VIII. The Burial of Jesus.

Good Friday Fragments.

"And after this Joseph of Arimathoea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus. And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight. Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus therefore, because of the Jews' preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand."--John xix. 38-42.

Death has many voices. This death and burial speak aloud in tones of triumph. It as a death that made an end of death, and a burial that buried the grave. And yet it was also a very humble and painful and sad affair. We must not forget the humiliation and poverty and shame written on every circumstance any more than the victory, if we would learn by it all that God designed to teach.

I.

"He tasted Death."

To many, even among those who have been freed from guilty fear, mortality itself still has terrors. By Divine grace they can lift up their hearts in sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection, and yet they shrink with painful apprehension at the thought of the change which alone can make that resurrection possible. There is probably no instinct of the whole human family more frequently in evidence than this repulsion for the grave. Death is such an uncouth and hideous thing.

Nothing but bones The sad effect of sadder groans; Its mouth is open, but it cannot sing.

All its outward circumstances help to repel us--the shroud, the coffin, the grave, the silent shadows, the still more silent worms, the final nothingness. The mental conditions, too, generally common to the last acts of life, tend to intensify the feeling: the separation from much that we love, the sense of unfinished work, the appreciation of grief which death most usually brings to others: the reality of disappointed hopes, the feeling that heart and flesh fail, and that we can do no more--all these tend to make it in very truth the great valley of the dark shadow.

To many, even among the chosen spirits of the household of faith, approaching death also starts the great "Why?" of unbelief. For, in truth, the death of some is a mystery. It is better that we should say so, and that they should say so, rather than that we should profess to be able to account for what, as is only too evident, we do not understand. In confronting death this mystery is often the great bitterness in the cup. To die when so young! To die when so much needed! To die so soon after really beginning to live! To die in the presence of so great a task! Oh, why should it be? How much of gloom and shadow has come down on hearts and households I have known, from the persistency of that "Why?" intensifying every repulsion for the hideous visitor, adding to every other the greatest of all his terrors--doubt.

Now, in the presence of such doubts--or perhaps I ought rather to call them questionings and shrinkings--has not this vision of the dead body of our Lord something in it to charm away our fears? Does it not say to us: "I have passed on before; I that speak in righteousness, Mighty to save. I have trodden the winepress alone. At My girdle hang the keys of life and death; I, even I, was dead; yes, really, cruelly dead; but I am alive for evermore"?

He tasted death. The king of terrors was out to meet Him. The long shadows of the gloomy valley really closed Him round, and He crossed over the chilly stream just as you and I must cross it--all alone. Nothing was wanting which could invest the scene, the hour, the circumstances with horror and repulsion. There was pain, bodily pain; there was mental anguish; there was the howling mob, the horrid contempt for Him as for a malefactor; the lost disciples and shattered hopes; the reviling thief; the mystery of the Father's clouded face; the final sinking down; the letting go of life; the last physical struggle--when He gave up the ghost and died.

Yes. He passed this same way before you. He wore a shroud. He lay in a grave. The last resting-place is henceforth for us fragrant with immortality. The very horrors, and shadows, and mysteries of the death-chamber have become signs that death is vanquished. The tomb is but the porch of a temple in which we shall surely stand, the doorway to the place of an abiding rest. "In My Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you."

Living or dying--but especially when dying--we have a right to cry with Stephen, the first to witness for Christ in this horror of death, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." To Him we commit all. He passed this way before with a worn and bruised body, in weakness and contempt, with dyed garments and red in His apparel, and on Him we dare to cast ourselves--on Him and Him alone. On His merits, on His blood, on His body, dead and buried for us. He will be with us even to the end--He has passed this way before us.

II.

"A Savour of Death unto Death."

A celebrated Roman Emperor who had in the very height of his power embarked on a campaign for the extermination, with all manner of cruelties, of the followers of Jesus Christ, spoke one day to a Christian, asking him in tones of lofty contempt and derision:--

"What, then, is the Galilean doing now?"

"The Galilean," replied the Christian, "is making a coffin!" In a few years the great Emperor and the vast power he represented were both in that coffin!

Since his day, how many other persecutors have also journeyed surely to it! How many infidels--nay, how many systems of infidelity, have passed on to dust and oblivion in that same casket! What multitudes of doubters--of ungodly, unclean, unregenerate--have been laid within its ever-widening bands! What vast unions of darkness, hatred, and cruelty, under the leadership of the great and the mighty, have been broken to pieces beside that coffin! How much that seemed for a time proud and rich and great in this poor world's esteem, has at last passed into it, and disappeared for ever! Yes, the martyr of long ago, on the blood-besmeared stones of persecuting Rome, was right, the Galilean Saviour and King not only made a Cross, but He made, and He goes on making, a coffin!

Will you not have His Cross? Is there no appeal to you to-day from that hill side, without the city wall? Does it not speak to you of the power, the sweetness and nobleness of a life of service, of sacrifice for others, of toil for His world. Has it no message for you of victory over sin and death, of life from the dead--life, abundant life, in the Blood of the Son of Man! Believe me, unless you accept His Cross, He will prepare for you a coffin. "The wages of sin is death." It matters not how noble your aspirations, how lofty your ideals of life and conduct, how faithful your labour to raise the standard of your own life--unless you accept the Cross, all must go into the grave. Your highest aims, together with your lowest, your most cherished conceptions, your most deeply-loved ambitions, all must be entombed. "Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him to powder."

If His death-sacrifice be not a savour of life unto life it must be a savour of death unto death. This is the single alternative. Jesus Christ in life and death is working in you, in us all, toward one of these ends--either by love and tears and the overflowing fountain of His passion to gather us into the union of eternal life with Him and with the Father; or to entomb us--all that we have and all that we are--in the death and oblivion of the grave He has prepared.

III.

"And He was Buried."

For a little time they lost Him. The grave opened her gloomy portals; they laid Him down, and the gates were closed--for a little time. And yet He was just as really there, as really alive for evermore, as really theirs and ours, as really a victor--nay, a thousand times more so, than if He had never bowed Himself under the yoke of Nature. He was gone on before, just a little while, that was all.

Is not that the lesson of His burial for every one who sorrows for the loss of loved ones called up higher? Are they not buried with Him? Are they not gone on before? Are they not ours still? Are we not theirs as really as ever? He passed through that brief path of darkness and death out into the everlasting light of the Resurrection Glory. Do you think, then, that He will leave them behind? The grave could not contain Him. Do you think it has strength to hold them? You cannot think of Him as lying long in the garden of Joseph of Arimathaea; why, then, should you think of your dear ones as in the chilly clay of that poor garden in which you laid them? No--no! they are alive--alive for evermore; because He lives, they live also.

Yes! this was the meaning of that strange funeral of His--this was at least one reason why they buried Him. It was that He might hold a flaming torch of comfort at every burial of His people to the end of time. Sorrow not, then, as those that have no hope. He is hope. Your lost ones, perhaps, were strongly rooted in your affection, and your heart was torn when they were plucked up. You cried aloud with the Prophet: "Woe is me, for my hurt! my wound is grievous. But I said, Truly this is a grief, and I must bear it; my tabernacle is spoiled, and all my cords are broken." Ah, but remember He was buried also. He knows about the way. He was there. He has them in His keeping. They are His, and yours still. You have no more need to grieve over their burial than over His. They live, they love, they grow, they rejoice. They are blessed for evermore.

And our dear dead will meet us again, if we are faithful, in those bodies which our Lord has redeemed. That also is the witness of His burial and resurrection. The corruptible shall put on incorruption. In the twinkling of an eye shall it be done. And we shall see them in the body once more, even as His disciples saw Him. They supposed at first that they saw a spirit, but He said: No! "Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself: handle Me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have!"

This blessed hope is our hope. Love is indeed stronger than death; many waters, nay, the swellings of Jordan themselves, cannot quench it! Dear ones, gone on before, we shall embrace you again; hand in hand--the very same hands--we shall greet our King:--

Together we'll stand When escaped to the shore, With palms in our hands We Will praise Him the more; We'll range the sweet plains On the banks of the river, And sing of Salvation For ever and ever.

Yes--we know and love you still, because we know and love our Lord.