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April 04, 2010
“They Had Made Preparations”
Luke 23: 55 - 24: 12
Easter Sunday, April 4, 2010
On the day Jesus was killed, his body was buried by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. Those two men prepared his body for burial as well as they could given the time they had. The body of Jesus was taken down from the cross in the late afternoon. The Sabbath started at sunset which would be about 6:00 PM at that time of year. So Joseph and Nicodemus did not have much time to prepare the spices and gum-resins and the strips of cloth and wrap them around the body. They had to close the tomb by sunset.
Their work was observed by some women who loved Jesus and had followed him to Jerusalem from Galilee. In the little time they had before sunset, they had purchased more spices and resins and started to mix them. It was their plan to return to the tomb and do a better job of preparing Jesus body right after the Sabbath. The Sabbath ended at sundown on Saturday night. They would not go to the tomb at night, so they planned to arrive at the tomb at dawn on Sunday.
So, before the sun rose on Sunday, they got up and started their journey to the tomb. They were prepared to apply their spices to the body of Jesus and maybe they would wrap more strips of cloth around his body.
But the body was not there. When they arrived at the tomb the stone door had been rolled away, the tomb was open and empty. The body of Jesus was gone.
Suddenly they were joined by angels who announced to them that Jesus had risen. The words of the angels have been recorded by Luke and are worth remembering. They said “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.”
Luke wrote that the women then remembered Jesus having said that. Then they went to the Apostles and others who followed Jesus and told them that he had arisen as he had said he would. But no one believed them. Luke tells us that those who heard them thought it was an Idle Tale. The Greek words here mean Nonsense.
Peter did not believe it either and he went to the tomb to see what it was all about. He saw the empty tomb and was amazed or puzzled, but he did not believe that Jesus had risen until Jesus appeared to him later that day.
But in the midst of all this, I can’t help but wonder what happened to the spices and resins that had been prepared for Jesus body. Other minds have focused on the grand events of that day. My strange mind wonders about what happened to the spices and gum resins. Were they left at the tomb? Or were they taken home by the women and used for something else?
When the women had started out for the tomb that morning they probably thought they were well prepared for what they would be doing that day. But all of the spices and resins they had prepared were made irrelevant by the fact that Jesus had risen from the dead. They forgot all about the spices and seem to have spent the rest of the day telling people that Jesus wasn’t dead any more.
What happened to those women along with the words Paul the apostle wrote in our first reading makes me wonder about the preparations we are making in our lives. As we spend our lives and spend our resources and involve ourselves in various activities and behave in certain ways, are we preparing for the eternal life that Jesus has given to us by his death and resurrection or are we preparing for death?
In that passage of Romans that was our first reading, Paul was writing to a group of Christians who were still engaging in sinful behavior and sinful lifestyles and thinking that since Christ died for their sins they could continue to sin and continue to be forgiven.
But Paul wrote that Jesus died and rose to deliver them from death in all its forms, even the sinfulness that made them deserving of death in the first place. According to Paul, when Christ rose from the dead, so did all who would believe in him. We are guaranteed eternal life, and we are to be living by the standards of that eternal life as we complete our earthly lives.
So as we think about those Godly, believing ladies who dearly loved Jesus on that first Easter, as we think about their preparations for death on the day that life and immortality was revealed, I want you to think about what you are preparing for. How are you living your life? How are you using the resources of your life and your possessions? Are you investing them in your eternal life, or are you investing them in ways that they will perish or be left behind? Are you investing in the things of the kingdom of heaven or the things of this life?
On that first Easter, when Jesus rose from the dead, you were given a gift. You were given the gift of a resurrection and eternal life. How are you preparing yourself for that life?
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at April 4, 2010 03:29 PM