably among them Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, the mother of Joses, stood over against the tomb, watching at some distance where and how the Body of Jesus was laid. It would scarcely have been in accordance with Jewish manners, if these women had mingled more closely with the two Sanhedrists and their attendants.
From where they stood they could only have had a dim view of what passed within the court, and this may explain how, on their return, they ‘prepared spices and ointments’ for the more full honours which they hoped to pay the Dead after the Sabbath was past. For, it is of the greatest importance to remember, that haste characterised all that was done. It seems as if the ‘clean linen cloth’ in which the Body had been wrapped, was now torn into ‘cloths’ or swathes, into which the Body, limb by limb, was now ‘bound,’ no doubt, between layers of myrrh and aloes, the Head being wrapped in a napkin.
And so they laid Him to rest in the inche of the rock-hewn new tomb.
And as they went out, they rolled, as was the custom, a ‘great stone’ – the Golel – to close the entrance to the tomb, probably leaning against it for support, as was the practice, a smaller stone – the so-called Dopheq. It would be where the one stone was laid against the other, that on the next day, Sabbath though it was, the Jewish authorities would have affixed the seal, so that the slightest disturbance might become apparent.
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It was probably about the same time, that a noisy throng prepared to follow delegates from the Sanhedrin to the ceremony of cutting the Passover-sheaf. The Law had it, “he shall bring a sheaf [literally, the Omer] with the first-fruits of your harvest, unto the priest; and he shall wave the Omer before Jehovah, to be accepted for you.” This Passover-sheaf was reaped in public the evening before it was offered, and it was to witness this ceremony that the crowd had gathered around the elders. Already on the 14th Nisan the spot whence the first sheaf was to be reaped had been marked out, by tying together in bundles, while still standing, the barley that was to be cut down, according to custom, in the sheltered Ashes-Valley across Kidron.
When the time for cutting the sheaf had arrived – that is, on the evening of the 15th Nisan, even though it were a Sabbath, just as the sun went down, three men, each with a sickle and basket, set to work. Clearly to bring out what was distinctive in the ceremony, they first asked of the bystanders three times each of these questions: “Has the sun gone down?” “With this sickle?” “Into this basket?” “On this Sabbath? (or first Passover-day)” – and, lastly, “shall I reap?” Having each time been answered in the affirmative, they cut down barley to the amount of one ephah, or about three pecks and three pints of our English measure. This is not the place to follow the ceremony farther – how the corn was threshed out, parched, ground, and one omer of the flour, mixed with oil and frankincense, waved before the Lord in the Temple on the second Paschal day (or 16th of Nisan). But, as this festive procession started, amidst loud demonstrations, a small band of mourners turned from having laid their dead Master in His resting-place.
The contrast is as sad as it is suggestive. And yet, not in the Temple, nor by the priest, but in the silence of that garden-tomb, was the first Omer of the new Paschal flour to be ‘waved before the Lord.’
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‘Now on the morrow, which is after the preparation [the Friday], the chief priests and the Pharisees were gathered together unto Pilate, saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, which He was yet alive, After three days I rise again. Command, therefore, that the sephulchre be made sure until the third day, lest haply His disciples come and steal Him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first. Pilate said unto them, Take a guard, go your way, make it as sure as ye can. So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, the guard being with them.’
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But was there really need for it? Did they, who had spent what remained of daylight to prepare spices wherewith to anoint the Dead Christ, expect His Body to be removed, or did they expect – perhaps in their sorrow even think of His word: ‘I rise again?’ But on that holy Sabbath, when the Sanhedrists were thinking of how to make sure of the Dead Christ, what were the thoughts of Joseph of Arimathæa and Nicodemus, of Peter and John, of the other disciples, and especially of the loving women who only waited for the first streak of Easter-light to do their last service of love? What were their thoughts of God – what of Christ – what of the Words He had spoken, the Deeds He had wrought, the salvation He had come to bring, and the Kingdom of Heaven which He was to open to all believers?
Behind Him had closed the gates of Hades; but upon them rather than upon Him had fallen the shadows of death. Yet they still loved Him – and stronger than death was love.
Excerpted from “The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah” (https://www.ccel.org/ccel/edersheim/lifetimes.x.xv.html),
