19:38 thru 20:9 (Mar 31)

Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus get permission from Pilate to bury Jesus. They take away Jesus' body, embalm it with 75 pounds of myrrh and aloe, wrap it up, and lay it in a new tomb. I assume they also roll the stone over the front of the tomb. All of this is done on the Sabbath. Jesus was criticized for healing on the Sabbath and letting his disciples pick heads of grain as they walked through the fields. Here, 2 leaders of the Jews give Jesus a proper burial, even though it means working on the Sabbath. In contrast, Mark 16:1 indicates that Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome waited until after the Sabbath was over to take spices to anoint Jesus' body. But Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus do it right away. They were secretly disciples while Jesus was alive, but appear to be emboldened to do what is right after his death.

When Mary Magdalene reports that Jesus is not in the tomb, Peter and "the other disciple" run to see. The other disciple "bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in". I don't know if there is any significance to the linen strips being left behind, but there is an interesting parallel in Leviticus 16: "When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the Tent of Meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat's head. He shall send the goat away into the desert in the care of a man appointed for the task. The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a solitary place; and the man shall release it in the desert. Then Aaron is to go into the Tent of Meeting and take off the linen garments he put on before he entered the Most Holy Place, and he is to leave them there."