“Christ’s Passion: Dead and Buried” Mark 15:37-47 June 15, 2008

We have seen how every aspect of Jesus’ suffering from the Garden of Gethsemane

to the cross was for his people. Today we come to Jesus’ death and burial.

It’s easy to skip his burial since our minds naturally fast-forward to resurrection.

But we shouldn’t. His burial is essential for our salvation.

Through the ages, when Christians have said the Apostles’ Creed,

one of the pillars of our faith is that we believe Jesus was crucified,

dead, and buried.

That’s not just a repetition of historical facts—

Buddha was dead and buried,

Mohammed was dead and buried.

But when we say: I believe Jesus was crucified, dead and buried—

we are affirming that his death and burial were for us,

and that saving benefits flow to us through them.

INTRO: I was talking to someone recently about a funeral he had attended.

Told me that at the graveside service, the family did something he had never seen,

they picked up shovels and filled in the grave themselves.

The usual custom is to leave the cemetery after the graveside service

and let the cemetery gravedigger take care of filling in the grave.

But this family wanted to bury their loved one themselves.

When someone you know dies, your relationship with him in this life is over.

Death has ended it.

But it is the burial of the deceased person that marks the end of your relationship

Burial puts a seal of finality on his death.

Burial is more than just a practical step, it is a powerful symbol of finality.

It marks the end.

Have you ever noticed how a family’s grief changes after a loved one is buried?

The finality of what has happened begins to sink in.

Before the burial the family is grieving, but has to take care of body.

The funeral director asks: “What do you want him to wear in the casket?”

Other arrangements have to be made with the deceased person in mind.

All this time the grieving family know that the loved one is gone—

but his body is still in the land of the living. You can still see the body.

But after the burial, the finality sinks in.

Sometimes a person will say that very thing after the burial.

“It’s starting to sink in. He’s gone. I’ll never see him again.”

That’s what we see happening in Mark’s account of Jesus’ burial.

Joseph of Aramathea, took Jesus’ body, wrapped it in linen,

put it in the tomb, and rolled a large stone over the entrance.

And that was the end. The reality of Jesus’ death began to sink in.

Mark mentions that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there.

He tells us almost nothing but it’s enough for us to picture..

Women sat there in grief, stared at that big stone.

As they did, it started to sink in. Jesus was gone.

Their life with him was over.

When we read story, where do our thoughts immediately go?

To the resurrection.

We know it wasn’t over. We know that burial was not the end for Jesus.

We know that everybody was going to be surprised, his disciples and his enemies. Because minds naturally go to resurrection

it’s easy to miss the significance of burial.

But all of four Gospels give considerable attention to Jesus’ burial.

Apostle Paul thought that Jesus’ burial was so important, one of basic pillars.

In 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 listen to the way Paul summarized the Gospel message:

“For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance:

that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,

that he was buried,

that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,

and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve.”

Paul considered the fact that Jesus was buried of “first importance.”

Considered Jesus’ burial part of the essence of the Gospel.

So, what is the significance of Jesus’ burial for our faith?

Jesus’ burial not only marked the end of his life, it marked the end of your

guilt. His burial was a seal of finality on the guilt of your sins.

Just as the burial of a person causes you to say, “It’s over.”

So the burial of Jesus enables you to say regarding the guilt of your sin,

“It’s over.”

One of most important steps in the Christian life is

to realize that guilt of all of your sins is dead and buried in Christ.

From the moment you put your faith in Jesus, you can never be more forgiven,

more pardoned, more justified in God’s eyes than you are at that moment.

You can no more dig up and revive the guilt of your sins

than you could dig up a buried person and revive your relationship with him.

As the finality of Christ’s death and burial for your sins sinks in,

your faith and joy and obedience grows.

This sermon is going to be short and sweet. I have just two points. Mostly sweet.

1. The guilt of all your sins is dead and buried in Christ.

2. The guilt of that one sin is dead and buried in Christ.

1. The guilt of all your sins is dead and buried in Christ.

If you were asked, “Did Jesus ever sin?” I’m sure you would answer “No.”

But what if you were asked, “Did Jesus have a relationship with sin?”

How would you answer?

Biblically, the answer to that question would have to be, “Yes.”

We know Jesus never sinned.

He perfectly obeyed God’s law in word and spirit.

He loved God with heart, soul, strength and mind and neighbor as himself.

But even though he never sinned he entered into a relationship with sin

so that he could deal with it decisively on behalf of his elect people.

The Bible explains this relationship Jesus had with sin in a few ways.

2 Corinthians 5:21 a clear expression of it.

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us.”

What does it mean that God made Jesus to be sin?

This means that Jesus had a relationship to sin in regard to its guilt.

He was not personally guilty for any sins because completely holy and sinless.

But as the Mediator between God and man he took on guilt.

My freshman year of college, we had a kleptomaniac on our hall.

He stole tons of stuff before we caught him. Even things he could not use.

After he was caught and expelled, his father said, make a list of everything

that was stolen, and what it was worth and send it to me.

Every person on our hall who had things stolen, got a check from boy’s dad.

Might say of that father, that though he had no sin, he was made to be sin.

When the New Testament uses the phrase

“He died for our sins” or simply “He died for sins”

it’s always a reference to Jesus’ death for the guilt of the sins of his people.

When Jesus died, the guilt of your sin died with him.

So many different images Bible uses to demonstrate this central truth of the faith.

Most of them involve sacrifice.

All of the Old Testament sacrifices pointed in various ways

to Christ bearing guilt his people and dying for that guilt.

The prophets and the psalmists used different images as well—suffering servant.

In Mark’s account of Jesus’ death, which miracle signified the end of guilt?

It had to be the tearing of the temple curtain.

Remember God had instructed the Israelites to hang heavy curtain

in front of Holy of Holies? The only person who could enter was the high priest.

And even he could only go past the curtain once a year, on Day of Atonement.

He could only do that carrying a basin of sacrificial blood.

The curtain itself signified the inaccessibility of heaven because of sin.

People who are guilty of sin cannot come into the presence of holy God.

So guilt keeps people from heaven and access to God.

The tearing of the curtain from top to bottom at the moment of Jesus’ death

was a miraculous sign that the guilt of sin died with Christ.

It was torn from top to bottom to show that God himself was satisfied.

It was not torn from bottom to top by a man.

God reached down and tore as a sign barrier of guilt has been removed.

This miracle means that everyone who comes to God confessing his or her sins,

asking for forgiveness in Jesus’ name, and trusting in God’s grace

will certainly be forgiven. Guilt is gone. It died when Christ died.

Then, after Jesus died for the guilt of sin, he was buried.

Joseph of Aramathea wrapped his body in a linen cloth,

laid him in the tomb, and sealed it with a large stone.

Women came and grieved the end of his life.

Jesus’ death and burial marks the end of Jesus’ relationship with the guilt of sin.

Your guilt is dead and buried in Christ.

That reality has to sink into your mind and heart—it’s over.

There is no more guilt for your sin.

All of the guilt of all of your sins

past, present and future—all that guilt is dead and buried in Christ.

From the moment you put your faith in Jesus,

you can never be more forgiven, more pardoned,

more justified in God’s eyes than you are at that moment.

That brings us to our second point.

Not only is the guilt of all your sins dead and buried in Christ.

2. The guilt of that one sin is dead and buried in Christ.

As wonderful as it is to know that the guilt of all of your sins is dead and buried,

Even more wonderful to know that the guilt of that one sin—

that one sin that troubles you more than anything else is also dead and buried.

Isn’t that the place you struggle with guilt as a Christian?

It’s not with the guilt of your sins as a whole it’s with that one sin.

You can easily believe that Jesus died for all your sins.

If you grew up in the church you learned to say that in Sunday school.

Jesus died for my sins.

It rolls off your tongue like 2 + 2 = 4.

But it is that one sin that troubles you.

It is at that point that you feel unforgiven.

That one sin is different for everybody.

It may be something in your past that troubles you.

It may be a more present, besetting sin that you have fallen into over and over. Whatever that one sin is—

you must know that the guilt of that one sin is dead and buried in Jesus Christ.

When we lived in Florida we got to know a couple who had just become Christians.

Both saved at the same time. He nominal Christian home, she paganism.

Their new lives in Jesus seemed like such delicate things—

like a little flickering candle flame.

In early years lives almost case study of devil’s tactics to blow out that flame.

It seemed like every few months a crisis that threatened to tear things apart.

One crisis, wife began to feel more and more guilty about abortions as a teenager.

Instead of growing in belief that Jesus had died for her sins, opposite.

Began to think these things were unforgivable.

Devil brought them back to her mind and accused her with them.

He brought back graphic details that troubled her

All this caused her to doubt that she was forgiven.

Unrelieved guilt always comes out in some destructive way.

She started to deal with the guilt by becoming angry and cruel toward husband,

doing things that threatened their marriage.

She was a forgiven child of God.

The guilt of all of her sins dead and buried in Christ.

Intellectually she knew that,

but the reality simply could not sink into her heart when it came to that one sin. She was like a person who has lost a loved one

but who has not moved past the stage of denial.

She was like a person who was still saying, “I don’t believe he’s dead.”

But by God’s grace, in his time,

through Allison’s Christian friendship,

through prayer and clinging to promises of God,

through repentance of other sins, that reality finally sunk in.

Even though continued to have regrets and even though she had scars from that sin,

Eventually came to that wonderful point at which she knew,

really knew, that her guilt was dead and buried in Christ.

And she came to know that it was buried so deep

that it couldn’t be dug up by devil or even by her own conscience.

And that God himself wouldn’t dig it up. Buried with Christ.

In years that have passed has gone from strength to strength in her walk with Jesus.

Another story: We got an email from a seminary friend last week.

It said that my friend’s elderly father had died, and that they missed him.

And that the last few years of his life, living with them had been good.

If you had read the email, you wouldn’t have thought much of it.

But if you knew the story, you would know how remarkable it was.

When my seminary friend was a boy, his father was a mean drunk, and he beat him.

Until one day something snapped, and this teenage boy fought back.

He beat his father terribly, and father never touched him again.

Shortly after that my friend moved out and had nothing to do with his father.

Years passed, he became a Christian, and we were in seminary together.

He began to tell me about the terrible guilt he felt over what he had done.

It was strange, but the feeling guilt had been increasing,

and was getting more intense as he got closer to ordination.

I told him that he shouldn’t feel bad, he was just a teenage boy defending himself,

and that his father got what was coming to him—not very spiritual advice.

But he stopped me and said: Andrew, you don’t understand.

This was the most terrible thing I have ever done.

I beat and cursed and hated my own father.

How can I be a pastor and teach people to honor their parents?

He knew he was forgiven—he was a Presbyterian seminary student.

He had the theology down—but that one sin weighed on his conscience.

He was like a person saying: I just don’t believe he’s dead.

But by God’s grace, in his time, by the promises of the Gospel,

by preaching to himself—the reality sunk in.

He got to the place where he knew that the guilt of his sin

was dead and buried in Jesus Christ.

The rest of the story (as Paul Harvey would say) is that by some amazing

twists of providence, this friend and his wife and children got to

open their home to his aging father where he lived with them until

his death two weeks ago.

Through that, the Lord graciously closed the books

Those are both dramatic stories—maybe too dramatic—

but that are some of you here who have walked those same steps.

Your one sin was different but you had the same trouble with guilt.

Until finally you knew: In Jesus it’s dead and buried. It can’t be dug up.

You have regrets and scars but you know you are forgiven

so you are moving ahead and growing in the faith.

I say to you: Don’t forget Jesus’ death and burial for you.

Even the Apostle Paul, great soul that he was, considered it of first importance.

Keep preaching it to self every day. Jesus Christ was dead and buried for me.

And there are some of you here who need to let the finality of Jesus’ burial sink in.

You are a Christian, you are in fact forgiven, but you are troubled.

The devil and your conscience brings to mind that one troubling sin.

That thing you have done or left undone.

Yes, you know that the guilt of all your sins is dead and buried in Christ.

But that one thing troubles you.

That failure as a son or daughter, as a wife or husband or parent.

That lie or cruelty or sexual sin.

And perhaps the guilt you feel is coming out in ungodly ways—

in touchiness, discontent, blame-shifting and despondency.

The place need to start, by asking Jesus to make his death and burial real to you.

Get a hold of a verse like 2 Corinthians 5:21,

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us,

so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Or Romans 8:1,

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Or Psalm 103:12

“As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”

Or some other Gospel verse and preach it to yourself until catches fire in your heart.

Perhaps you need to find a kind and confidential Christian friend and say,

“I’m troubled over this sin. Let me tell you what I’ve done.”

“Now, preach the Gospel to me.”

“Encourage me. Tell me I’m forgiven in Christ.”

And by God’s grace, in his time, it will finally sink in.

And you will find yourself saying—“It’s over. It’s dead and buried.”

And you will go from strength to strength.

CONC:

The old Negro spiritual asks:

Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?

Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?

Oh. Sometimes it causes me to tremble.

Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?

The answer of the heart of faith is, “Yes.”

I was there when they laid him in the tomb.

Because his burial not only marked the end of his life,

it marked the end of guilt for all my sins, even that one sin.

And by God’s grace the reality of his burial

is sinking in more deeply with every passing year.