Matthew 27: 57-66 – Christ was buried

In these verses, Matthew was obviously describing the burial of Christ. Through his narrative here we can sense some mixed emotion. There were sorrow, fear and of course, gratitude. Have you wondered why Matthew took such great pain to describe in detail the various details connected to Jesus’ burial? It’s because he wanted the pivotal truth of Christ’s resurrection to be irrefutable. He anticipated that all kinds of reason or excuse would be generated to debunk the fact of the resurrection. So He made sure that everything would be in place to answer any doubt.

Joseph Arimathea, a rich man and a disciple of Jesus, went to Pilate and requested for the body of Jesus. The governor granted his request and ordered that the body of Jesus be given to him. This fact was included to make sure that we know Jesus had indeed died. The Romans apparently were masters at tortures. They don’t believe in half-measures. And they would never let a death-sentenced prisoner go without ensuring that he was truly dead. This fact that Pilate gave the dead body to Joseph would take care of claims that Jesus did not die. It would disprove the claim that His badly wounded body was nursed back to health by His disciples so as to concoct the claims of Christ’s resurrection.

We are told that Joseph took the body of Jesus, cleaned and wrapped it and placed Him in a new tomb which was hewn out of the rock. The first obvious point about the tomb was that a large stone was rolled over it. This would take care of the rumours that His disciples came and stole His body and hid it somewhere to stage His resurrection. In that culture, Jews buried their dead by placing them in caves. Sometimes, tombs were found underneath where they lived. They would then place the bodies of their demised family members in the tomb on a ledge, after they had been embalmed and nicely wrapped in linen cloth. No coffin was used. In fact they put more than one body in the tomb. When the bodies had decomposed they would collect the remains and put it in what is known as an “ossuary.” A large circular stone would then be used to cover the tomb. This was to prevent grave robbery from taking place. Matthew makes sure that we know that Jesus was buried in a new tomb yet unused. And He also deliberately described the presence of the two “Mary’s” watching from a distance. This was to tell us that Jesus was indeed buried there.

The fact that Jesus’ disciples went into hiding added to prove that they could not have stolen the body of Jesus. This coupled with the fact that the chief priests and the Pharisees came to Pilate asking for the tomb to be made secure and guarded. They remembered that Jesus said that He would rise on the third day. And they did not want anyone, particularly His disciples, to steal the body and then claimed that Jesus had resurrected and deceived the people. Pilate granted their request so they had the tomb secured and sealed, and a guard was placed to guard the entrance.

We can tell that Matthew was waiting eagerly to tell what had happened to Jesus after His burial. This will have to wait till we come to the next chapter. But as we think of the death and burial of Christ, we take heart to know that our sins and all the consequences were buried with Him. What’s more heartening is the fact that death could not hold Him and He would come through it to bring us hope. That one day we too will rise from our death to join Him in the new world! What hope! What assurance!