May 25, 2020
Mark 15:42-47
It was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath). So as evening approached,  Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body.  Pilate was surprised to hear that he was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he asked him if Jesus had already died.  When he learned from the centurion that it was so, he gave the body to Joseph. So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb.  Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was laid.
New International Version (NIV)
It is no secret that I like to visit cemeteries.  I learn so much when I go.  Most years I would celebrate Memorial Day with my dad in Missouri today.  He wears his Vietnam Veteran hat proudly in the military ceremony.  Then he likes to go and decorate the graves.  From Colorado he drives to Missouri to take care of the old cemetery where our ancestors are buried.  This year the county road is washed out.  I asked him once why he takes such good care of that old cemetery, putting up a new fence and paying people to mow.  “Are you going to be buried out here?”  “Not sure,” he said, “but I promised my grandmother that I would take care of it.”  Dad always keeps his promises.  I like that about my dad.  Now my younger brother and I are on the cemetery association board of a cemetery in the Ozark mountains of Missouri.  We have promised.

Why is this the first time we meet Joseph of Arimathea in Mark’s story of Jesus?  Friends walk in when the world walks out.  The apostles are not to be found.  Mary and Mary the mother of Joseph and the others named Mary are nearby.  Last at the cross, first at the tomb, they stayed close.  But Joseph wanted to be sure that Jesus’ body was cared for after his death.  So he took responsibility.  It sounds like an act of love.  Perhaps he had followed Jesus a little further back than the apostles.  But when Jesus died, he came to the front of the line of the followers.  John tells us Nicodemus stepped up, too, and bought the spices to prepare the body.  Had he finally been born again as Jesus told him one night? 

You know what I think?  I think they showed up because they loved Jesus.  They followed him and believed in him.  The women came because they knew they would complete the burial process after the sabbath.  They wanted to remember where it was.  You can get lost in a cemetery if you are not careful.  Or did they stay close just in case?  Jesus said he would come back.  It might have been hard for them to count Jesus out, after all the funerals they had seem him disrupt by bringing people back.  At any rate, Jesus just borrowed the grave until the third day.  Then he came back to life just as he had promised. 

At a cemetery in New Orleans there is an old tombstone underneath a tree with the name of the saint whose body is buried there.  The tombstone has a one word message inscribed on it:  “Waiting.”  I suppose that’s what all those bodies of Christians in those cemeteries are doing.  Waiting until the day that Jesus makes them new.  How do we know Jesus is going to raise up those bodies and make them new?  Well, because he promised.  And he always keeps his promises.  I love that about our God!
Pray with me:         
Father, we thank you for all the promises you have made to us in Christ.  Help us to believe them and to receive them.  Lord, you know all the promises we have made to you.  Help us to keep them.  We want to be found faithful as you are faithful.  So we wait for you as the whole creation waits for redemption.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.  
Join us in memorizing the Word.  Scripture for this week:    
Matthew 5:45-46
that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.  If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?
Our 2020 Every Day with Jesus readings will follow the Foundations New Testament reading plan.  Copies of the reading plan are available at Tallowood Baptist Church, or download your copy at REPLICATE.ORG 
We would love for you to join us as we read the New Testament through this year, five chapters a week.  In addition I will continue my long-standing practice of reading one Psalm a day through the year.  Use Robby Gallaty’s H. E. A. R. plan to study each chapter (also found at REPLICATE.ORG). Highlight verses which speak to you, explain what they mean in your own words in a journal, apply them to your own life, then respond by doing what God tells you to do.  
Joyfully, 
Duane 
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