Good Friday—Christ’s Burial and the Death of Death
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
If you attended our Lent midweek gatherings this year, or you've ever listened to it, you may have noticed that the hymn stanzas that we sang today are the hymn stanzas that Johann Sebastian Bach chooses to put interspersed into his musical composition of the text of St. John’s Passion, this Gospel account that we just heard.
If you take your bulletin home with you today and read through these again, which I highly encourage you to, you’ll see that each little chunk—these hymns—are showing us something we can learn from that part of the Holy Passion according to St. John, our Lord’s Passion, where He saved us from sin, death, and the power of the devil.
Take that back home and think on that—how our Lord Jesus poured out His holy, precious blood, and how He offered up His innocent suffering and death as a sacrifice for our sins to God the Father, to give us a happy conscience, to take away our fear of death, to take away our sins, to secure for us our eternal destiny.
Right now, I want you to ponder that first—that final hymn that we just sang, that final hymn stanza that Bach appointed to be sung at the end of the Passion, when Jesus is buried. And also, I want you right now to take a look at the picture on the front of your bulletin.
In Bach’s composition, the evangelist sings, “Then they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in strips of linen with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury. Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. So there they laid Jesus, because of the Jews’ Preparation Day, for the tomb was nearby” (John 19:40–42).
You can set that down, but think about that picture there. How often do we think about Jesus being laid to rest, having His own little funeral, the same as all the funerals you and I have been to, all the loved ones we’ve lost, and think on that—that the Lord Jesus has that there. Think about that image.
Right after these last words of the evangelist, the choir sings this chorus first that says this:
“Rest well, you saintly bones,
those holy relics of the Lord Jesus’ precious body,
which I will no longer weep and grieve over in despair.
Rest well, and bring also me to rest.
The grave which is appointed to You, Lord Jesus,
and from now on will enclose no distress,
opens the gates of heaven to me
and closes the gates of hell.”
So they sing this song to the Lord Jesus in His death.
And then the choir sings the stanza we sang all together about our death:
“Lord, let at last Thine angels come,
to Abraham’s bosom bear me home,
that I may die unfearing;
and in its narrow chamber keep
my body safe in peaceful sleep
until Thy reappearing.
And then from death awaken me,
that these mine eyes with joy may see,
O Son of God, Thy glorious face,
my Savior and my Fount of grace.
Lord Jesus Christ, my prayer attend, my prayer attend,
and I will praise Thee without end.”
This is a beautiful union, a beautiful union—the death of Jesus and our own death being joined.
What Bach points out in this musical form—the Lord’s death and our death being united—is clearly taught in Sacred Scripture. Like in Romans 6:
“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection” (Romans 6:3–5).
These words of the Scriptures are precious and give great consolation to us Christians when we are troubled by the fear of death.
But death is often still scary for us. I’m sure most of you try not to think about it all that often. What will it feel like to die? If I die in my sleep, will it feel like anything? Will it be horrifying? What if I die when I’m awake? What will it be like if I die in a painful way, a violent way? No matter how or when we die, what is going to happen? Will I really still exist, or will there be absolutely nothing? Will I really go to paradise with Jesus, or will I go to hell?
Death is scary. It’s why so many scary stories and scary movies have cemeteries and dead bodies in them. It’s why vampires sleep in coffins. And death is disgusting. When we die, our body often releases all sorts of bodily fluids. If CPR and other means of resuscitation are used as someone nears death, there can be lots of blood, broken ribs, and other horrors.
Then our bodies begin to stink. Maybe you get embalmed, but that’s horrifying too. They drain all your bodily fluids and pump chemicals into your body to stave off decomposition. Or maybe you’re cremated and you think that’s a little cleaner and quicker, but they take the chunks of you that are too big and they put you in this big mixer and grind you up. If you elect to have your body treated with care and without chemicals, you will rot and be filled with maggots and worms very quickly.
Death is disgusting and scary. And death is mysterious. We don’t really know which people who have said that they died and came back are giving accurate accounts of their experience. Some may be giving this out for book rights or movie deals. Some may have really experienced something in a near-death experience that might have been an illusion. We don’t know.
There’s no one available to us walking around right now who could tell us and prove to us beyond a shadow of a doubt what is going to happen to us when we die—what it will feel like, what we will see, whether we will persist or not. And if we persist, whether we really will go to be with the Lord, or if we will be cast into outer darkness, an unquenchable fire with gnashing of teeth and a worm that does not die (Matthew 8:12; Mark 9:43–48).
Pondering the fearfulness of death, the disgusting nature of it, the mysterious nature of it, many men and women have meditated on this and written poems about it and written other things about it. But I wanted to share this one with you from Edgar Allan Poe. It’s called The Conqueror Worm:
“Lo! ’tis a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.
Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly—
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Woe!
That motley drama—oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore,
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.
But see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.
Out—out are the lights—out all!
And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, ‘Man,’
And its hero, the Conqueror Worm.”
Poe is describing a very worldly view of our existence here in this life. He sees human existence as a play—a tragedy. And if you know the difference between a tragedy and a comedy, tragedy, everybody dies; a comedy, some people don’t die. But he sees it as a tragedy, this existence—that there are humans going about on stage, actors as humans going about to and fro, living out a plot that consists mostly of madness, sin, and horrors.
And as this endless cycle goes and they go to the self-same spot every single time, they go around the stage—a tiny little worm, that’s the blood-red thing—it writhes across the stage and it starts devouring those actors. Darkness falls upon the scene, and then the curtain starts to close like a funeral pall on top of a coffin. And then the angels are wailing and weeping, and they come forth and announce to the crowd observing this tragedy that the name of this play is “Man,” and its hero is this little worm.
This is a horrific image, but isn’t there some truth to it in a certain way? The world is full of madness, sin, and horror, for all of our feigned civility, for all of our feigned civility.
When many of us find out something like 160 elementary school girls and their teachers are murdered, seemingly by mistake, by a precision missile in another country, our response is that it’s collateral damage. Madness, sin, horror. Even in our feigned civility, we beat our chests and we chant, “Bomb them into the Stone Age.” And that’s just one country and only the past 30 days. Imagine what the play looks like—this play called “Man”—if they were reenacting the past 100 years or 200 years or 1,000 years.
On the individual level, death can still induce horror. It is like this invisible, imperceptible phantom in our lives. Most of the time, it’s hidden. We can’t sense it. We can’t even feel it. But then every once in a while, this imperceptible phantom, this monster, rears its ugly head. A loved one dies. We go to a funeral. We’re texting and driving and almost get into a horrific car accident by running a red light when 18-wheelers come in the other way.
Sometimes, somehow, somewhere, that monster—death—peeks in and we remember it’s there, but for the most part we forget. It just lurks in the shadows and we forget about it. And while we forget, death is always there, ready to take us away at any moment.
And you must remember that. Death can come for you at any time. It does not just come for the child in their mother’s womb or the infant. It does not just come for the aged and infirm. It doesn’t come just for the sick, the chronically ill. It comes for all. And you do not know when death will come for you.
Yes, death can be scary. It can induce anxiety and distress, even in Christians. But look at the image on the front of your bulletin again. Look at it. Remember your Lord who died for you, who was buried in that garden for you, had His own funeral. Look at those mourning Him as He sleeps the sleep of death, who now lay Him to rest in the tomb.
Look at the burial of your Creator, Preserver, and Redeemer. Look at this image and ponder what this death and burial of our Lord Jesus tells you about your own death and burial.
Your Lord Jesus is laid to rest in a garden because it was in a garden where this tragic play that Poe writes about first started, that tragic play called “Man.” It first began in the garden of Eden through Satan’s tempting of Adam and Eve.
“Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned… Death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come” (Romans 5:12, 14).
The Son of God came to this sinful earth. He took on human flesh so that He could undo the horror, the tragedy of that one man’s disobedience, to bear away sin and death in His own body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24), to give each of you righteousness and life in their place.
“As through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:18–19).
Christ’s burial in this garden undoes the madness, the sin, the horror brought into existence in that first garden. Christ has blotted it out completely by His blood—that blood that He gave to His disciples on the night in which He was betrayed under the wine (Matthew 26:27–28), that blood that fell to the earth as He was in such great distress in the garden of Gethsemane and His sweat fell like great drops of blood (Luke 22:44), that blood that He poured out on the cross that came out with the water when He was pierced in the side (John 19:34).
In this blood of Jesus, the horror of God’s wrath against us for our sins is entirely taken away. We have peace with God through the blood of the cross (Colossians 1:20).
When you die, know that you will not go to hell. You will not face eternal punishment. “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).
While we know for certain that we do not face eternal punishment and damnation if we trust in Christ that He saved us from our sins by the pouring out of His blood, while we know this for certain, death can still bring great distress and pain. And we do not know what it will be like when death finally comes for us.
There is a fear of the unknown, as well as what we might suffer as others who we know did—a fear of the unknown and fear that we do know if you’ve seen someone die in a horrific way. Even with those whom we have lost, when the doctor or someone else says that they died peacefully or that they didn’t suffer for long, they don’t know. They don’t know what it felt like. They can tell you what they tell you, but just because somebody dies doped up on morphine doesn’t mean we know what it felt like for them to die. We do not know. So we can have great fear and distress in this.
Christ’s agony, death, and burial teach us something concerning these fears as well. The throes of death may be painful, threatening, and distressing. Even passing away in our sleep may not end up being as peaceful as people would like to think. But know this for certain: when death comes for you, you are not alone in this.
Christ your Lord really died according to the Scriptures and was buried according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). He endured death before you. And when you suffer agony and you suffer death, He suffers it with you.
It’s how the Scriptures speak of this: “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together” (Romans 8:16–17). Not alongside Him or suffer like Him, but suffer with Him—you with Him and He with you in your agony and in your death.
And Jesus Himself says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). Even in your death throes, in that final agony—even if it’s over the course of years that you waste away—He says, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”
The death of Jesus has taken away the eternal sting of death (1 Corinthians 15:55–57). It can no longer distress you for eternity. It can only trouble you for a little while—for the briefest moment compared to eternity.
For you now, death is just like a hard day’s work, or a fearful skirmish or battle in war, or a very difficult childbirth. That is what death has become for us—our agony and our death. It is only for a little while. Yes, it may be grievous and painful, but only for a little while. And you know that it will be over soon. You cannot go on and on in labor pains forever. The skirmish will not go on forever and ever and ever. And your workday never goes on forever and ever and ever, no matter how hard it is. The end of the day will come. The end of the labor will come. You only will suffer for a little while.
“Most assuredly, I say to you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; and you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy. A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you” (John 16:20-22).
Look upon your Lord as He is laid to rest, as He rests from that blood-draining work for your salvation. He has endured this agony, suffering, death, and burial to take away all your fear and to sanctify your own agony, suffering, death, and burial. He has joined it to His own and made it holy with His own.
“Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Hebrews 2:14–15).
If our Lord had stayed dead, it would teach you nothing to look at that picture on the front of your bulletin. But since our Lord has conquered death in His glorious resurrection, know this for certain concerning His death and burial.
You are not living in a tragic play called “Man,” and the hero is not a worm.
Your Lord has conquered death for you by dying. He has opened the gates of heaven to you and shut up the gates of hell forever for you by dying, by having His own funeral pall laid on Him.
Your agony will last but a little while compared to eternity—three days in the tomb—and then comes joy and rest forever.
The pall that may be laid on your coffin will not be like a curtain closing on this tragedy called “Man,” as you cease to be and are eaten by worms. That funeral pall, if you have a funeral pall laid on your coffin in your funeral, will be a sign of what the Scriptures say concerning you and your Holy Baptism and being clothed in Christ: that if you have been united to Him in a death like His, you will certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His (Romans 6:5).
And while your body may grow detestable, see corruption, molder, and decompose, and while it may teem with maggots and worms and give off a foul odor so that everyone shrinks from it, know that the body of Christ here laid to rest down in death for you—that He lies here without corruption—and He causes your corruptible body to be made like His incorruptible body and to be eternally incorruptible.
“For our body which is sown in dishonor and laid in the dust of the earth shall come forth again with unspeakable glory” (1 Corinthians 15:42–44, paraphrased reference to context) on that great day and rise unto heavenly life, just as certainly as after He is laid to death, our Lord Jesus, He comes out of that tomb alive forevermore.
Knowing all this, death is no longer bitter for us, and we can go willingly and gladly to sleep in Jesus in our graves because of the glory to come.
Let us pray. We thank You, Lord Jesus Christ, for the grace of Your mercy, that we may be blessed from the depths of our hearts for the doctrine of Your holy burial, by which You give us not only a certain testimony that You truly died for our sins, but also the glorious consolation that You carried all our sins, which Your Father cast upon You, to be buried with You and truly assuaged Your Father’s wrath. For just as the storm on the sea relented and ceased as soon as Jonah was cast overboard and swallowed by the fish, so the tempestuous and fierce wrath of Your Father is truly assuaged and pacified, because You were taken out of the land of the living and buried. O Lord Jesus, help us also, since You have hallowed our graves with Your holy Body, that we may not recoil when we think of them. Teach us to remember that we are dust and shall return to the earth. Inscribe indelibly in our hearts the consolation that our grave is no pit of devils, but a sweet sleeping chamber and soft bed of rest, in which You also lay and rested until the third day. Grant that we may learn to go to sleep and rest with joy until You shall gloriously awaken our bodies on that day and bring them, transfigured with heavenly glory, into Your joy; for You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one true God, now and forever. Amen.
For more about who we are and what we believe, visit the St. Thomas homepage.
