Silent No More | Chris Osburn

As has been mentioned already, we're so thankful for everybody

who is here this morning. If you're a visitor, please be.

We want you to feel welcome each and every time you're able to

make it here. And as we said on your way

passing through, we pray that you make it to your destination

safely as well. Of course, we want to make sure

that we are in line with the Bible, with what we're teaching

this morning and pray that that's what I have done.

I'd like to, we're going to, we're going to be talking about

Luke 23, verses 50 through 56 with a lesson called Silent No

Luke 23:50–56

more. So if you want to open your

Bibles, please, I'll have it up here on the board as well.

If you don't, it says they're beginning in verse 50.

Now, there was a man named Joseph from the Jewish town of

Arimathea. He was a member of the council,

righteous, a good and righteous man who had not consented to

their decision in action, and he was looking for the Kingdom of

God. This man went to Pilate and

asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down and wrapped

it in a linen shroud and laid him in a tomb cut in stone,

where no one had ever yet been laid.

It was the day of preparation, and the Sabbath was beginning.

The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw

the tomb and how his body was laid.

They returned and prepared spices and ointments.

On the Sabbath, they rested according to the commandment.

This description provided by Luke of the burial of Jesus is

what we read about here. And this is one of the little

paragraphs in the Bible that, you know, I tend to just kind of

read through and skip over and, and not pay much attention to.

But we may think to ourselves, well, you know, all the dramatic

moments of the crucifixion and all the implications and all the

major events have already occurred.

And it's just sort of a little footnote concerning what has

happened regarding his burial. And so when we come to a little

portion like this, we may think to ourselves, you know, well,

there's not much there to. There's not much there to see.

There's not much there to dive into.

There's not much, there's not much here.

Well, I like to try to find the small obscure stories or phrases

in a Bible that sometimes we tend to overlook.

And I hope that I can just give some insight of what the

inspired work, inspired Word of God is trying to teach us.

So I hope to have one or two things that will be worthy of

our attention this morning. First of all, we should notice

that the burial Jesus, the actual burial of the body of

Jesus was by no means an obvious conclusion.

And that's for two reasons. Because the Roman law, the

crucifixion of a criminal, was not the end of the humiliation

on the cross or not the humiliation of the criminal.

The humiliation actually followed the person of their

death. They were barred from honor,

from the proper burial. If you want to say they were

barred from any kind of proper burial, and the release of a

corpse from the cross was only granted by a Roman magistrate.

That's the only person who would release the body of a criminal

of Rome. And so it's solely depended on

Rome. So unless somebody went and

asked, then the chances of the body would be simply left there,

maybe for days, they say sometimes even to where birds of

the air would would devour on the on the corpse of the body is

some of what the historians have said.

And consequently the place would not only become only a sorry

side, but it would become an ugly place as well.

It was not an obvious conclusion because the burial was not the

right. A proper burial was not the

right of the condemned under Roman law.

And secondly, it was not an obvious conclusion because when

we look at the passage closely, we realize that nobody was

around to make the request on Jesus's behalf.

You know, for remember, you know who was really going to ask for

the body of Jesus? His friends were gone.

The women were clearly unprepared and probably in the

constant context of the day, they would not have been

listened to even if they had gone and requested the body of

Christ. There is no obvious leader who

is about to step up and request the body of Christ and and take

charge in those circumstances. I found this quote from Norvel

Gelden Heiss. In one of his characteristic

notes it says, isn't it a shame that in the hour of crisis it is

often to the, sadly too often the Peters who have sworn

loyalty to Jesus with big gestures and fullness of

self-confidence, who disappoint us?

Even if they all leave you, Jesus, I will be there with you

to the end. Even if they all fall away,

Jesus, I'll be there at the end. And so he made these bold

assertions and now it is the end.

But there is no Peter, no friend, a sign, a place with the

wicked in his death. And then suddenly and silently,

out of the shadows emerges one like Esther we see here, whom

you will remember came into the Kingdom for just a moment like

this, or just a time like this. And so it is here that he

arrives on the stage, this individual who whose secrecy had

up to this point been destroying his discipleship, if you want to

say. But now he is determined that he

is going to step forward generously and boldly.

And here we find him. And it says now there was a man

named Joseph from the Jewish town of Arimathea.

He was a member of the council, a good and righteous man.

Now there's a sense of, you know, when you read this, you

can kind of get excited about, you know what, what we're going

to see. And now there's steps forward of

man's what we read. Well, we want to find out as

much as we can about Joseph of Arimathea in our study.

Why is he even in the Bible? Why is he pop up now?

Have we read about him before? You know, I don't think we have.

Do we read about him afterwards? Probably not.

This is surely a time for Joseph to be showing up in the Kingdom

for just a moment like this. So a quick biography including

all the details. We can find them pretty easily

if we if we read the the scripture and cross preference

the other passages of the Gospels that we can find the

same story in. What we do know is we know that

he is from Arimathea, the town in Judea.

We also know that Matthew in Matthew's record that he is

rich. He Matthew says he is a rich man

in in chapter 2757. And we know here that he is a

member of the council. That is the Sanhedrin.

The people had The Who had been responsible for going to pilot

and and pressing for the death of Jesus.

Actually, Mark tells us in Mark 15 that he was not simply just a

member of the council, but he was a prominent member of the

council. We also know that he was a good

and that he was good and upright.

That's what verse 50 says. We also know that he was also a

secret disciple. John tells us that his record

tells us that he was a secret disciple and that he'd become a

disciple because of of of what Jesus was teaching, but he was

afraid of the Jews because of it.

So he's a secret disciple. We also know that he was waiting

here in verse 51. He was waiting for the Kingdom

of God. And we also know from verse 51

that although he was a member of the council, he did not consent

to the decision that the Sanhedrin meet made in regards

to the death of Jesus. The matter of fact is that he

was. My guess is maybe he was missing

from one of the meetings if he wasn't conceited.

You know, we're told that the Sanhedrin acted unanimously

together in the decision to crucify Jesus.

So maybe, maybe he wasn't there for the final vote.

We don't know all that, but just my assumption.

So that all kind of falls under the biography sketch that we

have of Joseph of Arimathea. The second point I want to make

here is a courageous move because that's what we actually

see here in verse 52, a courageous move.

This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus is

what it says there. Mark actually uses the word

courageous. He said that he took courage and

went to pilot in Mark 1543. And of course, because the fear

had previously silenced him. Fear had previously controlled

him and now he casts his fear to the wind and he steps up.

Somehow or another, the cross had brought him out into the

open. What the life of Jesus had done,

what the teaching and the miracles of Jesus had done, was

to attract him and bring him to the point of belief.

Somehow or another, he was still being covert in his actions.

While he still believed in Jesus prior to this point, he was

still going about his business in a secretive way.

He was still moving amongst his colleagues and believing in

Jesus and yet somehow able to fly under the radar, if you

will, may find a point of identification with that this

morning, that we may be actually describing ourselves to this

point of our life, a secret disciple believing.

But yet we're afraid really of letting anybody know what our

belief is, what we stand for, even those who are closest to

us. We tend to shy away from that

courage to to let people know who Jesus is.

But something had happened. Jesus had said here in John

1232. And I, when I am lifted up from

the earth, will draw all people to myself.

And if you go back a few verses in Luke 23, you know the

centuries that centurion found that same distinctive point that

Jesus was somebody who was important.

Something had happened to him at that cross and now that same

thing is happening to Joseph. And so Joseph makes a daring

request asking for the body of Jesus.

And you know, why are we, why is he asking for the body would

have been the obvious question. The obvious answer is because

Joseph was committed to this condemned and crucified man.

You may have thought, you know, I failed to follow this guy.

I failed to serve Jesus during his life while he was alive, but

I'm sure not going to miss the chance to do it now that he is

dead. And Mark alone tells us that

Pilate was surprised. We can read that in Mark 15

Mark 15:44–45

verse 44 through 45. Joseph goes and says, can I have

the body? And Pilate says what the body?

You mean to tell me that the body's already dead, that Jesus

is already dead? Oh yes, says Joseph.

And then Pilate says I need to verify this.

So Joseph takes census centurion to go verify that Jesus is dead.

He comes back and yeah, it's verified Jesus is already dead.

Sometimes the crucifixion, as we have studied here before, often

sometimes lasted up to three days or so, a very horrible way

to die. And so it was remarkable in

which Jesus had passed away or died so quickly as his life had

come so quickly to an end on the props.

So the body was released and that gives way to urgent

activity. And the pace of this is quite

remarkable if you think about it.

Verse 52, it says this man went to Pilate and asked for the body

of Jesus in the verse 53, then he took it down.

There's a timeline here that I want to kind of have us the

picture in our head what's going to be happening here very

quickly. So we need to remember that is,

but by now it is the middle of the afternoon on the day of the

crucifixion on the Friday of the Passover week, the middle of the

afternoon Jesus died around 3:00.

Remember that the darkness came over at noon day lasted for

three hours and at the end of the darkness Jesus said Father

into your hands I commit my spirit and he breathed his last

breath. So that was about 3:00.

And if we allow a little bit of time, then the commencement of

the Jewish Sabbath was at 6:00 PM the same day.

Therefore, this individual, Joseph, if he was going to abide

by the Jewish law, now had a window of opportunity that is

less than three hours to get a lot of work done.

So he has less than three hours to accomplish everything that

needs to be done. If the burial is going to take

place, it's going to have to take place very quickly.

Now this guy moves into action again, what we need to take all

the gospel records and write them down.

And if you put almost in this kind of a, a, a list of

everything that happened, we come up with a great picture of

urgency. So the things that need to be

done within three hours was to take the body down.

Mark tells us that he went and bought the linen cloth and Mark

Mark 15:46

15, verse 46 and the body we did have been washed because Jewish

law required that you had to wash the body before it was

buried. So there was no way that Joseph

affair Messiah was not going to follow the Jewish law at that

point. So the body has to be washed.

And then we're told in John that it was wrapped in linen.

Claws were wrapped together with some 75 lbs of spices in John

1939 through 40 and the body was placed in a newly cut tomb and

the big stone was rolled in front of the entrance.

Matthew 27, verse 60. All in an afternoon's work,

Matthew 27:60

right? That's a lot of stuff to get

done before 6:00 PM in three hours.

So he goes to Pilate and boldly he says, may I have the body,

And he is granted the body of Jesus.

And if we think about it, it's remarkable, You know, who is

this guy? Joseph Arimathea.

Look at what Joseph of Arimathea was able to do in such a short

period of time. And when we think about it, you

know, I don't think well, we know that Joseph didn't act

alone during this time. Clearly he didn't act alone.

We know that there was at least one person with him and we'll

get to him in a moment and maybe others about.

But Joseph was a Mitch man. He was prominent member of the

council. He was the kind of guy that

would have influence. And and we can imagine that

maybe he is getting his servants together and giving up the

tasks. You know, just picture that in

our mind. We're not told those things in

the Bible, but but you know, he had some clout about him and he

had some authority where he could divvy up those tasks,

taking the body from the cross. We can't imagine that he did

that alone. He had to have help in that.

It doesn't make sense for him to pull that body down off the

cross by himself. He would have probably had help

there. The purchase of linen, the

location of the tomb, making sure that the entry was

accessible and possible. All these all these different

things that had to be done. But the one help where we are

Noah, that is a sure friend that we that we've read about before

is Nicodemus. And this is really, really

pretty neat in the Bible, you know, John 1938 through 40, the

way just kind of comes into the text.

It says there Pilate gave him who was Joseph permission.

So he came and took away his body.

Nicodemus also who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came

bringing a mixture of murder and aloes and about 75 lbs in

weight. So they took the body of Jesus.

Oh, Nicodemus, Remember Nicodemus, you know, we haven't

heard of Nicodemus. I think it's been, it was 17

chapters before that when Nicodemus was introduced to us,

he had visited Jesus at night. And just in case anyone had

forgotten who Nicodemus was, that we were reminded.

Well, one thing I thought about was, you know, birds of a

feather flock together, right? These two guys, you know, a man

called Nicodemus who went to Jesus by night, undercover of

darkness, secretly, quietly asking his questions,

discovering the glorious answer of the Gospel.

The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear it sound, but you

do not know where it comes from or where it goes.

So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

John 3/8. It's a unique and wonderful

thing that Nicodemus had found. So we see him in John 3, and

that's all we read of him until here in John 19.

And he stepped back into the text and we can understand why

these two guys would hang out together.

Maybe, you know, maybe they, they just knew one another, both

of them. OK, we're scaredy cats.

Both of them were a little frayed, both of them influential

in their own way, both of them believing in Jesus, both of them

somehow or another just not managing to muster up the

courage to let everybody know that they were believers.

And I imagine them, you know, I pictured them kind of getting

together and saying, well, we can definitely honor him and his

death, can't we? And yeah, I think they both

agreed upon that. And then when we read the

Gospels, it's it's intriguing because Joseph is the only one

mentioned with the linen clause. Nicodemus is the only one

mentioned with spices. And we can kind of see here and,

and, and, and picture how maybe potentially the tasks were

divided between different individuals to get all this work

done in this short amount of time.

Luke, along with Matthew and Mark mentions also the presence

of the women. In fact, he's very careful to

make sure that we know that these ladies were present.

We see in Mark's Gospels, very brief, it says Mary Magdalene

and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was late.

And Luke, there's a little more information.

And the woman who had come with Jesus from Galilee, he's already

said that in in verse 49, it says they followed Joseph.

They saw the tomb, they saw how his body was laid in it, and

they went home and prepared spices and perfumes.

Well, John's Gospel says that they took approximately 75 lbs

of spices mixed with them and linen claws to take care of the

burial process. And then Luke tells us that they

saw the tomb and they saw how the body was placed in it, and

then they went home and prepared the spices and perfumes.

But there's commentators that I read that that that try to say

that the women actually did not see inside the tomb how the body

was laid and how it was, how it was prepared.

And, you know, I started thinking about it and, and I

kind of don't think that is true.

I really think these women knew exactly what was going on.

I really do. It is more probable that these

women saw exactly what took place in the tomb.

And they saw that Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of

the council, and Nicodemus, you know, a guy of good stature.

That's too maybe fiddling around trying to get this in, this

stuff taken care of. And these women, you know, look

at one another and said, yeah, these guys are going to really

foul this up. You know, isn't that what women

kind of see us men doing sometimes?

You know, we think we can do it all on our own.

I'm going to go ahead and take care of it.

And these women standing back going, these guys are just going

to really mess this thing up. Isn't that just like women?

That's what you guys do. I mean, that's what supports us

as men. That's what helps us out.

That's what's so great about it. Wouldn't it just be like Lizzie,

GAIL, Judy, Betty, Kaye, Charlotte, Diana, Janet, my

mother, Penny, Tina, Sue, Sandra, Kendra, Taylor, Cindy,

Dreamer, Evelyn? I know there's some of mist in

there, but you women would come in and run in and support men in

a way that we wouldn't know how to react sometimes.

That's truly a blessing. And US men do a really good job

making a mess of some things. At some point, of course, we'll

have to wait to see if that was all fact or fiction when we get

to heaven to figure it out all out.

Well, that's really all the evidence the, the, the biblical

evidence that we have of these few verses.

So I wanted to try to just take a few things from these verses

to learn. So what do we learn?

Number one, I'm reminded that the good news, the good news

touches both the rich and the poor.

The good news touches both the rich and the poor.

And certainly the the emphasis of the Gospel of Luke has been

that Jesus comes for at least and the last and left out and

that he he has a unique concern for the poor and that he would

be a mark for those who would bear the good news.

But sometimes people get hung out or get stuck on the notion

that it becomes almost a crusade for people to pursue people only

that fit the mold of what they think of Christianism look like.

And it's it's needed for a rich man and it's needed for a poor

man. And the good news is the gospel

is no respecter of persons. Jesus died for the poor man,

just as he died for the rich man and also for the woman at the

well too, that we can read. We just find all that really

quite beautiful in these passages.

It also teach me too that God's Providence is at work all the

time and everywhere. He was preparing Joseph for this

very moment. In fact, Joseph's.

I'm convinced that Joseph's secrecy, which was all really

his own secrecy, it wasn't the will of God's secrecy, but it

was only it was Joseph's own secrecy.

It wasn't that God made Joseph fearful.

Joseph was fearful in his own right.

Joseph was secretive in his own right by his personality.

That's how he was. And if he had been anything

other than that, then we would have read of something else or

maybe somebody else that would have taken care of what God

wants taken care of. So the Providence, Providence of

God is at work all the time and everywhere.

It is a mystery, but it is at work.

And it was God's express purpose that this, this special servant,

Joseph, having missed so many opportunities previously, would

be present on this day for this opportunity.

God's works are wonderful. Thirdly, prophecy was still,

even after Jesus's death, continuing to be fulfilled.

We've learned here that also these proceedings continue to

fill the words of prophecy. We see in Isaiah 53 and 9 it

says and and they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich

man in his death. That is a fulfillment of

prophecy because Joseph in the Arab Matthea was rich.

These tombs, these carved out areas where they were often

reused. Once the body we had been

decomposed, they would have taken the body away in about a

year. They would gather it up and they

would put it basically into a, well, cremation.

It would take these bodies and they would they would reuse the

tombs. From what some of the Jewish

historians were saying, the form of cremation would take place

and so the tomb could be reused and it may be reused multiple

times, but the rich would not reuse the tombs.

And Christ who had nothing but nothing and nobody, didn't have

much of a chance of any kind of a decent burial.

But his father saw that he was put in this lovely place, albeit

briefly, but nevertheless he was properly buried.

Couple other things I want to mention that I tried to learn

from this passage is not everyone arrives as quickly as

others do to the place of bold discipleship.

Not everyone arrives as others do to a placeable discipleship.

Some of us who by our own personality are more extrovert

than others have a little have little patience maybe with those

who take a little longer to do things.

If you have that type a personality, you know, you're

kind of OK. Are you going to get this task

done? Are you going to when are you

going to come to when are you going to get this done?

You know, we've been studying for how long?

Isn't it time for you to make a decision?

Yeah, I yes, I believe that there is a time where somebody

needs to to draw a line in the sand.

But not everyone comes as quickly to that decision as some

others do. And so we need to remember that

while we're studying with somebody or maybe maybe family

members that we pray for all the time, maybe our kids, maybe

cousins or uncles. Be patient.

The Lord is working. Whether we thank you she's

working on our time frame or not, the Lord is working and I

think it's a lesson that here in Scripture in part to remind us

we're too quick sometimes to press others into a into a

decision. So we just need to remember

that, be prudent about that. The period between coming to a

convinced belief in the saviorship of Jesus and the

preparedness to, to, to nail it. Our colors to nail their colors

to the mass, the nautical terms, if you want to say, or letting

his world letting, letting the world know that we're going to

fight for Jesus. That's, that's a time period

that we don't know how the spirit works, how God works.

But let that be a thought for everybody.

And finally, surely this passage is a reminder for us that no one

can remain a secret disciple indefinitely.

Eventually circumstances will demand that we stand up for what

we believe in and we'll take our stand with whom we've determined

to follow. And Joseph is in the company

with one other individual on the pages in respect to this.

There's another individual that we see here.

There are two people here who in within a 24 hour period of the

time of the burial and death of Jesus are immortalized in

history forever. One is Joseph and the other is

Pilot. You know, and the reason that

they're both known in the pages of of of Scripture and history

and certainly in the biblical record is simply because of

their reactions to Jesus. Both of them apparently thought

that they could delay their response to Jesus.

Pilate was a pontificator. He was pro a procrastinator.

Pilot was trying to to put it off, trying to send, send it off

to Herod to have somebody else make the decision.

He said go to Harry, come back later.

I don't, I don't want to know about this.

I don't, I don't know about that.

I, I want to wash my hands of this is what Pilot was saying.

And Joseph from another perspective, perspective

operated much in the same way. You know, there Joseph was

thinking, there's going to be a time when I get when I'll get to

it. I'll go, I'll get to it later.

I'll let somebody someday, you know, we know how our mind

works. We'll get to it later on.

And apparently they thought they could delay the response

indefinitely, but the events of life of course overtook them

both and the question which was the utmost on Pilots mind on his

lips and Mark 15 that we can read What shall I do with Jesus

who is called the Christ and that was the question question

they both had to face. That was the question they both

they had to make their choice on that question and eternally

eternity real will reveal the choice that they made.

So there's no other place to kind of wrap this up other than

to say perhaps today is the day when the secrets of our hearts

will be revealed. Way back in Luke chapter 2, when

Luke 2 · chapter mention

Simeon takes Christ as as the baby child in his arms and he

speaks over him and says, you know, let your let your servant

depart in peace because my eyes have seen the salvation.

And he says this child will be for the rising and falling of

many in Israel. He will cause a division between

people. And then he essentially says so

that the thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.

And that's exactly what happened here with Joseph of Arimathea.

Suddenly he saw the cross and he said that's it.

It all makes sense. I can't, I can't be in secret

for Jesus anymore. I can't, I didn't honor him in

his life while he was living, but I'm going to definitely

honor him in his death. I'll do whatever it takes.

I cannot live in secrecy. Any luck any longer?

And of course, we want to ask that today, if you believe in

God, that that that he has raised Jesus from the dead.

And in believing that we believe that there's a reason God raised

Jesus from the dead is because God was accepting the sacrifice

for sin that Jesus had offered. And that belief that that it was

a necessary sacrifice not just for the sins of men, but but all

of our sins personally, our sins, not just those previously,

but forward as well. He died for our sins.

And that belief demands a change.

It demands a new life. It demands us to think

differently, to live differently, to make our

decisions differently, to to look through the lens of what

Jesus has done for us on how we make the decisions in our life,

a life that cannot be kept in secret any longer.

It demands us to be standing for Jesus and we confess Jesus as

the Son of God and then we are baptized for the remission of

our sins. Maybe there's somebody here who

needs to do that today. Maybe there's someone here who

has done that but has fallen short, sin in their life

publicly, that needs to make a public confession or just needs

the prayers of the congregation here.

We ask you to come while we stand and while we stand.