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Matthew 27:57-66 Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away. - Matthew 27:59-60 Have you ever seen a dead human body? It is a tragic sight. Death is an enemy of the human race; an enemy we were never supposed to have. At this point in our story, Jesus is dead. Many people saw Jesus’ dead body. Mary Magdalene saw it. Nicodemus saw it. The Roman Centurion saw it. Here in Matthew 27:57 we are introduced to another person who saw Jesus’ dead body, a man named Joseph of Arimathea. Matthew tells us two things about this Joseph. First, that he was wealthy. Second, that he had become a disciple of Jesus. Unlike the Rich Young Man from Matthew 19, who was reluctant to use his wealth to help the poor, here Joseph of Arimathea uses his wealth generously to help the One who for our sake became poor. After receiving Pilate’s approval, Joseph takes Jesus’ dead body, wraps it in clean linen cloth, and puts dead Jesus in his very own new tomb. Our story moves from the honorable Joseph to a group that Matthew has already depicted as quite the opposite – the chief priests and the Pharisees. Preparation Day is over, and now it is Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. It is now the day upon which God had commanded the Jews not to do any work (Leviticus 23:3). If anyone were to refrain from work on the Sabbath, we would expect it to be these two groups! After all, the Pharisees had wanted to kill Jesus for healing a man with a shriveled hand on the Sabbath (Matthew 12:9-14). In our passage, we discover the sad fact that the chief priests and Pharisees do not care about God’s law nearly as much as their own plans. Despite it being a high holy day (Sabbath during the Feast of Unleavened Bread!), they brazenly go to Pilate to take care of an item of business that they are obsessed with. They are desperate to make sure that the tomb Jesus has been placed in is secure. They are paranoid that one of his disciples may come and steal the body and then claim that he had been raised from the dead (Matthew 27:64). So, they break Sabbath, the thing that they were such sticklers about everyone else keeping, to request Pilate’s assistance. Pilate consents, and tells them to take a guard and make the tomb as secure as they knew how. This is what they do. The stone is sealed and the guard is set. And after the dust from this Sabbath day’s work had settled, these opponents of Jesus had no clue that they had just lit the stick of dynamite which would eventually demolish their own agenda. You see, without wanting to, the chief priests and the Pharisees did two things which would help validate the cries of “He is Risen!” the next day. First, they acknowledge that Jesus is really dead. “We remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again’” (Matthew 27:63). Implication: he’s not alive now, he’s dead. Second, they secure the tomb, and while our text does not explicitly say it, surely securing the tomb included making sure that dead Jesus was inside of it. These paranoid men were not so foolish as to secure an empty tomb. Therefore, when Matthew 27 comes to a close, there is no doubt: The Romans, the Jewish opponents, and the friends of Jesus all know that dead Jesus is inside this sealed and guarded tomb. He’s dead and everyone knows precisely where his dead body is. So then, theories that the disciples “stole the body!” or “he never really died!” will not have the power to explain away the event, coming the next day, which will change the world. On Saturday, everyone agrees that Jesus is dead, and everyone agrees that Jesus’ dead body is inside of the sepulchre which belongs to Joseph of Arimathea.