CHAPTER IX.
THE BURIAL AND RESURRECTION.
A.D. 30.
THE day was now far advanced. Unconscious that the true Paschal Lamb, the antitype of all previous sacrifices, had offered up Himself upon the altar of His Cross for the sins of the whole world, numerous bands of householders were gathering towards the Temple to slay their victims and make ready for the Feast[589]. The morrow being a high day, at once the Sabbath and the solemn fifteenth of Nisan[590] (Jn. xix. 31), the Jewish rulers would be more than usually anxious that the bodies of the Saviour and the two malefactors should not remain upon the cross, profaning the sanctity of their great national festival, and violating one of the strict injunctions of their law[591].
It was not indeed the Roman custom to remove the crucified from the cross. Instead of shortening their agonies the Roman law had left them to die by a lingering[592] death, and suffered their bodies to moulder under the action of the sun and rain[593], or to be devoured by wild beasts[594]. The more merciful Jewish custom, however, did not allow such barbarities, and their Roman masters had made an express exception in their favour. The Jewish rulers therefore repaired to Pilate, and requested that the legs[595] of those on Golgotha might be broken and their bodies removed (Jn. xix. 31). The Procurator gave his consent, and the soldiers entrusted with the task repaired thither, and broke the legs of one malefactor and then of the other. When however, they came to the Body of Jesus, they found that He was dead already (Jn. xix. 33). Unconsciously fulfilling, therefore, the typical language of Scripture respecting the Paschal Lamb, which declared that not a bone of it should be broken (Ex. xii. 46; Ps. xxxiv. 20), and a prediction that men should look upon Him whom they pierced (Zech. xii. 10), they abstained from breaking His legs, but one of them, as if resolved to give a stroke of itself sufficient to cause death, thrust his spear[596] into His side, whence immediately there flowed forth Blood and Water, a wondrous incident, of which the Evangelist St John was himself a spectator (Jn. xix. 35).
Meanwhile, before the tidings of the Saviour’s death could reach the ears of Pilate, Joseph of Arimathæa[597], a man of wealth (Mtt. xxvii. 57), a member of the Sanhedrin (Lk. xxiii. 50), and a secret disciple of Jesus (Jn. xix. 38), who had not consented to the cruel resolution of the rest to put Him to death (Lk. xxiii. 51), boldly went in to the Procurator, and requested that the Body of the Redeemer might be given up to him (Mk. xv. 43). Filled with astonishment that death had so speedily taken place, Pilate called in the centurion who had kept watch on Golgotha, and enquired whether this was really the case (Mk. xv. 44). Assured that it was so, he freely granted the request, and Joseph having purchased fine linen (Mk. xv. 46) repaired to Golgotha, to take down the Holy Body. Here he was joined by Nicodemus (Jn. xix. 39), who, probably informed of his successful petition to the procurator, had brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pound[598] weight (Jn. xix. 39). Together, then, they took down the Body, wrapped it in the linen clothes, sprinkled the myrrh and aloes amongst them, and conveyed the Holy One to a tomb which was close at hand. It was a new tomb, wherein no man had ever yet been laid (Lk. xxiii. 53), and had been hewn by Joseph himself out of a rock in a garden, which he possessed hard by Golgotha (Jn. xix. 41). Hither they bore the Body, and in the presence of Mary Magdalene, Mary the Mother of Joses, and other women who had followed the Saviour during His lifetime from Galilee (Mtt. xxvii. 61; Mk. xv. 47; Lk. xxiii. 55), laid it in the receptacle[599], and with the utmost despatch, for the Sabbath was drawing on (Lk. xxiii. 54), rolled a great stone to the entrance, and departed.
Thus He, who all His life long had been the poorest of the poor, made His grave with the rich (Is. liii. 9), and received the anointing of the great ones of the earth. But though the outward temple of His body had been destroyed, the Pharisees and chief-priests could not forget the mysterious saying of His that in three days He would raise it up, and probably were not altogether unaware of the more direct assertions He had made to His Apostles respecting the same subject[600]. These words now recurred to them with such alarming force that on the morning after the Crucifixion, though it was their great Paschal Sabbath, they met together, and repairing to the residence of Pilate, informed him of what that Deceiver had said, and requested that the sepulchre might be made secure till the third day, lest His disciples should come and steal Him away, and give out that He had risen (Mtt. xxvii. 63, 64).
With the curtness of one who felt himself fatigued and wearied out, the Procurator replied, Ye have, or rather, Take[601] a watch, and make it secure as ye know how. Accordingly with the guard thus deputed they went their way, sealed[602] the stone at the entrance of the sepulchre with their official seal in the presence of the soldiers, and then consigned to them the duty of watching the tomb of the Holy One.
Though both Joseph of Arimathæa and Nicodemus had assisted in embalming the Body of the Saviour, it had necessarily been done in haste, and the women who had witnessed the entombment resolved to complete it, and on the evening of the Crucifixion had prepared spices and ointments for that purpose (Lk. xxiii. 56). With these, then, early in the morning of the first day of the week, while it was yet dark (Jn. xx. 1), Mary Magdalene[603], Mary the Mother of James, and Salome (Mk. xvi. 1), set out for the sepulchre, their thoughts occupied on the way with the natural question who would roll away the great stone[604] they had seen fitted into its appointed place (Mk. xvi. 3).
While they were thus musing, and, as it would seem, were as yet some distance from the sepulchre, the earth quaked beneath their feet with a mighty convulsion (Mtt. xxviii. 2), and an angel descended and rolled away the stone and sat upon it; his countenance was like lightning and his raiment white as snow, and before him the Roman sentinels fell prostrate for fear, and became as dead men (Mtt. xxviii. 3, 4).
Bewildered by the sudden earthquake, the women advanced nearer, and beheld the stone rolled away from the tomb (Mk. xvi. 4; Lk. xxiv. 2). Summoning courage two of them thereupon entered in (Lk. xxiv. 3), and became assured of the fact that the tomb was empty, that the Holy Body they had seen securely placed therein, was there no longer.