That’s Gospel! by John Frye

“That He was Buried”

Captured in Paul’s precise summary of the gospel he preached is this phrase, “…that he was buried” (1 Corinthians 15:1-5). We may not think much of this small fact unless we tie it to the way Jesus died—by crucifixion. Men crucified for treason against Rome forfeited the honor of burial. While Pilate suspected Jewish treachery in the Sanhedrin’s charges against Jesus, he nonetheless had Jesus crucified as “King of the Jews.” Roman law prohibited the burial of those crucified and the bodies were normally left on the crosses to rot and be eaten by birds. Exceptions to this law were decided by the Roman magistrate. In Jesus’ case, the exception was controlled by Pilate, the Prefect of Judea.

Usually family members and friends asked for the deceased’s body. Where were Mary and Jesus’ brothers? Their absence makes me wonder how historically accurate is Michelangelo’s Pieta? Where were Jesus’ disciples? When John the Baptist was murdered, his disciples came to claim and bury the body. So in Jesus’ case, why did a distinguished member of the Sanhedrin, a group hostile to Jesus, step forward and ask Pilate for Jesus’ body? What prompted Joseph of Arimathea to risk the charge of sympathizing with the crucified renegade from Nazareth?

Ponder Pilate. He seemed obsessed with Jesus actually being dead. Pilate even summoned the centurion responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion to verify that Jesus was, in fact, deceased. Why? It usually took two to three days for victims of crucifixion to die. Pilate was startled that Jesus was so quickly dead. Convinced that Jesus was dead, Pilate allowed Jesus’ body to be buried according to Jewish custom.

Jesus was not murdered, nor did anyone take his life from him. Jesus took his last breath, exhaled with a loud cry, bowed his head and gave up his spirit. As he had declared earlier, “No one takes it [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father” (John 10:18). Jesus laid down his life of his own volition. He hung lifeless on the cross, abandoned by family, abandoned by friends, even abandoned it seemed by his God. Jesus is cosmically alone.

Yet, an unlikely friend from a pack of foes stepped forward to request Jesus’ body. Pilate, against all reason, granted the release while taking measures to protect the body from (friendly) thieves. Joseph of Arimathea wrapped the body in linen cloth and buried it in his own rock tomb. Two Marys watched in silent grief (no loud mourning was allowed for the crucified) marking the place Jesus was buried—in the tomb of an influential, wealthy man. So, Paul writes that part of his gospel is “that he was buried.” Why?

Rumors flooded Jerusalem at the announcement of Jesus’ resurrection. Stories spread that the body was stolen or that the eye-witnesses were delusional. The resurrection of Jesus, the importance of which Paul unpacks in the rest of 1 Corinthians 15, necessitates a dead body that was buried. Gordon Fee stresses this fact as he comments on the phrases in 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 (NICNT The First Epistle to the Corinthians). The resurrection is startling because a dead and buried body was raised to a new kind of life and appeared to many, many people. That’s gospel!