Slices
Prepare
Have you ever embarked on something – decorating, baking, a long-distance walk? How did it feel when you came to the end and you could look back with a sense of satisfaction? Hold that in your mind as you read.
Bible passage
The death of Jesus
28 Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, ‘I am thirsty.’ 29 A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. 30 When he had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’ With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
31 Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jewish leaders did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. 32 The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other. 33 But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. 34 Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. 35 The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe. 36 These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: ‘Not one of his bones will be broken,’ 37 and, as another scripture says, ‘They will look on the one they have pierced.’
The burial of Jesus
38 Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. 39 He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about thirty-five kilograms. 40 Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. 41 At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. 42 Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was near by, they laid Jesus there.
Explore
The word ‘finished’ (vs 28,30) indicates the completion of a task. Jesus’ final cry is, despite his agony, an expression of satisfaction at a job well done. Running through these chapters is the thought that the cross is no accident of human history. It is the means by which God redeemed the world, a truth underlined by the repeated references to fulfilment of scripture. It reminds us that for Jesus the cross was a deliberate choice (John 10:17,18); it was not down to Jewish demands or Pilate’s sentence. We can know a new relationship with God because Jesus chose the cross and finished his work.
Enter two apparently secret followers, a reminder that things are not always what they seem. Two prominent Jewish leaders: one, at least, a member of the council, the other, on his last appearance, something of a sceptic (John 3:1–15). We probably wouldn’t have given them a chance. But God’s love is wider than our limited ideas. We can have fixed ideas of who Jesus’ followers are. But the reality may be different. Where might we see God at work today in unlikely people?
Respond
Pray for Christians living under hostile regimes in many places around the world, who have to follow in secret.
Deeper Bible study
Remember persecuted Christians and secret believers around the world, particularly in the Muslim world. What pressures do we face to downplay or keep our faith secret?
Joseph of Arimathea is influential enough to be given an urgent audience with Pilate and to be trusted with the burial of Jesus’ body. Nicodemus is a Pharisee serving on the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council, who had come to see Jesus at night.1 Both had kept secret their decision to follow Jesus.
The bitter opposition of the religious leadership to Jesus was well known. There was ‘widespread whispering’ about Jesus among those attending the feast of Tabernacles, whispering because no one dared discuss him publicly.2 The parents of the man born blind are so terrified they won’t even speak for their healed son.3 Even leaders who believe in Jesus are unwilling to confess that faith for fear of being excluded from their worshipping communities of God’s people.4
The bitterness of the opposition makes what Joseph and Nicodemus do here all the more extraordinary: they risk everything to honour Jesus and to do so when there’s nothing left, seemingly, to be gained. So revolted are they by what they’ve seen that they find the courage to honour Jesus in death in a way they hadn’t openly in life.
Taking the body down from the cross, they wrapped it – probably with the help of servants – in strips of linen along with a huge amount of spices. Though rebels were normally dumped in a common grave, Pilate released the body to them, further evidence that he didn’t believe Jesus was guilty. As reverently as possible, given the Sabbath to come, the body was laid to rest in a new tomb. It is a real death, as the separation of clot and serum in verses 34 and 35 proves, and a real burial. And we await the dawn.
This act of loving service is a bold statement of faith. How might we undertake similarly bold acts of loving service to honour Jesus?
1 John 3:1,2; see also John 7:50–52 2 John 7:12,13 3 John 9:20–23 4 John 12:42,43
Bible in a year
Read the Bible in a year: Joshua 6,7; Romans 11
Pray for Scripture Union
Pray for the leadership and staff as they enter a new financial year asking that God would continue to refresh and renew their strategic vision as they seek to refine and implement the bold new direction set by the Revealing Jesus mission framework.
