Monday Class Notes

John 19:38-42 38 Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. 39 He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds.[e] 40 Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. 41 At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. 42 Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

Joseph did this in secret. About 80 pounds of spices. This amount was reserved for someone who was a king. Joseph was a wealthy man and convinced Jesus is a King. Joseph doesn't show up in John until these verses. John is involved in putting out heretical fires in the church.  Why did John make sure to say that there is a new tomb. To say that it wasn't recycled. In Jewish culture, tombs were reused. They would reopen tombs and take out the bones and put another body in there.  There was a theory going around the swoon theory that Jesus really didn't die but fainted. John is trying to prove that Jesus rose from the dead. Another rumor is that when Mary goes to the tomb and there was no one in the tomb that she was at the wrong tomb. Their love for Him is still alive even though their King is "dead". The body would disintegrate within the tomb. A stone would be rolled in front of it. In the narrative we the reader are in on things that the people in the story aren't aware of. 

John 20 a woman finds the tomb. Mary Magdalene. Within the four gospels, we don't know the exact order of events. The guys that wrote these books weren't stupid. They left it the way they experience it or from interviews from people who experienced it. A number of Marys show up at the tomb. Mary Magdalene the woman with a bad reputation, Mary the mother of Jesus and Mary sister of Martha. Mary Magdalene is called the apostle to the apostles because she ran to tell the apostles what she had seen. 

They are in despair because they see that the body is missing. They are possibly thinking the romans took the body or grave robbers. 

John when he sees the tomb is now seeing and believing the identity of Jesus. He believes in the resurrection of Jesus. When Jesus raised Lazarus, this should have been a clue. Easter is the moment of the new creation. It is finished. Dark is gone and the sun is shining.