Mensa Otabil - Buried
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Luke chapter 23, verses 55 and 56: And 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. After Jesus died, His body had to be prepared for burial. Jesus’s burial brought some of His secret disciples to the fore—people who had remained quiet throughout His ministry showed up. They were silent followers but deep believers, and one of them was a man called Joseph. He was from the city of Arimathea and was a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin, thus a member of the Jewish council.
It is very obvious that he had not participated in the judgment of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he showed loyalty to Christ not only when He was alive but also when He was dead and His closest disciples had fled. The women were afraid; they were watching from afar, but Joseph was a man of considerable influence; he had influence in Jerusalem, and he went to Pilate to ask for the body of Jesus to be buried. That is a loyal disciple who is loyal in life and loyal in death. Joseph did not know whether Jesus was going to resurrect or not, but he felt that his loyalty must be shown and he took a very courageous step to go to Pilate, to show his face as a disciple or a follower of Jesus.
The Bible says that when he was going through the process, the women who had come with Jesus from Galilee stood afar and watched what was going on. You would wonder, the women are disciples of Jesus, Joseph is a disciple of Jesus—why are they not together? Because the women didn’t live in Jerusalem; they didn’t know the disciples of Jesus in Jerusalem, and they didn’t know who Joseph was and couldn’t trust him fully. So they just watched what was going on; they observed where the body was laid. They observed all the protocols that were put together at the burial of the Lord Jesus Christ and decided to go home to prepare spices to come and anoint the body of Jesus after the Sabbath was over.
The disciples of Jesus had heard that Jesus would resurrect, but they had no idea in what form He would resurrect. By this time, most of them had concluded that if He was going to resurrect, it probably wouldn’t be the dead body coming back to life; that probably seemed a bit too extreme for them. So they thought, well, let’s anoint His body; maybe He will appear from heaven or come another time. They had no clue what the resurrection would be, so they just went home and waited, waiting for the day after the Sabbath to go back to anoint the body of Jesus. What a day that would have been for the disciples of Jesus to see Christ crucified and dead! They saw the spear pierce His side; blood and water came out. They knew He was gone; they knew He had been buried.
A stone had been rolled, and a Roman seal had been placed on the stone. As far as they were concerned, it was the end of a chapter. Would He come back to life? They didn’t know for sure, definitely not the next day. They felt maybe He would come in another form, but as far as they knew, the chapter was over. You know, there are many times when we go through life and think it’s over. It’s over! I don’t think anything good will come out of this. But you don’t write off your story when Jesus is involved, and you don’t write off the story when God is involved. You may not know how, you may not know when; you may not fully understand how He’s going to do it, but watch out, it’s going to happen. So let’s wait and see what happens tomorrow.
Let’s share a word of prayer together. Say with me, «Heavenly Father, teach me to wait on You when I feel alone and helpless. I know You turn things around for me. In Jesus' name, Amen.» Well, I’ll catch you again tomorrow. I’m Pastor Mensa Otabil. Shalom, peace, and life to you.