This study finishes Matthew 27. When you read through this study, look up the verses that are cited and read each of them carefully. This is a Bible study. I am not here to indoctrinate you on the scriptures. My discussion is for the purpose of challenging your thinking and encouraging you to search out the scriptures on your own. I cannot encourage you enough to ignore the stories that you have been told and look to see what the Bible actually says. Now, on with the study…

Matthew 27:57-61

Joseph ask for the body of Jesus, obtained permission and placed it in his own tomb. Joseph made a personal request for this burial. He was a council member but in disagreement with the religious leaders (Luke 23:51).  Joseph gave a tremendous gift on several levels. First, he was in opposition to his peers. Second, a personal tomb hewn out of solid rock was very valuable. Third, He gave Yeshua a gift that spoke of royalty, many of the Old Testament kings had their tombs hewn out of rock.

Preparation day: Let’s talk Jewish thinking for a moment. The evening of the day before the Sabbath (Mark 15:42. Church tradition says that Jesus was crucified on “Good Friday”. This sounds good until you closely examine the scriptures. Let’s look at context one more time. Jesus spent the evening with the disciples at a Passover Seder. That evening and next morning were spent in trial. Then the Passover sacrifices were done from 9am till 3pm. Jesus died at 3pm. The bodies were taken off of the crosses since the following day was a preparation day for a high holy Sabbath (Jn 19:31). Jesus was placed in Joseph’s tomb before sundown. Legs were broken because the Roman guards wanted to make sure executions were completed before the preparation day (Jn 19:31).

Now let’s attach days to the events. Wednesday evening: Passover Seder (Last Supper), beginning of the 5^th day of the Jewish week. Trials went all night. Thursday day, sacrifices and crucifixion (5^th day of Jewish week). Jesus is buried before sundown. Sundown Thursday, Jesus is in the tomb. This is the sixth day of the Jewish calendar. This is also the preparation day for the High Holy Sabbath. Preparation day runs from sundown on Thursday till sundown on Friday. The Sabbath, (seventh day) begins at sundown Friday till sundown Saturday. No work is done on this day. There are three days that Jesus laid in the tomb, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Three nights He was in the tomb, Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night. It is impossible for Good Friday to have taken place since it would throw off the timing. Counting the “days” includes any part of the day; such as in the case of Thursday, Jesus was buried sometime between 3pm and dark. Counting nights: Any portion of the night was considered to be night. For Jesus to rise on the first day of the week, this would have taken place between dark Saturday night and prior to sunrise on Sunday when the women went to prepare the body. If He had risen at sunrise, there would have been four “days” to count.

Perhaps you may be asking at this time, “Why do we celebrate Good Friday then?” The answer falls in an unquestioned church tradition. This tradition dates back to the early days of the church. Documents found in the early church date Good Friday back to 400 CE. This was shortly after Constantine blended the early church with paganism. His regime blended many holidays of Sun worship with Christianity so he could unite his empire. Those following Jewish festivals, feast days and the Sabbath were punished by pain of death. The idea that Yeshua was crucified on Good Friday may be drawn from this blending. There was a day called “black Friday” or “the day of blood” that was associated with the Greek god Attis. Although Good Friday is not worshipping Attis, the date may have been changed to coincide with this day of worship for the Greeks. If you want more information on this, search the internet.

Preparations had to be made before the Sabbath, and there wasn’t time to properly prepare the body of Jesus for burial, so they wrapped Him in a clean cloth and placed him in the tomb. Could this have been the “Shroud of Turin”? Then the tomb was secured with a huge stone.

Matthew 27:62-66 Verifiable witnesses: The chief priests and Pharisees did a great service at this point. They asked for a military guard to be put over the tomb. Jesus prophesied that He would rise on the third day from the grave. Even though the religious leaders did not believe His prophecy, they wanted to make certain that foul play did not take place.

Roman guards had a huge incentive to make sure that their prisoner did not escape. If they lost a prisoner, they had to take the sentence of the prisoner. Losing a prisoner in this case meant that the entire guard would be executed by crucifixion. If they lost the prisoner to the disciples, they would suffer death as a consequence. There is an example of this in Acts. Peter was captured and sentenced to death. The guard was placed to watch over him. During the night he was delivered by an angel from prison. That guard was questioned and then executed (Acts 12:1-19).

Place yourself in the shoes of the Roman guards for a moment. They may not have believed that Jesus was the Messiah. However, they did believe in gods. Their gods were considered to be very real. They had just watched the sky turn black as midnight, experienced an earthquake that was like no other, and saw evidence of the dead rising from their graves. They probably knew that the guard that they were assigned to was extraordinary. When they were told that people may steal the body and claim that Jesus rose from the dead, you can be very certain that they would not lose their prisoner without a fight.

This is the same guard that had beaten Him, crowned Him with thorns, and had driven the nails into His hands.  They were given the dispatch to watch over the body of the dead man they had so viciously mistreated.  I’ll bet that that weighed heavily upon their minds as they watched the tomb.  The Romans were very superstitious, and you can be very sure that they were a little squeamish, especially after experiencing the events during and after the crucifixion that were clearly beyond human understanding.  They didn’t sleep, you can be sure that they were wide awake.  These guards did not show any indication of sleeping, they were scared to death when He rose from the dead in the next chapter (Matt 28:4).

In this study we torpedoed several fables that surrounded the death and burial of Jesus. This was done through simple Bible study. Read the scriptures and take them literally. One of the pet peeves of this study is the constant emphasis on context. Context will eliminate almost all errors from Bible study. With that said, read, study, and show yourself good at understanding the scriptures.

Thanks,

Joe Turner.