The Burial of the King

After enduring a criminal’s execution, Jesus received a kingly burial. Today, R.C. Sproul points to the burial of Christ as the end of our Lord’s humiliation and the beginning of His exaltation.

Systematic theologians are always interested in the fact that the life of Jesus follows a basic progression from humiliation to exaltation. It’s not an absolute straight-up line because there are breakthroughs of moments of exaltation, such as the transfiguration, during His earthly ministry. But the general pattern, the general movement, is from humiliation to exaltation. But the great debate always is, When does the humiliation end formally and the exaltation begin? When I ask people that, usually they say, “Why, with the resurrection, of course.” No—it ends with the burial: “I will not allow my holy one to see corruption.”

The standard procedure for the burial of an executed criminal in Jerusalem was to be taken out and thrown in Gehenna, which was the name of the garbage dump that was kept burning all the time, perpetually, even to this day, outside of Jerusalem. And they would take the convicted and executed criminal, and take his body, and rather than give it the dignity of a funeral with fragrant myrrhs and aloes and spices, they’d just throw it on the garbage heap, and then throw it in the potter’s fields. The ignominy of that.

But God drew the line there. After the death, it was finished. And all of a sudden, for some strange reason, the body is given over to Joseph of Arimathea, a very wealthy man who owns his own real estate, who owns this massive burial ground, this sepulchre. And Jesus’ body is anointed with spices, and He is buried with the rich in splendor. That was the first clue that God wasn’t going to stay silent forever about this. And three days later, He screamed—and rolled away the stone.