LECTION 83 - The Burial Of Iesus
The Burial Of Iesus
1. NOW, when the even was come, Joseph (of Arimathea) an honourable councillor, who also waited for the Kingdom (of God) came and went in boldly unto Pilate and craved the body of Iesus. (He was a good man and just, and had not consented to the council and deed of them).
2. And Pilate marvelled if he were already dead, and calling unto him the centurion, he asked him whether he had been any while dead. And when he knew it of the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph. He came therefore, and took the body of Iesus.
3. And there came also Nicodemus (who at the first came to Iesus by night) and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred weight. Then took they the body of Iesus and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury.
4. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Iesus therefore, and it was about the beginning of the second watch when they buried him, because of the Jews’ preparation day, for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.
5. And Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, and Mary (the mother of Joses) beheld where he was laid. There at the tomb they kept watch for three days and three nights.
6. And the women also, who came with him from Galilee, followed after, bearing lamps in their hands and beheld the sepulchre and how his body was laid, and they made lamentation over him.
7. And they returned and rested the next clay, being a high day, and on the day following they bought and prepared spices and ointments and waited for the end of the Sabbath.
8. Now the next day that followed, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate, saying,
Sir we remember that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again.
9. Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day be past, lest his disciples come by night and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead, so the last error shall be worse than the first.
10. Pilate said unto them,
Ye have a watch, go your way, make it as sure as you can.
So they went and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone and setting a watch till the third day should be past.
LECTION 83. 5. -It has been maintained by some with no small degree of reason and probability, that the day of Crucifixion was not Friday, the day now observed by Christendom, but Wednesday (mid-week), by which date alone would be truly fulfilled the prophecy of Daniel, and the only sign of the truth of His mission which he would give to his generation. There shall no sign be given it, but the sign of the prophet Ionas, for as Ionas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights In the heart of the earth." Against this plain testimony there is of course the canonical record as we now have it including the frequent explanatory notes which may have been incorporated in very early times from the margin into the text, or interpolated in ignorance of the original script, which no man living has ever Been from this to the 10th century when all manuscripts were in the hands of the religious orders of the Church, and from them proceeded. If these words of Jesus be a genuine portion of the Gospel, as all admit they are, those notes of time, in the present accepted Gospels must be spurious, or the work of scribes who sought with honest and pious intent to harmonise the words of Scripture with the existent beliefs and observances of their age. In the gospel as now given there is absolutely nothing to militate against either of these views except the words of Jesus above cited, which cast the weight in favour of this chronological arrangement which interferes with nothing of Christian doctrine. Sunday, as now the day of his public entry into Ierusalem, preceded by the last anointing by Mary Magdalene on the eve before it. Monday, the day of evil counsel. Tuesday, the day of the Pascal feast of Christ. Wednesday, the day of the crucifixion, if not of the actual Jewish Passover. Thursday, Friday, Sabbath days of watch, of mourning and vigil. Sunday the day of the Resurrection, midnight or 8 a.m., early dawn " (after three days and three nights were fulfilled) and of the rising of many who slept and of their appearance in the holy City."