57 As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus.  58 Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him.  59 Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, 60 and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock.  He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away.  61 Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there opposite the tomb.  62 The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate.  63 “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’  64 So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day.  Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead.  This last deception will be worse than the first.”  65 “Take a guard,” Pilate answered.  “Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.”  66 So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.
- Matthew 27:11-31, The New International Version, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House) 1984.

In the name of the One who destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, our Savior Christ Jesus, dear worshipers at the tomb,

A couple of summers during my high school years I worked at a cemetery.  If the pay had been a little bit better, it would have been the perfect job.  Fresh air, sunshine, green grass and lovely trees, the cemetery provided one of the few garden spots left on the south side of Milwaukee.  Most kids my age considered it a little odd to work in a cemetery, a graveyard.  So I would make jokes about it—how I had 1000 people under me in the job, how people were "dying to get in" where I worked.  But those stale jokes were only an attempt for me not to think too much about the part of the job I really did not like.  That part was after the graveside service, when all the people had gone home, and it was time to lower that casket into a vault six feet down; to watch that vault be sealed; and to throw dirt on everything until it was all covered up.  There was a twinge in my stomach every time, I suppose, because it was a time for a teenager who had life by the tail to consider his own mortality.  The inhabitant of that casket — their time was up.  When would they be throwing dirt on me?

They didn’t throw dirt on Jesus’ lifeless body.  But they sealed him in a tomb all the same.  Joseph of Arimethea, the two Marys, and others saw firsthand the breathless, bloodstained corpse of their Jesus and they took it and sealed it away in a tomb.  No doubt there was more than a twinge in their stomachs.

What about ours?  How does it make us feel to witness the burial of our Lord through this Word of God?  How does it make you feel when I address you not as worshipers at the empty tomb, but worshipers at the tomb, that tomb that had Christ’s lifeless body filling it up?  Friend, let the twinge in your stomach be butterflies of joy!  Let us rejoice at the recollection of Jesus’ full tomb!  For today God shows us how THE WONDROUS LOVE OF JESUS was active even IN THE TOMB!  Yes, today we return to the funeral of Jesus Christ,

first of all:  I.  To Bury the Perfect Sin-Bearer

and then:  II. To Rise to the New Life of Bearing Sin No More.

Who was it that cried out "It is finished!" in a loud voice that Friday at Golgatha?  Who was it who so confidently and calmly committed his spirit into the Father’s hands?  Those who were standing around the cross knew it was someone extraordinary.  The darkness at midday, the violent earthquake, the temple curtain rent asunder—all these things led a centurion and those around him to say:  "Surely he was the Son of God!"  But could that be?  Could it be that God the Son, the true God, died on Calvary’s cross and was placed in that tomb?

Many would say no.  God cannot die, they reason, and therefore Jesus had to die only as a man and not as God.  The Bible, however, says otherwise.  Jesus was not half man and half God, nor was he sometimes God and sometimes man.  He was fully God and fully man in one person.  And that’s who died on the cross and was laid in the tomb—full God and full man.  Paul wrote to the Corinthians that "the rulers of this age crucified the Lord of glory."  He reminded the elders of the Ephesian church to "be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood."  We have a Good Friday hymn (#137) called "Oh, Darkest Woe" in which we sing "Oh, sorrow dread!  God’s Son is dead!"  The original German is even stronger:  "Oh, sorrow dread!  God Himself is dead!"  Ponder the mystery, dear friend.  Left to ourselves, our reason could not grasp it—I dare say would not want to grasp it.  But the Bible is clear.  The One who died on the cross was God himself.  God, in the person of Jesus Christ, gave his life for you and me.

Why?  Why did the holy God take on our humanity so that he could die?  Because that’s the way the world is saved!  Listen to the psalmist in Psalm 49:  "No man can redeem the life of another or give to God a ransom for him—the ransom for a life is costly, no payment is ever enough."  To pay the price of the sins of all people, it took God.  To suffer the pains of hell in the place of sinners who deserve hell, it took God.  To be the perfect sin-bearer, it took God.

Oh, wondrous love!  This is why we come to Jesus’ burial.  For in his lifeless body shut away in the tomb we see the only Savior who could guarantee us eternal life.  He had to be man in order to be our perfect substitute under God’s law.  He had to be God in order to wipe away the sins of the world.  This Jesus who gave up his spirit, this Christ in the tomb, He is the God/Man you and I need to have all our sins washed away.  So come with me to the tomb.  Bury him with me.  Bury him not in sorrow, but in everlasting joy to know:  "There lies the One who bore all my sin."

Yet, there is even more joy as we attend Jesus’ funeral.  For we know that the grave could not hold him!  We know our Jesus did not remain among the dead.  No, he conquered death and he did that in our place, too.  And just as Jesus shared our humanity in order to bear our sin and die, so now we share in his resurrection.  Today we come not only to see Jesus buried, but also to see our sins buried with him.  And because he rose to new life, the Bible says we too rise to a new life in our Savior, a life where God gives us the power to say no to sin and to live for him.

Many came to Jesus’ funeral.  Joseph of Arimathea, Mary Magdalene, the other Mary, and another Gospel tells us Nicodemus was there, too.  They were there to pay their last respects to the dead Messiah.  The chief priests and Pharisees, along with a Roman army guard—they were there, too.  Not to pay their last respects but to make sure Jesus’ disciples didn’t play any tricks with Jesus’ body:  "We remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’  so give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day.  Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead.  This last deception will be worse than the first."

Sadly, neither Christ’s friends nor his enemies viewed that sealed tomb with the eyes of faith.  If they had, there would have been no sorrow; there would have been no apprehension.  No, with the eyes of faith we view his tomb with thankfulness.  Thank you, Lord, for laying my sins on Jesus.  Thank you, Lord, for burying my sins with Jesus.  And thank you, Lord, for raising my Jesus from the dead to show me once and for all that my sin and my guilt are gone forever!

You see, Jesus left our sins behind in that grave.  When he burst the tomb on Easter morning he rose to a new life where he would not become sin for us any more.  That job had been done.  In fact, Christ rose to a life that was completely separated from sin in every way.  Our old way of life filled with rebellion and strife against God?  Dead, gone and in the grave!  Satan’s power to accuse us of sin?  Dead, gone and in the grave.  The weight of our guilt before the holy God?  Dead, gone and shut up in the tomb forever!  This is why we come to Jesus’ funeral, friend.  To see our jealousies, our lusts, our hatreds, our grudges, our greeds buried in that sepulchre.  And now that is our power to arise like Jesus did.  To rise to a new life, a new life worthy of our calling as sons and daughters of the resurrection, a new life where God gives us the power to say no to sin and live for him.

Listen to the way Paul puts it in his letter to the Romans:  "We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?  Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead to the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life."  Just as our sins stayed behind in that tomb when Jesus rose from the grave, baptism is our assurance that our sins have been forgiven and is our power to rise up and live for the Lord.  The Bible calls our baptisms a rebirth, a renewal, a resurrection.  Remember your baptisms, you twice-born people, and see that tomb in Joseph’s garden where all your sins remain!

Are you in bondage to a particular sin in your life right now?  Is it something from our past that makes us doubt whether we can truly be forgiven?  Is it a recurring thought or deed in our present, a sinful attitude that has shackled us in slavery and we can’t seem to let it go?  Pilgrim, journey to the cross.  See him pay for all your sins and, yes, for that sin too.  Journey to the tomb.  See the final resting place of all your sins and, yes, that sin too—dead, gone and sealed away forever.  Those sins are dead.  Our once-dead, now-living Savior made sure of that.  How shall we, why would we live in them any longer?

In the early 60s Time magazine shocked the Christian world with a cover that blared in big letters:  IS GOD DEAD?  The point of that particular edition was that society had so evolved that the notion of God was now unnecessary; in its wisdom mankind had outgrown its need for God.  Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.  Is God dead?  No.  But he was dead.  Oh Christian, mark it well, the God/Man Jesus Christ was dead that we would not die eternally.  He was dead in order to put our sin and guilt to death.  And now he lives apart from sin, to assure us of eternal life and empower us to live for him.  What wondrous love!  Even in the tomb Jesus tells us the grave shall not be our final resting place.

Amen.

By your deep expiring groan, By the sad sepulchral stone,

By the vault whose dark abode  Held in vain the rising God,

Oh, from earth to heaven restored, Mighty, reascended Lord,

Bending from your throne on high, Hear our penitential cry!

Amen.