Mark 15:42-47 Every Step Is Joy: Christ Is Buried For Us

The Text

Mark 15:42–47 (CSB)
⁴² When it was already evening, because it was the day of preparation (that is, the day before the Sabbath),

⁴³ Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Sanhedrin who was himself looking forward to the kingdom of God, came and boldly went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’s body.

⁴⁴ Pilate was surprised that he was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he had already died.

⁴⁵ When he found out from the centurion, he gave the corpse to Joseph.

⁴⁶ After he bought some linen cloth, Joseph took him down and wrapped him in the linen. Then he laid him in a tomb cut out of the rock and rolled a stone against the entrance to the tomb.

⁴⁷ Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses were watching where he was laid.

The Devotion

I have long contended that it was Paul who was the original Systematic Theologian. He took the Old Testament through the lens of the ministry of our Christ and systematically explained it to the church.

And there is no better way to exposit this Marcian account of the death and burial of Christ other than this way:

Romans 6:1–14 (CSB)
¹ What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply?

² Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it?

³ Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

⁴ Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life.

⁵ For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection.

⁶ For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin,

⁷ since a person who has died is freed from sin.

⁸ Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him,

⁹ because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again. Death no longer rules over him.

¹⁰ For the death he died, he died to sin once for all time; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

¹¹ So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

¹² Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires.

¹³ And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness.

¹⁴ For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under the law but under grace.

Christ has died.

He did not die for all of the world. He died for his people. Remember the angelic prophecy to Joseph:

Matthew 1:21 (CSB) She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

What did do with our sins?

Buried them with Jesus.

But since Jesus and not our sins are righteous, only one will resurrect from the grave and alive forevermore.

Our sins are dead in the ground. They are infinitely separately as the east is from the west. The Son of Man died and bled. So therefore his blood is my covering.

We are free from our sin. We are under zero condemnation.

Jesus tell us, "God does not condemn you. Go and sin no more."

Christ faithfully gives that command to us because he was going to give his life and take our sins into hell.

We are free.

Praise be his name.

Every step that Christ took towards the cross was in complete joy and satisfaction because every step he took was one step closer to completely, satisfactorily, perfectly, definitely, absolutely, forever "save his people from their sins."